Training Matters

12/04/2025

Join us in June for our Dog Trainers' Retreat. This one will feature Debbie Jacobs talking about working with challenging behavior in dogs, from aggression to avoidance and more. She has assembled two fabulous speakers to join on related topics as well. And, as always, we will lead hands-on training experiences with the Portable Operant Research and Training Lab (PORTL) and the animals of Lemon's Hope Sanctuary. Link to post about the event in the comments.

12/04/2025

11/25/2025

There's been a lot of talk in dog training circles about desensitization and counter conditioning lately, what we often shorten to DS/CC. In a nutshell, DS/CC involves building positive associations to scary things in the environment by keeping those things at distances or intensities the animal can observe and not react to while providing good stuff, usually food. The good stuff is contingent on the scary thing being present--it occurs after the scary thing arrives and ends just after the scary thing can no longer be observed. Over time, the scary thing becomes a predictor of good stuff and so becomes less scary, maybe even awesome. DS/CC is a structured procedure that involves keeping the presence of the scary thing at a level the animal is comfortable with and capitalizes on the processes of classical conditioning that occur in all individuals.

I won't review the discussions going on at the moment, but rather tell a couple of stories about applications of this process from my continued education at Natural Encounters Inc. years ago and a more recent one from my course work in applied behavior analysis. One story that sticks with me from my course work through Florida Institute of Technology was of an autistic child for whom working at a table had become an aversive experience. He actively avoided the table when the adults working with him sought to have him practice skills there. They wouldn't call it desensitization and counter conditioning, but DS/CC is essentially what they did to change his emotional response to the work space, specifically the table. A senior behavior analyst was brought in to help resolve the problem. That analyst simply played with the child. They played games the child enjoyed near the table until they could play games at the table and eventually begin to fade the skills work back into the picture with small, brief tasks that the child was happy to perform. In a couple of sessions, the child was back to playing and working happily at the table and enjoying his visits from his teachers again. He was, as we say, happy, relaxed and engaged, so he could work again on skill development that he needed.

The other story is of a gorilla and there wasn't a lot of working at a distance that could occur with this animal because of the physical constraints of his enclosure. Still, the counter conditioning process was successful. In the silverback's behind the scenes enclosure, he was aggressing towards keepers as they walked by in the aisle ways. The keepers wanted to teach this gorilla to participate cooperatively in his health care procedures, things like teeth brushing, blood draws, basic health care checks, etc. But first they needed to address the aggressive behaviors. The process was actually quite simple: they took the gorilla's favorite foods (probably pieces of fruit) out of his daily rations and EVERY TIME a keeper walked by his enclosure, they tossed in a piece of this food. Within a few days, the aggressive behaviors were no longer occurring and were replaced by apparent anticipation of his goodies: keeper arriving equaled favorite foods and so became predictors of the good stuff. Quiet, waiting behavior resulted. Skill training could proceed from there, skills that would improve the quality and tenor of the animal's daily and periodic health care as well as his interactions with his human caregivers.

The heart of the practice is improving a learner's welfare and well-being both in the moment while learning and by building skills that will improve the learner's life for the long haul. Applied behavior analysts work with human and non-human learners experiencing strong emotional and behavioral challenges. The skilled among them are very trauma informed. It comes with the territory. Those of us who work with non-human animals often take a position of trauma assumed: we assume the animal has experienced trauma of some sort (we actually have a good idea of that trauma based on owner reports, assessments and analyses) in working with our learners.

Happy, relaxed and engaged is the goal from beginning to end. Otherwise, what is the point?

Picture of mini horse "smiling," a behavior captured and reinforced when he offered it.

11/17/2025

Saving the linked article for later. How we talk about behavior as well as the training methods we implement matters. Video of a dark and a light miniature horse interacting with small pumpkins.

11/07/2025

Toddlerspeak.

10/31/2025