Training Matters

04/17/2025

One thing that is common in the horse training arena is training competitions with unhandled horses. I am not a fan. Training competitions put pressure on participating trainers to train behaviors quickly, increasing motivation to do something flashy regardless of training method used. The pressure can lead to poor decisions being made by trainer both for the horse's welfare and the trainer's safety. I know of one horse trainer who was badly hurt at such a competition. I'm sure there are others I don't know about.

Obviously there is variation in what trainers do and don't do under such conditions and some will focus on what they understand to be best for the individual in their care rather than winning prizes. The competitions themselves are likely quite different in terms of time allotted for training and conditions under which the training occurs. Still, the individual learner's welfare won't necessarily be the focus of the competition.

Should training be a competition anyway? Training efficiently and mindfully is important. Animals in need of adoption need to learn skills asap. But how those skills are taught, the environment in which they are taught, and the consequences to the animal for learning also matter.

Picture of me and Diablo, a gray miniature horse with the sun shining between our heads.

04/09/2025

Enjoying participating in a Behavior Works Book Club with Kiki Yablon, reading B.F. Skinner's About Behaviorism. Reading Skinner takes me back to the many philosophy classes I took in college. Nothing exercises one's brain--I can feel mine churning as I review phrases and logic--like philosophical texts. Today's passage:

“An organism behaves as it does because of its current structure, but most of this is out of reach of introspection…we must content ourselves … with a person’s genetic and environmental histories. What are introspectively observed are certain collateral products of those histories… The environment made its first great contribution during the evolution of the species, but it exerts a different kind of effect during the lifetime of the individual, and the combination of the two effects is the behavior we observe at any given time… Our increasing knowledge of the control exerted by the environment makes it possible to examine the effect of the world within the skin and the nature of self-knowledge.” (p. 19)

04/04/2025

The fun to be had in workshop season, starting up again soon.

04/04/2025

"Trauma informed" is a descriptive phrase being applied to many training programs these days. We take it beyond trauma informed to "trauma assumed." We assume there is some trauma in the past of the troubled animals and people who come to us for help. Join us in June with Debbie Jacobs, CPDT-KA, RBT, and author of the award-winning Guide to Living With and Training a Fearful Dog, to see what trauma-assumed work entails and how to go about providing it to your clients.

Debbie has worked with dogs with extreme fear-based behaviors for many years. Additionally, she worked with children with developmental disabilities to teach them life skills. She intimately understands how trauma affects behavior and how to work to teach skills under conditions of extreme traumatic history. In addition to her book, she is the creator of the course The Essentials of Applied Behavior Analysis For Serious Animal Trainers: Transforming Problem Behaviors in Animals.

Early bird discounts and ceus available.

Join Debbie Jacobs, CPDT-KA, RBT for two days of evidence-based information and practice related to learning and behavior change.

04/04/2025

There are still a few days left to grab early bird discounts to our Dog Trainers' Retreat on Aggression and Reactivity! We are in southern Vermont and the event will be held May 30-June 1 with Emily Lewis, CDBC, Casey Matthews-Lomonaco, KPA-CTP, FDM, FFCP and Sara Matters, MA, ABCDT, FFCP, ABA certificant. We have limited spaces for dog/handler teams.

Whether you're just starting to work reactivity cases, or you're interested in refining your skills, this workshop has something for everyone. A three-day event focusing on working with aggressive and reactive behavior in dogs, this workshop is aimed at professional will provide the latest information on working with dogs exhibiting aggressive and reactive behaviors, how to promote relaxation for these dogs, and how to provide them with tailored enrichment as they move through training plans that may include restricted activities. Emily will coach the teams on leash mechanics, training techniques and plans to modify each dog's individual behavioral patterns. Casey will coach the teams in developing relaxation and providing enrichment. Sara will talk about the history and science of enrichment.

Ceus are available.

A three-day event focusing on working with aggressive and reactive behavior in dogs .

03/15/2025

I am sitting in my aunt’s New York City kitchen listening to a young girl—maybe 12 years old?—play the piano. Both my mother and my aunt were musicians and music teachers. My aunt, nearing the end of her life, still has this one lovely student, who plays beautifully. Listening to her lesson as I drink my coffee is a delight.

Predictably, the practice makes me think about behavior and what is occurring when the child practices. Playing any piece if music is a behavior chain. I hear when this child pulls a few measures that she is working to perfect out of the bigger piece and practices just those bits repeatedly until she can play them with fluency and put them back into the bigger piece of music.

We do the same when teaching behavior chains to animals. We take the sticky bits out of the chain and work on just those until they are fluent and then put them back into the longer chain of behaviors. If we are calling a dog to us and wanting them to line up by our side and the lining up isn’t happening according to the criteria we have in our plan, we practice just the lining up until the dog can do it repeatedly with ease and enthusiasm. Then we practice the entire chain again: all the individual behaviors involved in ‘come to me and line up by my side.’

Completing a chain of behaviors is like playing a piece of music. I may always think of learning musical pieces when I set to teaching a behavior chain.

Image of two dogs on a snow-covered hill under a blue sky with white clouds and an apple tree to the right.

03/12/2025

It’s your rate, stupid.

03/12/2025

No pay? No work.