{"id":513,"date":"2016-02-14T13:18:58","date_gmt":"2016-02-14T12:18:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/illis.se\/en\/?p=513"},"modified":"2019-06-25T22:14:02","modified_gmt":"2019-06-25T20:14:02","slug":"how-to-become-a-better-animal-trainer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.illis.se\/en\/how-to-become-a-better-animal-trainer\/","title":{"rendered":"How to become a better animal trainer."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"trainer<\/a>It took me years to realize this, but there are some approaches that really propelled my learning about animal behaviour management in general, and animal training specifically.<\/p>\n

Here are the four tactics or concepts that I’ve found most useful:<\/p>\n

Learn from many teachers<\/h5>\n

I still remember the goose bumps I got when I first came across a professional animal trainer and got to see her in action. I saw a monkey change his behavior over the course of a short training session, and I was hooked. As an ethologist interested in animal welfare, the implications were enormous \u2013 and it looked like great fun, too!<\/p>\n

I started reading. Attending courses and training conferences, watching DVDs and discussing with like-minded people. Training animals myself. One of the greatest insights I have from these early exploratory days is this: as I learn from different people, their perspectives, theories and experience come together synergistically.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"synergy\"<\/a>
The whole that I\u2019ve learned is greater than the sum of its parts.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

They each give me their pieces of the puzzle, and then my brain fills in some of the blanks between neighboring pieces. I still don\u2019t have all the pieces, and some of them are likely wrong, but still.<\/p>\n

I sometimes meet people who have met influential, charismatic animal trainers, and looked no further. They follow them faithfully, put them on the proverbial pedestal and take pride in putting all others aside. These devout followers read their books, attend their seminars, and defend them vehemently if their training approach is criticized.<\/p>\n

While this dedication is admirable in a way, it\u2019s also disadvantageous in that even the most determined trainee won\u2019t learn everything that their teacher knows. Also, they have no way of identifying weak points in the guru\u2019s approach to interacting with animals, nor get the epiphany of connecting dots between different perspectives.<\/p>\n

By having multiple teachers, many of those weak points become blindingly obvious.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Not all, because we tend to be steeped in the same views on animals, living in the same 21st\u00a0\u00a0century paradigm \u2013 sharing the same cultural fog <\/em>(a favourite topic of behaviour analyst Susan Friedman), as it were. At the very least, by having many teachers and sources of inspiration, you start seeing where different trainers agree – and where they disagree.<\/p>\n

Learn from many individual animals<\/h5>\n

The animals you train are your teachers, teaching you the skills needed to be a successful animal trainer. As humans, we\u2019re creatures of habit, we\u2019re superstitious (seeing patterns, assigning meaning and correlation where there is none) and we generalize what we learn.<\/p>\n

I hate to shatter your illusions, but having excelled at training one individual animal does not automatically make you a good animal trainer.<\/p>\n

I recently spent 3 months cat-sitting. Before our new guest arrived, I was confident that it was going to be a breeze: after all, I grew up with a cat who was with me for 20 years. I understood her every meow, I knew her favourite scratching places and her dislikes. On top of all that cat experience, I\u2019d earned a phD in ethology, taught university level learning theory and behaviour management.<\/p>\n

Cat-sitting wouldn\u2019t faze me.<\/p>\n

Or so I thought.<\/p>\n

Needless to say, it was a sobering experience. Much to my surprise, getting to know a new cat took some hard work, mostly because many of my expectations of living-with-a-cat weren\u2019t met.<\/p>\n

This<\/em> cat doesn\u2019t like to be touched, but my childhood friend loved being petted.<\/p>\n

This<\/em> cat doesn\u2019t flinch when my kids holler and run about; my old kitty would have run off to hide.<\/p>\n

This<\/em> cat talks to me, and I don\u2019t quite know what she\u2019s saying.<\/p>\n

Animal training is all about flexibility. It\u2019s changing your own behaviour so that the animal will do the same.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re only training one individual animal, you\u2019re not stretching your wings enough and it\u2019s my warmest recommendation that you look around for some other trainee.<\/p>\n

Which, incidentally, brings us to the next topic.<\/p>\n

Learn from several animal species<\/h5>\n

Did you ever train a cat? Many cats will lose interest in a training session very quickly: the first clicker training session that I attempted with my feline guest was less than a minute and, if I\u2019m not mistaken, involved 6 or 7 repetitions.<\/p>\n

Then she walked off, tail high.<\/p>\n

In contrast, training undomesticated animals such as primates, the first training sessions often involve gaining trust. Addressing safety issues, avoiding eye contact, moving slowly, finding the best treats to encourage cooperation. Forget the clicker, get them to take food from you.<\/p>\n

Cooperation was not a problem the first time I trained a dog. Nevertheless, I managed to mess it up completely. The small Papillon gave eager eye contact, started offering her whole repertoire of tricks, anticipating my next cue. My timing was off, my plan went out the window, she barked and danced and my fellow trainers who witnessed the sorry affair probably snickered inwardly.<\/p>\n

Some things that influence the outcome of a training session will be the animal\u2019s temperament and personality, the quality of the relationship, the presence of distractions and potentially aversive stimuli.<\/p>\n

If you don\u2019t have time to work through a whole menagerie, which species is the best to learn the skills of the trade from?<\/p>\n

Well, Bob Bailey, one of the animal training gurus I\u2019ve had the privilege to learn from, having trained tens of thousands of individual animals and several hundred species, suggests chickens. They\u2019re motivated, active, not all that distractible, and their behaviour is generally not influenced by social cues from you.<\/p>\n

Although my practical experience is but a fraction of his, I agree.<\/p>\n

\"Chicken<\/a>
Chicken Camp Behaviour Chain workshop at House of Learning. Cross the beam, peck down the red key, ignore other keys.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Keep an open mind<\/h5>\n

Each animal trainer has her own journey, but typically something triggers the urge to learn more about how to train animals.<\/p>\n

Someone may see a dog agility show, get instantly fascinated and want to learn more.<\/p>\n

Another may learn that there are other ways of weighing a bear in a zoo than darting it with a sedative.<\/p>\n

A third may search desperately for ways of resolving the screaming habit of the new parrot.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s my journey.<\/p>\n

As an adolescent cat owner, I thought Relationships were all that mattered in achieving high animal welfare, apart from the veterinary perspective.<\/p>\n

Later, I assumed that I knew all there was to know about animal behaviour as a trained Ethologist, looking at behaviour from an evolutionary view: how to set up the environment to promote natural behaviour.<\/p>\n

Then I learned about Clicker Training, and practical applications of Operant Conditioning. It blew me away.<\/p>\n

\"clickertraining\"<\/a>
Photographer: Bj\u00f6rn Johansson. Trainer: Anette Olsson. Orsa Bear Park.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Then I realized that clicking and treating wouldn\u2019t always be the best approach when training; Respondent Conditioning is hugely important, too. I now consider Counterconditioning one of the five most important tools in the animal trainer\u2019s tool box<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Not to mention\u00a0Habituation and its pitfalls<\/a> \u2013 and the power of Systematic Desensitization<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What not to do is equally important as what to do, as an animal trainer.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Then I started really considering the Ethics of Animal Training: if there are several ways of getting behaviour, which should you choose<\/a>? How will this choice impact current and future behaviour, the quality of the relationship, and the animal\u2019s wellbeing<\/a>?<\/p>\n

I learned Behaviour Analysis: a scientific discipline specialized in really dissecting, understanding, and changing problem behaviour.<\/p>\n

Then I tapped into a controversial subject, Affective Neuroscience: emotions and their impact on behavior. This topic really helped me predict, understand and prioritize: which behaviours are important?<\/a><\/p>\n

Never one to shy away from controversy: my recent discovery is Animal Communication, a field that I can\u2019t quite wrap my scientific brain around and that sets off all my Sceptic\u2019s warning bells. It turns out that there is seemingly robust scientific evidence, including double-blind, randomized studies, that humans can communicate telepathically, including with animals \u2013 and learn what ails them.<\/p>\n

I realize that for some of my readers, this will be a no-brainer, and for others, the same alarms will go off.<\/p>\n

Quantum physics seem to be able to explain these findings, and I’m ambivalent and intrigued.<\/p>\n

I encourage an open mind when exploring these topics: you might learn something useful to you \u2013 and the animals in your care.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m always learning \u2013 how about you?<\/em><\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

In my blog posts, free webinars, masterclasses, silly experiments and online courses, I return to most of the topics mentioned above. Admission is typically open for a short time, so sign up below to get notified so you don’t miss the opportunity of joining!<\/p>\n

[embed_popupally_pro popup_id=”14″]<\/b><\/p>\n

Erickson (2011). Intuition, telepathy, and interspecies communication: a multidisciplinary perspective.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Four pieces of advice to wannabe animal trainers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.illis.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.illis.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.illis.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.illis.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.illis.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=513"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/test.illis.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5587,"href":"https:\/\/test.illis.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513\/revisions\/5587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.illis.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.illis.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.illis.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}