After visiting the vet recently (for Fibi-dog’s annual health check), I realised her & I hadn’t worked on an open mouth behaviour together! And this paired with – many of our current ATA members currently working on the same behaviour – got me excited to give this a go. Here are a number of our sessions from the last wee while where you can see us working on this behaviour.

Video one – February 19th 2021

One thing I really like to do anytime I start training anything new is just jump in & see where we are at. I call this a baseline session. Consequently without giving it to much thought I decided to see if I could get Fibi to target her top lip to my finger! See below ⬇️

Video two – March 07th 2021

When sharing this training with the amazing Sarah owings – one of the challenges she pointed out to me was that part of Fibi’s target behaviour was a very tightly closed mouth. So seemingly a different approach might be beneficial! We tried numerous different things including thinking about times where FIbi offered an open mouth behaviour and we might be able to capture it! One such time is when we are playing – Fibi would open her mouth and chase my hand!

Consequently I just started to capture this behaviour (with a click and some food) and then incorporated the top lip target into this … see the beginnings of this here ⬇️

Video three – March 16th 2021

I started to notice that after feeding – Fibi would often chomp her lips a bit. I decided to therefore add some food tosses in to give her more time to fully consumer her Kibble. One other thing I really like about this approach is that it also allowed me to gather more data and consequently hypothesise how Fibi was feeling about everything. I.e. quick latency to get back to the station could suggest she was enjoying the training… however if that latency increased (and at times it did) it might suggest she is not enjoying it as much.

I also added a foot stool to bring Fibi more up to my eye level.

Video four – March 23rd 2021

One thing I really struggled with in this training was my timing and capturing a certain sized gape as well as a still mouth for duration.

I am a big fan of using antecedent arrangements in ways that help measure certain components of what we do – so I purchased a compass (used for drawing circles) & modified it. I was hoping this might help me ensure I am clicking the same gape every-time, (approximating wider & wider) by having something more visual to click, i.e. chin on bottom target/part of compass.

Video five – April 06th 2021

One of the highlights of visiting – Moonlit Sanctuary Wildlife Conservation Park – is the ability to get up-close and personal with our Koalas. We run daily encounter sessions where visitors can enter a pod and cuddle up to one of our trained Koalas as they sit comfortably on their perch and busily snack on their favourite eucalyptus tips.

This blog post shares some behaviour management and training done with two of our parks Koalas, Mallee and Victor. Mallee (a beautiful 2-year-old female koala) arrived in December 2016 and our keeping team couldn’t be more excited. She was very shy but fitted into her new home very quickly. Additionally, two years ago, Moonlit was blessed by the arrival of Victor – a two-year-old male, all the way from South Australia. Victor came to us as a very friendly boy who could not get enough cuddles from his keepers, and he fitted into our encounter koala team almost seamlessly.

Fast-forward to 2020, Moonlit has been thrown some curveballs, dealing with our first-ever closure due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Whilst we were faced with new challenges in maintaining our animals’ daily routines and keeping them fluent in their trained behaviours, we were also granted some time to really focus on their training plans, get creative and try some new things!

VICTOR (written by Caitlin Ondracek)

Victor has always had a habit of leaping onto the ground in his enclosure and running over to his gate in anticipation of interactions with his keepers or visitors. In the video below you can see what this looked like with keeper Britt Beckett entering Victor’s habitat.

This behaviour had the potential of becoming a hazard for staff attempting to enter his enclosure to service or feed, with a koala waiting just behind the gate. With changes to staffing and everyone pitching in to help with the morning cleaning rounds in new departments, I set out to make our keepers’ lives easier by station training him on a perch in his enclosure. This would hopefully reduce his activity on the ground and make entering his enclosure safer for all staff.

With a 5-week plan ready to go, we began setting up his environment for success, changing some perches in his enclosure to create a distinct station perch as well as a ‘ramp’ perch for easy climbing up from the ground. However, as we were just getting started on his training, another curveball was thrown, as I (Caitlin Ondracek) became part of a ‘work-from-home’ team, working away from the sanctuary for two months. During this time, Koala Coordinator Britt Bishop continued his station training according to the plan, performing repetitions of picking him up from his station perch and reinforcing him with vigorous cuddles (which he often loves more than food!). From afar, I got to work supporting Britt by devising a way to break Victor’s association between sitting on the ground and keepers entering to lure him up, a situation that was doubly reinforcing, with keeper attention and food attained through this behaviour.

While I was at home, the planning process began with finding a way to deliver tippy leaf to Victor’s station from outside his enclosure. The position of the perch made it a challenge. We considered a pulley system or a swinging rope. Ideas were thrown around and the product of all this brainstorming was something simple but life-changing; the SnackStick! This contraption utilizes a flexible piece of PVC pipe on the end of a long pole, which can grab onto a small leaf pot sitting in a holder affixed to Victor’s station. The keeper can grasp and retrieve the leaf pot, fill the pot with tippy leaf, and return the pot to his station, all without stepping foot into his enclosure. I couldn’t be certain it would work until I could return to on-site work and try it out. After 8 weeks away, I installed the snack delivery system and it immediately removed any circumstance where a keeper could open a gate to find a koala in front of them or the awkward dance of raking an enclosure with a koala underfoot.

We started collecting data to see how his behaviour was affected by our new system, and we have found not only that his ground activity has reduced drastically, but also that in anticipation of keeper cuddles, he tends to go and sit at his station rather than leaping to the ground. This is a massive win!

MALLEE (written by Brittanie Bishop)

Mallee was always a trusting and friendly little individual and we were ecstatic to see her confidence grow over the years. She was a part of our breeding program in previous years but was unsuccessful in each attempt. With such a patient and interactive personality, we decided to trial training her to participate in encounters.

Prior to the first COVID-19 outbreak and following lockdown in March 2020, Mallee was at the stage where she was ready to meet the public after weeks of training in the encounter area. The first few weeks of lockdown meant her fluent behaviours became non-existent and we found ourselves starting from scratch.

As Victoria (Australia) went into a second lockdown, we decided to put our time and resources into training Mallee. We began with a simple 5-week plan focusing on getting the environment set up for success. This included adding a horizontal perch close to the door leading to the encounter area. We also installed a flat, stable station point where the crate could be placed, allowing us to have our hands free whilst crate training. Once these were in place, Mallee’s crate behaviour became fluent, especially when we collected data to discover what her highest reinforcing eucalyptus species was.

The easing of COVID-19 restrictions saw keepers coming back to Moonlit and the extra hands meant Mallee’s training took leaps and bounds. With Caitlin back on the ground, we were able to train Mallee every day rather than most days and she was crating perfectly within a few days. She would even wait at her station for us to come and train her.

Our most exciting 5-week plan involved starting the process of introducing Mallee to her encounter pod. This included noise desensitization, getting used to the surrounding area, pats in a different environment, and crating in a different area. She flew through her small approximations and before we knew it, she was sitting in her encounter pod, happily eating whilst receiving pats from both Caitlin and myself. Her biggest hurdle was noise. We set lots of small approximations to help with this including the sound of rain, of crunching stones underfoot as people walked by and gates opening and closing to her pod. All of which she took in her stride over time. We are so ecstatic by her development and she is now officially meeting the public for encounters! In the future, we hope to work on crating her when we are going home after encounters (she often wants to stay for more food and pats). This may involve setting up our environment better or collecting data on which behaviours Mallee chooses to do when crating. Wish us luck!

Two more crating video examples with Banjo the Koala

About the Authors – ATA member – Brittanie Beckett

Brittanie Beckett is the Koala Coordinator at Moonlit Sanctuary, in Victoria, Australia. She grew up on a small farm and loved animals all her life. She realized she wanted to pursue her passion for zoology when she did a ‘zookeeper for a day’ experience at Werribee Zoo when she was 10.

Her career at Moonlit Sanctuary started straight out of high school in the park’s cafe. This helped her appreciate all the aspects of the business. A few years of volunteering weekly, birthday parties, and night tours saw Britt enthusiastically accepting a job as a keeper when her 3-year university degree was over. She feels so honored to work with such amazing ‘humanimals’ and incredible rare species every day.

About the Authors – ATA member – Caitlin Ondracek

Caitlin Ondracek is a wildlife keeper and records officer at Moonlit Sanctuary, in Victoria, Australia. Many zookeepers dream of their career from a young age, however, Caitlin changed paths a couple of times during tertiary study before finally landing in the wildlife conservation field. Initially leaning towards working in Entomology, she did a work placement at Moonlit and immediately fell in love with the park, the people, and the animals.

Caitlin has taken on many roles as her career has progressed, contributing to the park as an education officer and records officer alongside her keeping role. With a family background in teaching, she has found a love of educating the public on native species and the conservation efforts being undertaken on a large scale and at a community level. She has also begun a journey to learn more about animal behaviour and training, specifically the challenge of discovering the strengths, abilities, and reinforcers for Moonlit’s Koalas.

In this blog post we will examine a concept that we all know as animal trainers and contemplate its applicability to us as human learners! And this concept is ‘The trust account’. (Note this blog is a segment taken from a presentation called “Ten things training birds can teach you about working with people” & that I presented at the IAATE {The International Association of Avian Trainers & Educators} conference at the start of March). You can see a video version of this blog below ⬇️

The trust account is a term I first heard from Steve Martin & Susan Friedman. And you can read more from them and about this concept in an article they co-wrote called “The power of trust” (See on the behaviour works website HERE. And on the NEI website HERE).

In my paraphrased version the concept is basically that; every interaction you have with your animal/learner is either putting a deposit in your trust account or making a withdrawal. Much like putting money in an actual bank account. To have a healthy account you want to make as many deposits as possible and have as few withdrawals as possible… But if you do have lots of money in there (or positive interactions in your trust account) when you do have to make a withdrawal there is still plenty left, and you are not going to go bankrupt

In that article I mentioned earlier Susan & Steve write…

{EXTRA LEARNING}  ➡️ want to LEARN even more about how to build trust! See this previous ATA blog post written by Carol Milner about building it with her dog Odie

I learned this lesson really well when thinking waaaaay back to my university days… before I had any idea about positive reinforcement or anything to do with Animal Training.

The photo below is not me… It’s actually my best man from my wedding Vincent Bennet! Who I met in university, who still lives 15 minutes down the road from me & it still one of my closest friends! And in university we lived in the same student flat @ # 68 Raroa Road, Kelburn, Wellington New Zealand.

And , this photo was taken after Vicent had laser eye surgery… Hence why you might be able to see a patch over one of his eyes – its one of the few photos I have (we still had the Nokia’s back then – you know the one’s with that game snake on them – no camera), of Harry! Right there sitting on Vincent’s shoulder you might be able to see Him – He is an Australian Rainbow lorikeet who lived with me during university! Harry the lorikeet is still alive and now lives with a group of other lorikeets here in a private collection in New Zealand!

Now If I knew then what I know now – there’s no way I would have ever acquired harry back then! My life and our student flat wasn’t the best place for him, I had no idea what I was doing and so I did do things sometimes like towel him to get him back in his cage. Obviously if I could go back in time, I would do things very differently. And I do feel really sorry for Harry that he had to experience young me but acknowledge that many of us worked with animals before we knew what we were doing and we can’t change our past & what we did, but we can be grateful for the lessons that we learned & that these animals taught us!…

And I will never forget that when Harry and I moved into the same student flat as Vince, (so we lived somewhere else before that) when all the humans living in the house would go and spend time in our lounge area together, Harry started to choose to go and sit with Vincent instead of me. Vincent was much more organised then young I, and came pre-prepared for couch time with slices of apple and various other fruits and would non-stop engage and play with Harry – more then I! would.

If Vincent wasn’t there, Harry would be by me. If Vince was there Harry would be by Vince! I will never forget this! It kinda upset me at the time but, now I obviously understand that behaviour goes where reinforcement flows… And in the context of the lounge , Vince was “The provider of predictable and pleasant events” … Over time and in this context, he was putting more deposits in the trust account than I! And remember I did occasionally take significant withdrawals!

Steven Covey – the author of “the seven habits of highly effective people” has a similar term he calls the emotional bank account when thinking about these ideas with people!

And I think Harry’s lessons way back then in the living room dynamics of 68 Raroa Road remind me of the importance and value of considering these lessons to the best of our abilities with each other in how any/every interaction we have is hypothetically putting deposits in our trust account or taking them out. Some examples in the human world, might be;

• Keeping commitments, vs breaking commitments.
• Listening, vs interrupting someone
• Apologize for your mistake vs being defensive.
• And the list goes on and on…

And I think back to Harry… And I think about Vince… And suddenly it all makes sense why he was my best man

There’s us at my wedding in Thailand in 2017! ⬆️ Nearly 15 years later

You know I didn’t even pack a bow tie… That one you see me wearing Vince brought that one for me – just in case I forgot – he knows me too well! – Another deposit in the trust account​!

What about you – what does trust mean to you? Do you have any stories? I would love to hear them, you can leave a comment below and let us know!

Best Regards
Ryan Cartlidge
Animal Training Academy

Last spring, someone threw lit firecrackers at me and my dog.

It was a lovely afternoon. The weather had just started to get warm, and I needed to do some training with Jack in a different environment. We usually practice in the backyard, so I put his leash on and headed out the front door to do a little training in the front yard for a change. We were both so focused on our training that I barely noticed the sound of a car driving up then slowing to a stop. My back was turned to the car as I worked to keep Jack engaged through this new distraction. I remember hearing a hissing noise before the car sped off and firecrackers started exploding just inches from where Jack and I were standing.

The Limitations of Counterconditioning

Needless to say, both Jack and I were scarred from the experience. There was a period of time where Jack wouldn’t even walk toward the front door. I was already working full time as a training assistant, so I knew about counterconditioning – the process through which we change a negative association with something by pairing that thing with something positive. By providing Jack with tasty food for each step he took toward the door, I was able to eventually convince Jack that the front door was safe, and then that going out the front door and getting in the car was safe. But for the next year and then some, I was never able to convince him that the sidewalk on our block was safe. Even with anti-anxiety medications, input from my training mentor, and the most high value reinforcers known to Jack, I could not step out my front door and take my dog for a walk. Occasionally I could coax him to take a few steps, but he would immediately pull desperately back toward the house.

For a long while, I gave up. We both preferred to go to the woods and walk on hiking trails, so that’s what we did exclusively. But as I progressed in my career and education as a trainer, I started to learn about different ways to apply the principles of counterconditioning: start buttons and pattern games.

For those who aren’t familiar, a start button is a behavior that an animal performs to communicate consent or opting in to a procedure or experience. It’s a way for the animal to say, “okay, I’m ready!” Traditionally, we look for body language clues (tail carriage, ear position, body posture, etc) to make educated guesses about whether an animal is feeling okay about an experience. Start buttons take away the guesswork and put the learner in control. Along with a clear way to opt in – offer the behavior – there is a clear way to opt out – don’t offer the behavior. I don’t like needles, but I cope with getting a shot much better when I’m able to tell the nurse that I’m ready. This element of choice and control, I have found, speeds up traditional counterconditioning processes.

Pattern games, popularized by the wonderful Leslie McDevitt, author of Control Unleashed, are “a repetitive, predictable framework of cues and behaviors that helps the learner process the environment by weaving the unexpected into the safety net of the expected.” They provide a familiar and comfortable context from which to experience uncomfortable things. As a person with anxiety, I can wholly relate to how predictability eases that distress. I cope better with going to a new place if I have clear directions on how to get there and what to do when I arrive. The same is true for our dogs.

Want to learn more about pattern games and their creator Leslie McDevitt? You can do so in a previous ATA podcast episode with her here >>> https://www.animaltrainingacademy.com/podcast/training-tidbits/leslie-mcdevitt/

So after learning about these amazing developments in the world of dog training and seeing success using them with my clients’ dogs, what kind of trainer would I be if I didn’t apply them to improve the life of my own dog? Jack and I used two of Leslie McDevitt’s pattern games, start buttons included, to get him back to walking in our neighborhood.

Superbowls – Well, SuperCones

Superbowls is a pattern game in which the dog controls movement down a line of bowls. He eats a treat from one bowl, then offers a start button behavior that causes the handler to move to the next bowl, eats a treat from there, and so on and so forth. At the end of the line, the handler goes directly back to the starting point. I first taught Jack the concept of this game in our driveway behind the house, so that he could focus on learning the pattern and not on being in a scary environment. I used cones instead of bowls, and Jack’s start button was making eye contact with me.

Want access to the whole kit & caboodle of Animal Training Academy resources… CLICK HERE to see what’s on offer via your very own Animal Training Academy membership.

Once Jack had learned the game, we used it for walking out the front door and onto the sidewalk, up to and just past the spot where the firecracker incident happened.

I began to decrease the number of cones when I saw low latency (lag time) between eating the treat and looking back up at me. This told me that Jack needed less time to prepare for moving forward, and I read that to mean he was feeling more comfortable.

1-2-3 Treat Walking

Fantastic! Now I just need to set cones all around my neighborhood and Jack and I can go for a nice walk. Hah! I successfully decreased the number of cones to just one at the furthest point – Jack would happily walk out the front door and all the way to that cone!

But when I tried to continue walking much beyond the cone, Jack reverted to his old behavior – panicking and pulling back toward the house. That’s totally fair, I pulled the rug out from under him and left him floating in the abyss with no pattern to hold on to. Time for 1-2-3 Treat!

1-2-3 treat walking is another pattern game created by Leslie McDevitt. It’s a mobile game that doesn’t require any equipment. Count out loud – “one, two, three” – and give the dog a treat on three. Then add movement – take three steps while counting out loud, treat on three. Again, I taught this to Jack out of the scary environment and incorporated a start button. On three, I placed the treat on the ground and stopped. Before starting the pattern again, I waited for Jack to offer eye contact. Just like in SuperCones, his voluntary offering of eye contact dictated if/when we moved forward.

It’s difficult to hear me in the video, but this is an example of what 1-2-3 Treat looks like with relatively low latency.

I also want to include this as an example of how Jack’s behavior changes when he becomes uncomfortable. Much longer latency, scanning and looking around at the environment. I believe this change was because we were getting further away from the house and closer to a busy road. I do not prompt Jack to look at me – it’s important to me that he remains in control of when we move and when we don’t.

Fading Out the Pattern

Within just a couple of walks with the 1-2-3 Treat game, Jack stopped needing me as much. We still started our walks with the pattern, but after a few repetitions he wouldn’t look back up at me after eating the treat. Instead, he would continue walking all on his own! He no longer relied on me as a constant source of reinforcement, but began discovering that there is reinforcement available in the environment in the form of forward motion, smells to sniff, and sometimes even squirrels and cats to look at! Basically, he’s re-learned that walks in the neighborhood can actually be enjoyable, and most importantly, safe.

In this video you see a great mix of Jack choosing to move forward on his own, as well as periodically initiating the 1-2-3 pattern by looking up at me.

Looking Ahead

Jack can now walk in the neighborhood again. He can also choose not to. It’s started snowing in Michigan, and I had the idea that a neighborhood walk in the first snow of the season would be lovely. Jack disagreed, and he told me that by not engaging in his pattern when we left the house. In order for all my efforts to work, I have to be okay with that. If we are going to give our dogs a way to say yes, it is essential that we respect their option to say no.

We will still primarily walk on trails in the woods because it’s something that we both love. But we also have the option to walk in our neighborhood, and above all, we have a deeper relationship and understanding, a whole new way to communicate with one another.

Want access to the whole kit & caboodle of Animal Training Academy resources… CLICK HERE to see what’s on offer via your very own Animal Training Academy membership.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR – ATA member Jill Hassevoort

Jill Hassevoort is  a graduate and Certified Training Partner of Karen Pryor Academy (KPA CTP) and a Certified Professional Dog Trainer – Knowledge Assessed (CPDT-KA). Pretty much any time she’s not training dogs, she’s out hiking with Jack.  Jack and Jill also enjoy cooperative care training and snuggling on the couch. Before starting her career in dog training, Jill graduated from the University of Michigan and then spent four years teaching Spanish in Detroit high schools. That experience prepared her to teach her clients how to live and work harmoniously with their dogs. She loves helping her clients understand the “why” behind their dogs’ behavior and come up with the best solutions for their unique situation. Jill is the owner and trainer at Jack and Jill Professional Dog Training. She offers in-home and day training to Detroit and the Metro area, and provides virtual training anywhere with an internet connection.

• CLICK HERE for Jill’s website
• CLICK HERE to find Jill on FaceBook
• CLICK HERE to find Jill on Instagram

Systematically adding distractions to help our animals be successful in a variety of contexts & with a variety of external stimuli can be a time consuming endeavour – but the results are TOTALLY worth the effort! Plus it’s a whole lot of fun to build this aspect of our learners behavioural fluency and is something I have been working on recently with Fibi doing – desirable behaviours in her crate.

Desirable behaviour = still vocal chords, sitting or lying down.

Below ⬇️ is some of the training we have done so far.

Firstly you can see us building some duration in the crate in the calm environment of my office. BTW… Fibi knows food is available when the snuffle mat & pet tutor are present. This same crate has also been used by her to sleep for long durations – so different cues in the environment help communicate different reinforcers are on offer.

We then added the office door being open… this instantly increased the stimuli in the environment. Mainly bird sounds.

Next steps was start to do the training in a variety of different rooms!

Then back to the office but with me doing a variety of weird things lol

Then up to our lounge adding my wife, dancing, cats, & vacuums!

And then external sounds. This next video we had bird sounds, dogs barking, neighbours voices and garden power tools all within the space of 60 seconds! WAHAAT!

​What about you? How do you add distractions in to your trained behaviours? I would love to know – and you can share wby leaving a comment below

Ryan Cartlidge – Animal Training Academy Founder/Director/Facilitator

This week’s blog is all about the value of practicing mechanics with either yourself and/your human learners before we/they are in front of their animals. This is something that I personally do a lot! I feel like watching someone do something (i.e. the mechanical behaviours involved in training an animal) &/or having it explained is a very different thing then actually doing it oneself. ​

Recently I posted some of the video’s in this blog post on FaceBook & Theresa Mckeon (co-founder of TAG teach international) commented that when our animals are in front of us there is a whole new skill involved – observe/decide! I.e. we have to make decisions in real time based on what our learner does. Therefore even where we can do what’s required without our animal when we add the animal into the picture it can sometimes quickly fall apart. ​

P.s if you haven’t learned from Theresa McKeon before I highly recommend doing so! You can listen to a past ATA podcast episode with her here >>> https://www.animaltrainingacademy.com/podcast/training-tidbits/theresa-mckeon/​

To help demonstrate how I do this with clients I have included some videos below:​

Firstly though, we have been training Finn-dog to have his face groomed. Up until recently we had been practicing with two people. But it came time to fade me out and have Helen (Finn’s owner) do the training on her own… ​

So… I practiced how it would feel to do this by myself before pretending to be Finn and having Helen practice the mechanics first with me & then with Finn. See below:​

​We then added the grooming tools and added this to Helen’s mechanical repertoire:​

This is where we are currently up to. Next we will add Finn into this equation! As mentioned above this will add that component for Helen where she will have to observe/decide! And then there will be another whole set of mechanical skills required! I.e. What does Helen do if Finn offers something other than a chin rest? I am excited to be continuing to work with Helen & Finn on this over the coming weeks or so! Therefore, this blog post is – To be continued… 🙂 ​

What about you, is this something you do? How do you practice your mechanics both for yourself and any human learners you might train? I would love to know & please feel free to leave a comment below & share your approach & stories!

Best Regards
Ryan Cartlidge
Animal Training Academy​​

As we all already know, learning is just as important to our pets as having a cozy corner, good food, affection, and exercise.

Training – based on positive reinforcement – is an integral part of my daily life with my animals and those of my clients. I don’t want my training to be something I do to animals, I want to train with animals.

Ken Ramirez rightly reminds us that training is not a luxury but an essential part of good care provided to our animals. Training is therefore of paramount importance on a daily basis because it brings, among other things, enrichment, as well as mental and physical stimulation to the animal.

The word “training” encompasses a variety of learning experiences all of which have value. Each training session improves our relationship with our animals because it allows us to have a two-way communication, to « talk » adequately to our learners, without force, without punishment and above all, by offering the animal as much choice and control as possible.

Objective #1) Teach the children! They are the guarantors of tomorrow’s animal welfare!

When possible, I love to include children from families I visit as part of my work as a behavior consultant because I am convinced that they are the guarantors of tomorrow’s animal welfare. Hugo is a young boy passionate about parrots but who could not approach his companions unless he was bitten. We set up a simple target training, with a stick. This allowed Hugo to learn to respect the personal space of his birds, to put a lot of money in his trust account (CLICK HERE to see an article from Susan Friedman & Steve Martin on trust accounts) and subsequently, to teach them to station. Doing this allowed him to enter the aviary with his feathered friends and to start training other behaviors.

Objective #2) Most positive, less intrusive! We can do so much without ever having to even touch our learners

We often think that teaching a parrot to step-up on our hands or arms is essential and that it should be the very first training to implement when adopting a parrot.  However, we can teach our parrots great behaviors without even touching them and thanks to offering them this respect it can help develop a strong relationship.

Want access to the whole kit & caboodle of Animal Training Academy resources… CLICK HERE to see what’s on offer via your very own Animal Training Academy membership.

Training can also replace unwanted behavior – the animal cannot emit a behavior we might label as undesirable and at the same time perform a desirable behavior during a training session. In addition, thanks to training, we can let our animal know which behavior is the most “profitable” for them. Training can also teach our pets to participate in their own care – Working in a force free way allows us to employ, advocate and always promote practices that protect the physical and emotional well-being of our animals (with all species).

Objective #3) Use curiosity & creativity to facilitate even greater choice for our animals (Grisha)

I have spent most of my last training sessions wondering how to increase the notion of choice for animals under my care. Grisha is one of my client’s macaw that I train. She voluntarily steps-up on me & has a very good recall. We also worked together on a lot of useful behaviors, such as taking medication or going into her transport crate voluntarily. But Grisha could never be touched (never wanted to be touched). It would turn out to be a very big problem if she needed special care.

So I decided to work on a whole new behavior with her. I chose to work with a head target.  Positioning her head in my hand will become a form of consent to be touched while removing the head will indicate a “no thanks”.  I have the opportunity to work with Grisha once a week and our sessions last between 3 and 5 minutes on average. This is our ninth session ⬇️ – 9 sessions of about 5 minutes, this means that after only 45 minutes of training, I am now able to touch Grisha’s keel, touch her paws, her wing and even her face.

Objective #4) Use curiosity & creativity to facilitate even greater consent for our animals (Luna)

Luna is my blue & gold macaw. I touch her all over her body, we’ve been training for years together in cooperative care, she’s used to learning new behaviors and I think we can tell she trusts me.  So I could have told myself that in order to put drops in her nose I could have “simply” grabbed her and put them inside her nostril (drops in the nose are a fairly common treatment in parrots).  But I want to always differentiate between “my parrot accepts to …” and “my parrot decides to …”.

The purpose of this new training is to optimize Luna’s consent before any intervention and to promote our success in case of a “serious need”. I don’t want her to accept that I touch her no matter the costs. I want to give her as much power as possible. Here, I consider that Luna gives me her consent to be touched when she passes her upper mandible in a dial hole. By withdrawing her beak, she withdraws her consent and, as a consequence, I withdraw my hands immediately.  The structure was designed so that Luna can perch there comfortably and that she can pass her beak in one of the three holes scattered on the dial. Three holes to give her more choice, more movement.  I always try to make sure that Luna wants to do this training with me. She systematically has the opportunity to obtain a reinforcer (usually the same) by:

• Passing her beak in the hole furthest from me on the dial (in which case, I do not touch her but she is still rewarded)
• Reaching out and climbing on my hand (this is a signal for me to stop the session)
• Flying on the perch just behind her and enjoying the food scattered in foraging

At 1:25, on this video, I release the first “real” nose drops. This session is not perfect but I still love it because we can observe what can be considered “a mistake” or “a failure” and how Luna and I work after a “bad behavior”.

Objective #5) Have fun! 

Of course, training to voluntarily cut or file the claws, to come back to the recall or to enter voluntarily in a transport crate is of capital importance, but that does not mean that it is necessary to deprive ourself and our animals to learn behaviors that are apparently less useful. Training also allows us to spend quality time, a moment of harmony, with our animal and to smile! Whether by shaping, luring or like in the example below ⬇️ by capturing a behavior.

To capture this behavior, I took a few simple steps:

1. Identify the behavior you want to capture, the place and / or time where it occurs most often
2. Choose what will be the cue for this behavior (here it is to sneeze myself)
3. Mark and reinforce the behavior as soon as it appears spontaneously
4. Integrate the cue while the behavior was occurring
5. Integrate the cue before the behavior occurs
6. Mark and reinforce the behavior only when the cue is presented
7. Integrate the behavior into the midst of other fluent behaviors

(“A tes souhaits” means “bless you” and it is the reinforcer for this behavior)

Whether it is to work on the natural behaviors of our animal, on cooperative care or on tricks behaviors, good training, based on positive reinforcement, is never useless. I hope you have find some inspiration in the videos shown.

With that, ciao-ciao!

Like what you see here? And want more amazing resources from Animal Training Academy. CLICK HERE to see what’s on offer for you within the ATA Membership.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR – ATA member Lisa Longo

Lisa Longo is a french animal behavior consultant, & founder of Animal Académie. After adopting her first parrot in 2011, she began to learn about ABA. She took the Leaving & Learning with Animals and Living & Learning with Parrots courses, offered by Dr. Susan Friedman. Wanting to improve her technique, she also attended the professional workshops at the Natural Encounters Center, alongside Steve Martin in Florida, USA.

Lisa is also a Certified Professional Bird Trainer and her particular passion for parrots led her to publish a book called « Guide du perroquet de compagnie » (pet’s parrot guide). Lisa is also an animal trainer “Fear Free Certified Professional”. She has a commitment to use, recommend and always promote practices that protect the physical AND emotional well-being of her pets and those of her clients, (with all species). Her thirst for knowledge and her desire to always offer the best advices and services to her clients and students keep her in constant learning. She shares her house with a Czechoslovakian wolf dog, a red-lored Amazon, a blue & gold macaw and a Gottingen pig.

CLICK HERE to visit Lisa’s website

Note: This blog was originally shared as a post in the ATA members only FB group on August 22nd, 2020

During her senior annual check-up, my 9-year old hound, Molly, was diagnosed with cancer. That was a little less than four weeks ago. She is scheduled for surgery tomorrow. When the vet gave me the diagnosis, I thought, “What do I need to do to get her ready? What skills will she need? What training can I do? (And how can I focus my energy so I don’t spend the next month worrying?)”

I made a small list of training tasks. Then I checked-in with the training goddess, Sue Ailsby, for her guidance and wisdom. She fleshed out a more comprehensive training list for me and Molly, to include:

• Ds/cc to cone
• Ds/cc to shirt (Molly will have a long suture on her side.)
• Crate training (we don’t use crates.)
• Visits to vet parking lot = good things
• Hire vet tech to work with me on handling/practice the switch off in parking lot
• Ds/cc to the table
• Ds/cc to the muzzle
• Handling while in the crate (more specifically, having the pressure of someone come into her crate, leashing her up and moving her out of the crate.)

Want access to the whole kit & caboodle of Animal Training Academy resources… CLICK HERE to see what’s on offer via your very own Animal Training Academy membership.

I then talked to my vet again, who is simply wonderful and walked me through the process and the day literally step-by-step. I suspect because we are trying to be responsible, my vet, who is insanely busy, seemed more than happy to spend time on the phone describing everything to me in detail and answering all of my questions. She mentioned Molly would be brought down narrow stairs to the crates. I told her that might be an issue as we have few stairs in our home. So instead, they will walk her outside the front door and through the basement door.

She also reviewed my training list with me. She told me that Molly will not need a muzzle. She said they can do all the pre-op work on the floor. But she did tell me that one of the hardest things for dogs is having a leg shaved in preparation for the IV. Based on our conversation, I:

• Crossed off the table and muzzle
• Avoided the narrow stairs
• Added ds/cc to razor/shave leg ahead of time

Next, I hired one of the vet techs to work with me to simulate the hand-off (our vet does curb-side because of Covid) in the parking lot and to review and work on handling. As the vet tech ran through the handling, she showed me how Molly will be put in a restraint hold where her head is immobilized. She taught me how to do it.

To my surprise, the morning I took Molly to work with the vet tech, as I was getting her ready, I was overwhelmed with emotion. I had been focusing on training and being practical. Molly looked very concerned!

I then revised my list again:

• Added ds/cc to restraint hold
• Work through my feelings

It has been so cool because we have made quick progress on everything. Molly has a strong mat behavior, so I was able to throw the mat in the crate and cue the mat. I only needed to change the cue.  To my surprise, she has twice chosen to go to the crate on her own during thunderstorms.  (I guess the crate is a keeper.) The rest of the training felt like going through the motions, as I suspect it all felt familiar to Molly. Because she has a learning history, when we need new behaviors, it’s really not all that hard to train them. Because I have a learning history as a trainer, I know how to teach her new behaviors and skills. While I don’t think Molly will enjoy any aspect of the day, I think, I hope, she will feel prepared, or at least like she has the skills to handle the challenges.

The feeling, the thought, that is sticking with me is ‘THIS is why I train’. I want her to feel confident and competent. I want her to feel like the world is a safe place and she can handle herself. When she does face challenges (because she will) – she will be okay. This is not the way Molly started out in life. I’m so proud of how far she has come – how far we have come together. Is it possible that the day, instead of being traumatic, might further teach her that she can handle tough challenges? Training IS quality of life. This moment is hitting home in a big way.

Postscript: It has been exactly one week since the surgery. I keep reflecting on how Molly’s surgery and recovery could have been a stressful event for her and everyone in our house, but instead it has been surprisingly wonderful. I guess we can always find the good if we try. We can never know what our dogs are thinking, but Molly seems happier and more relaxed after her surgery. Our other dog is a barometer for Molly’s feelings. I expected our little dog would be giving Molly lots of space. But the two of them have been playing and having fun every day. I have to imagine that the tumor was causing her discomfort. It must have been painful. She doesn’t mind the inflatable cone at all, nor the shirt, nor any of the limitations she must contend with. She hasn’t even tried to mess with her stitches, all 8” of them. I feel like the humans have made a big deposit into Molly’s trust bank.

Like what you see here? And want more amazing resources from Animal Training Academy. CLICK HERE to see what’s on offer for you within the ATA Membership.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: – ATA member Tessa Romita Herron

Tessa Romita Herron, MSBA, CCUI, ADT with the IAABC, is a professional dog trainer in Stone Ridge, New York. She unwittingly took her first steps into the profession when she adopted Molly, a coonhound pup with behavioral challenges. In her quest to bring Molly and their household some peace, she grew to love Molly so deeply, maybe not despite her struggle, but because of it. As they slowly put the pieces together, Tessa realized that being and working with Molly brought her tremendous joy. She decided to do what she loves for a living. In terms of Molly’s surgery experience, to see Molly not only cope, but thrive in a challenging situation makes Tessa’s heart explode with pride and love. She operates Hudson Valley Hounds (HVH) Dog Training and serves pet dog owners and their families.  Tessa is also a graduate of Susan Friedman’s Living and Learning with Animals (LLA) and a perpetual student when it comes to learning about all things dogs and behavior. Tessa is a proud member of the Animal Training Academy community and grateful to be a part of such an amazing and supportive group of trainers.

CLICK HERE for Tessa’s Hudson Valley Hounds website 

I am so excited that your animal training goals are about to be supercharged soon when we launch the brand new Animal Training Academy membership website (coming in the next few months)! A huge part of this project has entailed migrating our vast collection (of five years worth) of Animal Training content from our current website to the new platform. And buried deep in our archive areas are SO many free hidden treasures that you absolute must get access to!

Including the following five videos & corresponding content – originally released in February 2018! It was in this month that we celebrated Sweden and the amazing trainers that live there! So grab some popcorn & a drink, sit back & enjoy this awesomeness!

Video #1 – Cooperative care/husbandry dog training with Josefin Linderstöm. See the full write up HERE

Video #2 – Match to Sample training penguins with Anna Svensson. See the full write up HERE

Video #3 – Cooperative parrot care with Stephanie Edlund. See the full write up HERE

Video #4 – Positive reinforcement horse riding with Angelica Hesselius. See the full write up HERE

Video #5 – Choice, Control & ABC contingencies with Eva Bertilsson. See the full write up HERE

I hope you enjoyed this blast from the past! And I am looking forward to seeing what other treasures we have buried deep within the ATA archives! We will also be releasing more information very soon about our brand new ATA members only website! It is going to be AMAZING!

Best Regards
Ryan Cartlidge
Animal Training Academy

2020 has been an intense year for all of us & I hope that for you – considering all that is going on – things are as good as they can be!

One significant challenge that many have faced is scheduled events having to be cancelled and/or postponed! In my case one significant event being a five day in person workshop to complete the Karen Pryor Academy (KPA) Professional Dog Training Certification!

Although we couldn’t do this in person – KPA pivoted their approach and offered us a three day virtual workshop (followed by a 2 day in person assessment – at a yet to be determined date) to gain our KPA CPT.

Note: You can hear Ken Ramirez talk about some of the changes they had to make in this bonus ATA podcast episode here >>> https://bit.ly/ATA_Ken-Ramirez

And although this email is a wee bit late in coming – I am thrilled to announce that in April Fibi-dog and I successfully passed our 10 part behavior chain and our teaching assessment (where we had to teach our fellow peers/workshop attendees something new) & consequently we can now officially call ourselves KPA-CPT’s ?

I remember back to when I originally decided to do this certification many people were asking me why? And so to answer that question I wrote a blog post – sharing 3 reasons why I decided to register! You can see that post here >>> http://bit.ly/ATA-KPA

And now that I have finished I’ve had many more people asking me how I found the experience? – As they themselves are curious if it’s a good fit for them. And so I thought I would do a follow up on that original post and share three of my biggest takeaways from having completed the certification. 

* 1) How pressure can provide BIG opportunities for growth.

Running Animal Training Academy, working on numerous other projects, being a good husband, friend, pet owner, family member and doing other non animal training activities meant that my life was already jam-packed!

People would ask me beforehand how I planned to fit in the KPA certification on top of this. I didn’t have a plan, I knew it would be challenging but I was just willing to jump in the deep end of the swimming pool and splash around until I learned how to swim (which is basically how I approach everything in life lol).

Consequently doing the certification, I learned A LOT about how I operate under pressure. And working closely with my peers during my time doing the certification, I learned A LOT about how others operate under pressure as well.

The pressure being that of maintaining everything else in life and doing the certification on top of this. For me this was REALLY stepping outside of my comfort zone. And in all honesty it wasn’t necessarily enjoyable to have that much pressure…

Although in hindsight it was of course totally worth it … I do feel like I have become a more knowledgeable, skilful trainer and a better, more educated & tactful teacher as a result of this certification. And I built on these skill areas quickly! I.e. over the space of 6-7 months.

So now having completed the certification I find myself very curious! Does it take stepping outside of your comfort zone for you to be able to achieve your greatest periods of growth… ?

* 2) Confidence!

The bulk of my experience base is working within zoological settings with exotics! And I then created an online platform to cater to all learners! Immediately working with dogs, cats, horses and other animals in domestic contexts.

My belief that I could do this was grounded in my trusting of the science! I.e. that the rules of behaviour govern all learners/earthlings. Consequently I just needed to apply what I knew to this new context.

Whilst I don’t feel I was/am wrong about trusting the science – I did quickly realise that the more I learned the less I appreciated I knew! EEEP!

ATA is now 5 years old. And each year I reflect on how much I have learned over the preceding 12 months and it blows my mind. One thing was missing though to really help give my confidence a needed boost & I feel like this was accountability. Somebody else that was guided by an organisation & set of training best practices to say “Hey Ryan you are doing okay”

For me to have my training assessed and have someone communicate to me it was of a high quality & standard makes me feel like I’m actually doing alright & now I can proudly share this through my KPA CTP letters (behind my name).

* 3) A greater appreciation for what goes into certification

By this I mean the time and effort the students put in. The knowledge you gain, the time management you must show and the practical skills you must demonstrate are significant (in my opinion).

And with this appreciation (gained through practical experience) I can now understand how this credential can and should be used to not only promote ourselves but can also be leveraged to quickly evaluate other trainers’ knowledge & skills.

For example, I recently discovered a KPA certified trainer and groomer living within our local area. Which was awesome because I had a client with a dog in need of a groomer. We traveled there together and the experience was awesome! I now have some where I can take and recommend clients to get their dogs groomed and that I know align with my ethics and values on technique choice. And it all started with acknowledging their KPA certification.

Well there you have it three of my top take-aways from my experience doing KPA.

What about you? Have you been through a certification process with regards to Animal Training? Whether it be KPA? IAABC? CASI? Something else? And if so what were some of your biggest takeaways?

I would absolutely love to know and you can let me know by leaving a comment below.

Best Regards
Ryan Cartlidge KPA CTP
Animal Training Academy

P.s Can’t afford KPA? Well how about a learning opportunity where you will get live access to training from the world’s most proficient animal training & behaviour experts as well as a community to support you at every step of the way! And all of this for just $1

What are you waiting for?

Grab your trial membership today (Trial offers are only designed to be used once per person – we value your honesty) >>> https://www.animaltrainingacademy.com/2020-membership-trial/

We look forward to seeing you on the inside!

Recently we ran a poll in the Animal Training Academy (ATA) members only Facebook group asking our members if they film every training session they do? And what their reasons for filming or not filming were?

The benefits of filming your sessions being that you can review your training, pick up on things you might have missed, share with your peers/mentors & gather data to help plan your next approximations. Additionally very helpful if you’re working in a team environment where multiple people are working with an individual learners/animals behaviour.

Learn more about the benefits of filming your training in this previous ATA blog post HERE

Photo Credit: ATA member Talia Duell, Discover Canine (see the Discover Canine FB page here).

​Appreciating of course that our animals are always learning & therefore we can do a training session at any time – the question surrounded what I would label as a ‘formal training session.” A formal training session defined as one planned/scheduled in advance & where you intend to spend a specific slot of time modifying antecedents & consequences to help shape, maintain, build fluency and/or build stimulus control of your learners behaviour.

Although I feel like (i.e. in my personal opinion) people understand why you would film your sessions, the results of the poll suggested that a very small percentage of people were actually filming every session. And there were a large amount of reasons why this was the case which included some re-occurring challenges people were facing. So I thought I would list some of these potential challenges & additionally suggest some possible solutions/ideas to help remedy them.

Note: Most importantly you have to find the solution that works best for you and the resources/time you have available.

Challenge #1 Not enough time to review the video

Explanation. Is there any point in filming if you don’t have the time to review?

Solution/ideas:

If your behaviour of reviewing your videos is not happening at a high frequency experiment wth your own antecedents & consequences.

• What is the location where you do the reviews? A comfy couch vs an uncomfortable bar stool?
• Have a cold beer, Glass of wine, Cocktail, Coffee, Tea, crisps etc etc.. I.e. add some favourite food/drinks
• See the FB post below of where ATA member JR Henderson (www.ZenCatsRoc.com​) does his reviews.

Photo/post credit: ATA member JR Henderson, Zen Cats Roc.

Challenge #2 Equipment related (cameras, smart phones, tripods & accessories)

Explanation. You might plan a training session away from your home and forget some of your filming equipment. Your gear might be broken or the area you might train in could be outside and SUPER hot and your equipment can’t deal with the temperatures, or maybe to dark and wet? Additionally some say that having equipment set up can really distract them during a training session.

Solution/ideas:

• Make setting up the camera/tripod etc part of your pre session routine!
  • For some people this into can be an important antecedent that actually helps them train!
  • You can use this time to think about your session. & I know some people who even talk out loud to themselves at this time about exactly what they plan to do.
  • Oh and not to mention, if this routine is done regularly it will likely also be something your animal uses (i.e an important antecedent) to help it predict a session is about to start.
• Have a tripod set up in your normal training area – & leave it set up between sessions. This way you only need to come & clip your camera/phone in place.

Challenge #3 Bandwidth/internet challenges

Explanation. For a significant amount of people having the ability to put their videos online is an important motivator for them to film in the first place. For you this could enable you to share your video with peers for feedback and/or so that you can can store the videos online for future reference.

For super fast internet (for example my office internet speed is roughly 1000 mb/s download & 500 mb/s download) you can upload a 2 minute video in about 60 seconds! However with some members they were reporting to me it would literally take about 5-6 hours to upload one video! I can totally see why this would be unmotivating in this case.

Unsure of your internet speed? You can test it here >>> https://www.speedtest.net/

Solution/ideas:

• Use video editing software first to make your videos smaller before uploading (for example iMovie’s for apple, or movie maker for windows)
• Plug your computer (if this is what you are using to upload videos) into your modem rather then using wifi. This is called using a Ethernet connection.
• Buy a new modem. Often the modems we have at home are the free ones provided by our internet service providers (ISP) & these often pail in comparison to what you can buy in your local electronics store.
• Upload straight from your phone to the internet (assuming you are using your phone to film?)

Challenge #4 Videoing/creating/sharing video is a task which places you in a space of vulnerability.

Explanation: Videoing one’s training and either sharing it or even watching it back yourself does mean you open yourself up for feedback and sometimes that feedback doesn’t always feel great! Consequently I am under no illusion that for a lot of people filming takes courage and can for that reason be quite a challenging endeavour!

Solutions/ideas:

• There are numerous ways I have managed to film in the past that means the main bulk of myself is not included in the frame! This can possible be a great first approximation for some!
  • To achieve this you might strap a go-pro to your head so it’s only filming your animal
  • You might set a tripod up low to the ground so it only films your legs and your animal (assuming the species you are training & the behaviour you are working on are ones that this particular strategy might work for)!
• It can help to know even thought leaders in our industry have to manage venerability & courage. Hear Ken Ramirez talk about this on a recent ATA podcast episode here >>> https://bit.ly/ATA_Ken-Ramirez​

Of course filming your training isn’t the only way of reviewing your training & some would rather take notes instead. As mentioned above you have to find the solution that best works for you as an individual.

I hope this has been beneficial to you? I would love to hear form you and you can leave your comments below

Best Regards
Ryan Cartlidge
Animal Training Academy

P.s. For me training is SO much more then just being in front of our learners with our reinforcers! In fact this is just a very small part of what I would label as being a successful trainer. In my personal opinion what’s even more important is developing processes for both reviewing & planning your sessions!

This is where the ATA membership can really help take your animal training to the next level! Our content library dating back 3.5 years of monthly live class replays paired with our community areas means you will get all of the support you will ever need!

Don’t believe me? Check out what our members are saying below…

​What are you waiting for?

Grab your trial membership today (Trial offers are only designed to be used once per person – we value your honesty) >>> https://www.animaltrainingacademy.com/2020-membership-trial/​

Having our animals offer behaviours with duration is an important skill to learn and also one Fibi & I worked hard on together (with the Fibi-Flop/lie on her side Behaviour). However, I often hear people mention that they find it significantly challenging to train! Consequently, I thought I would share some of my own thoughts, some ideas from my mentors & also ones ATA members have been discussing within the ATA membership community areas (private FB group & website forums).

P.s …want to learn more about me training Fibi to do the “Fibi-Flop” … check out this earlier blog post here >>> https://www.animaltrainingacademy.com/fibi-flop/

Below are 10 ideas to help you build duration behaviour.

1) Remember that each animal is a individual

I feel like this tip is just an important reminder to mention at the start of anything to do with training. There’s no recipe to how you train duration (& the speed at which you progress through your approximations). Rather, I believe that the skills comes in observing our learners & learning (ourselves) to go at their pace.

2) Train ‘easy’ behaviours to duration first

In my experience I have found that once we have taught what I would label as “the concept” of duration to our animals – it then can become easier for them to generalize it to other behaviours. Consequently I feel there can be benefit in training the concept with what one might think of as “easy behaviours” first & then using the concept for more challenging behaviours.

Of course as mentioned above every animal is an individual so “easy” is not defined by us but rather by the individual animal/learner in front of us. However, there are some common behaviours that I feel might fall into this category. For example a nose touch to a hand, a station or a paw offer (with it ending up resting in your hand). And the cool thing is that after you have these behaviours on duration they can be used for SO many different situations. The “Fibi-flop” behavior for example below one could argue is just Fibi targeting the side of her body to the ground.

3) Split split split

I feel a big temptation many trainers have (including myself) when training anything, let alone duration, is to push forward before the animal is ready. Training duration in small increments I find has been something that has been super helpful for me!

One way to do this might be to keep your sessions nice & short, have an idea on what approximation you would like to achieve before you start & also ensure these approximations are based on how your animal did in your last session/s. We can often get there (i.e. our end goal) faster if we go slower (& at the animals pace).

4) Ping ponging

Also as we increase duration we can also throw in reinforcement for smaller durations. One way I like to think about this, is via doing something I learned whilst doing Sarah Owings & Helix Fairweather’s cyber scent course last year. This is called ping ponging around a certain duration.

So for example I might be working on a 4 second duration target. And rather then only reinforce 4 seconds I might Ping pong around this number… So I might first reinforce 2 seconds… then 5 seconds, then 4 seconds, then 2 seconds, then 6 seconds, then 3 seconds.

The idea is the average should be about 4 seconds. And in the above example I went 2 seconds higher/lower on either side. Logically this means the behaviour isn’t just getting harder and harder – there are also reinforceable opportunities at easier approximations.

5) Relax criteria on other elements of the behavior

As we make the criteria of maintain (&/or repeat) behaviour for longer and longer durations we might choose (& often there is huge value in) to lower the criteria of other aspects of the behaviour.

For example with the “Fibi-Flop” behaviour the ideal criteria is Fibi lies on her side with her head resting on the ground. However as I started to go past 10 seconds I relaxed the criteria of head on the ground & started to count my duration as soon as she had finished eating her last piece of food. I can tidy the rest up later.

6) Up the value of the reinforcer

As what we ask gets harder and harder one consideration we might make is increasing the value of the reinforcer. In the past I have switched to a specific high value food item. In this instance (I.e. with the Fibi-Flop) I increased the number of pieces of food I was offering.

As always though, observe your animals body language at all times throughout everything mentioned here so far to assess how comfortable they are with what we are asking & if you are unsure seek the opinion of trusted & experienced peers.

7) Mix with fun easy behaviors

As doing a single behaviour for long durations might not be SUPER fun – for example lying on your side for 20 seconds. Mix asking for this in amongst other behaviours with long reinforcement histories for our animals. Behaviours that we might label as ‘fun’! You can see me doing this with the “Fibi-Flop” in this recent video.

8) Always work on improving your observation skills

Another challenge people sometimes have is knowing when to move from one approximation to another. Trainers might describe knowing when to do this as a gut feeling, but I  feel in reality this comes from being great observers of minute changes in body language. For example… what are the eyes doing, what are the muscles doing? Ears? Legs? Tail?

Watch this video and look at Fibi’s tail… What do you notice?

Also, listen to the latest ATA podcast episode with professional animal training Steve Martin to hear some of his thoughts on how to improve our observation skills (listen specifically at~ 12:43) >>> https://www.animaltrainingacademy.com/podcast/training-tidbits/steve-martin/

9) Aim for nice clean loops 

Another strategy to assess when/if both you and your learner are ready to move to the next approximation – is to do so when both you and your learner have accomplished three clean loops in a row (at a certain approximation)! When chatting with Alexandra Kurland about clean loops in an ATA podcast episode she mentioned that if you can do three clean loops in a row this can signal not only are you ready to move on but you should move on.

Listen to the podcast episode with Alexandra Kurland here (start listening @ roughly 30 minutes) >>> https://www.animaltrainingacademy.com/podcast/training-tidbits/alexandra-kurland/

Watch the results of my using this strategy with Fibi dog below;

10) Build duration within a chain! 

One of the most exciting techniques recently shared within Animal Training Academy was an offering by the amazing Mary Hunter! Mary joined us live in an ATA members only web-class to share how you can build duration within a chain (using PORTL to help demonstrate this)! In the class we also had a live training demonstration of how this works! The replay of this class is now available within the ATA members only areas! You can access it today – via your $1 ten day ATA trial membership here >>> https://www.animaltrainingacademy.com/trial-2021/

I hope that these tips are useful to you! And I would love to learn more about what you have found helpful to help teach duration? You can leave your comments below & let me know.

Best Regards
Ryan Cartlidge
Animal Training Academy

P.s want help with your personal animal training projects? Feedback on your videos? Answer to your burning questions? The ATA membership exists for you! To help you with your personal animal training & behavior goals! Join now and get the answers/feedback you have been looking for…

Grab your trial membership today (Trial offers are only designed to be used once per person – we value your honesty) >>> https://www.animaltrainingacademy.com/trial-2021/

Check out what one of our member Lee Stone recently posted on FaceBook about her membership experience!

My boy Odie was born to a dog we were fostering for a rescue in November 2011. My heart was in the right place, but I knew nothing about socialisation, training and behaviour back then.  As Odie got older, he showed “fear” related behaviours to so many things, for example, loud noises, fireworks, dogs, small children, the grooming comb or brush, the nail clippers etc etc.

I did a tiny amount of clicker training with him and saw a definite growth in his confidence.  He showed increased eye contact with me, asked for cuddles and wanted to spend a lot more time around me.  I then joined the Karen Pryor Academy Dog Trainer Professional programme in 2016 in the hope that I could really learn how I could help him with his fears. He wasn’t my “KPA dog”, because he couldn’t go to the face to face part of the course due to his dislike of other dogs, so I did minimal training with him over that 9 months. This was mainly because me and my KPA dog Sweep (Odie’s brother) were beginners so the course work was time consuming for us, but also because, man, Odie was challenging!  Shaping with him was so slowwwww.  I would get literally 2 or 3 clicks in teaching any behaviour before he would just lie down or walk off. I’m ashamed to say I pretty much gave up with him.  I just didn’t have the experience to get the most out of our training sessions.

I changed veterinary practice a couple of years ago from one the dogs had been to their whole lives.  The first visit at the new vets was awful.  Both dogs were shrinking away from the vets, Odie even growled, something we’d never seen from him during a vet visit before.  It took 15 minutes of constant feeding to get each of them through their annual vaccination and even then, I shudder at what they went through.  Our vets are amazing and so patient, they even provided more food when I ran out.  I was mortified.  I realised that I really needed to use my new skills to make my dogs more comfortable in the surgery environment.

I started to investigate husbandry training online and listen to animal training podcasts and then I discovered Animal Training Academy.  I joined ATA not long after that horrific vet experience.  I really wanted more help with husbandry training and in my opinion, you don’t get much more impressive than exotic animal trainers for that! Once I got access to all the amazing ATA resources, especially the forums, our husbandry training really got a kick start.

I think the game changer for Odie was combining clicker training with giving him the ability to say no.  I used a chin target to a towel for much of the husbandry training I did with him at the start.  If he lifted his head then I stopped what I was doing.  It appeared to me that as soon as he realised he could say “no” by just lifting his head he then said “yes” pretty much all of the time!  That’s when we started to really fill our trust account.

I managed to capture the first moment of real achievement in our husbandry training.  It is the first time I got real duration with the grooming comb, the thing he used to run away from and no amount of counter-conditioning seemed to help.  I’m crying at the end of this video and watching it still brings me to tears. It’s one of my proudest moments.

Want access to the whole kit & caboodle of Animal Training Academy resources… CLICK HERE to see what’s on offer via your very own Animal Training Academy membership.

The video below shows how he likes to have a good look at the equipment before I work with it but once he’s seen it, he’s happy for me to go ahead with the exercise but at his pace. His chin target is so deliberate, I love it.  It’s mostly unedited and just shows how long he will happily sit for training sessions now!

I’m not going to lie, the process of building our trust account has taken about 18 months of regular practice with lots of different things, for example, body tactile, stethoscopes, eye drop bottles, grooming equipment, foot baths, nail clippers, nail boards, toothbrushes, scruff grabs.  During that time we managed to train for a hip x-ray that on the day seemed to me to be totally stress free for Odie (not so much for me!). It’s been hard but immensely rewarding work and it has changed our lives.

Now I use a variety of methods as well as the chin rest to achieve results and Odie just goes with it.  I always make sure now that I show him whatever equipment I’m working with before approaching him.  I notice that this has stopped any flinching when I touch him with the equipment. I always keep a close eye on his body language. If he shrinks away from the equipment I lower my criteria and click and reinforce for that a few times before pushing on.

The biggest compliment I’ve had was from Ryan Cartlidge. After watching my ear cleaning video with Odie he said that I inspired him “with a new benchmark of how pet dog relationships ‘should’ look!”  I cried! I can’t tell you much that means to me.

The ear care clip below is our most recent video and I think it’s where I finally realised that Odie is comfortable with just about anything and he trusts me.  Our trust account is pretty full!

Clicker training really has been a game changer with Odie. It has given him confidence to try things, made him a problem solver and helped him communicate. For example, he stares at you when he wants something and if you ask him “what do you want?” he will go to the water bowl to tell you he wants water (he will only drink from the bowl if no-one else has drunk from it!), or the door if he wants to go out.  If you’re playing with a ball in the garden he will choose which of the several balls he wants you to throw/kick and bring it to you!  We love our confident, “chatty” boy!

Since I joined ATA, I’ve had so much help and feedback on my training, plus access to all the resources, that I now have two pretty husbandry savvy dogs.  As well as Ryan and the amazing Animal Training Academy tribe, I need to also thank Hannah Branigan, Eva Bertilsson and Emelie Johnson-Vegh for a spectacular workshop on Start Buttons in June 2018 which changed a lot of my thinking on husbandry, and also Laura Monaco-Torelli and Linda Ryan (the husbandry queens) for the workshop that I attended in April 2019 which BLEW.MY.MIND!  My dogs (and cats) and I thank you all from the bottom of our hearts ?

Like what you see here? And want more amazing resources from Animal Training Academy. CLICK HERE to see what’s on offer for you within the ATA Membership.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR – ATA member Carol Milner

Carol Milner (KPA CTP) is a marine biologist and part-time dog trainer (with a passion for cooperative care) living in Weymouth, UK.  After a life with ‘perfect’ dog Jack she spent two years fostering dogs for a local charity and as a result became guardian to Odie and Sweep.  They had various behavioural issues and after a consultation with a veterinary behaviourist Carol realised that positive reinforcement based training was the way to help them.  With a little bit of experience, she signed up for the Karen Pryor Academy Dog Trainer Professional Programme in 2015, completed it in 2016 and hasn’t looked back since!  She is the owner of Just Click Pet Training and although she doesn’t currently take paying clients, she shares training videos regularly on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram.  Her three cats Martin, Rhum and Harris also occasionally feature!

SO … Oh My GAWD! Training this behaviour was going perfectly UNTIL it wasn’t! lol – After a seamless start, our training completely fell apart & I had to switch to brainstorming mode HARD!​​ You can watch my original session from May the 11th below;

What happened after this was that Fibi increased her latency in offering me the “lie on your side behaviour” & sometimes didn’t even want to come & participate! Here’s how I problem solved this below;

1. I was worried she had injured herself & maybe the behavior was painful! So I observed her in all kinds of locomotion & I couldn’t see anything wrong.
2. I thought maybe the kibble I was using was not a strong enough motivator… so I switched to big chunks of chicken! To no avail.
3. I thoughts maybe we had to take some steps back… so I went back to the start – to no avail.
4. I thought maybe it was where I was positioned or how I was delivering the food. So I changed where I was, I threw the food each time, I used my manners minder (remote feeding device) & tried to change these aspects – to no avail (although I was on the right track somewhat here)!
5. So I thought I would do a session just getting her to sit and go into a (sphinx) down! But she didn’t even want to do this!
6. I did flowcharts and mapped out the whole session! Was great for upping the rate of reinforcement in the sessions but she still had significant latency on some of her behaviors. (You can learn more about flow charts in this past ATA blog post here >>> http://bit.ly/ATA_Flowcharts)

One thing I did notice though was that frequently throughout the last 1-2 days she was actually offering me the “on your side behavior“ randomly throughout the day … AND when she did I quickly offered her ziwi peak (as I always have some ziwi peak on me).

So I thought… Hmmm… maybe it is something to do with the antecedent picture of the training session after all. So I changed into a different position. A position I was in earlier in the day & where she had walked up to me and just offered the behavior – AND BOOM we got this! (watch specifically at 0:35 – for what we have now aptly named this the “Fibi-flop” lol).

I don’t know what it was about the other antecedent arrangement that changed her behaviour… but seemingly it did! WOW what a huge learning opportunity Fibi has provided me over this week to work on my troubleshooting skills! – Thank you little dog! SO SO grateful ?

How do you problem solve when you hit challenges in your training? I would love to know & you can leave your comments below – we look forward to hearing from you.

Ryan Cartlidge – ATA Founder/Connector/Facilitator

We acknowledge that current world events demand some of us are spending more than average hours at home! If this is you, Animal Training Academy (ATA) has the perfect solution to help you get through these challenging times! Will not just one but 10 Hehehe…

Below are 10 Reasons to join the ATA membership over the coming months (paired with personal testimonials from actual & current ATA members);

1) Contribute & seek advice without judgement

2) There’s always something NEW to learn

3) Relevant for wherever you are on your Animal Training Journey

4) A piece of content for pretty much any topic you want to learn about

5) Get fast response times to your animal training questions

6) Connect with some of the best minds in the industry

7) Enlightening training related brainstorming

8) Make friends from all around the world & all from the comfort of your own home

9) Grow your confidence as a Animal Trainer

10) A dedicated ATA founder who is invested in your success

Want to find out if the ATA membership and tribe are right for you? Grab your $1 ten day trail now (Trial offers are only designed to be used once per person – we value your honesty) >>>

https://www.animaltrainingacademy.com/2020-membership-trial/

Best Regards
Ryan Cartlidge
Animal Training Academy

This blog post contains one small/simple idea you can implement to help build your training skills today!

Your animal’s behaviour is affected by a significant variety of factors in any one training session. Additionally, we can only effectively focus on one thing at a time. What you need is a second pair of eyes watching and analysing the session – so video it and watch it back yourself. Videoing can help identify nuances of behaviour that are sometimes missed. Watching back your training allows you to identify what’s important for your animal. It can also help you develop elements of your training, such as your timing.

For example see how much we learned by filming trainer Bonnie whilst working with Devey the Brushtail possum. We used the video to slow the content down and this allowed us to analyse Devey’s focus.

Slowing the content down allowed us to analyse Devey’s focus and utilise this information in future training endeavours. We were able to understand how our hand movement acted as a bridge (It played the same role as the click sound in clicker training). Two options we considered were to either add a clicker or keep our hand movement consistent across all of our training.

If you would like an opportunity to learn all about how important timing is, as well as all the basics of clicker training you can take our full clicker training fundamentals course for just $1!

Learn more about the course here >>> https://www.animaltrainingacademy.com/new-behavior/clicker-training-fundamentals/

To access this full course vis the ATA – membership register for your $1 ten day trial today! (limited to be used, once per person);

https://www.animaltrainingacademy.com/2020-membership-trial/

I would love to hear how you use filming to your advantage? You can leave a comment below and let me know!

Best Regards
Ryan Cartlidge,
Animal Training Academy.

We were ridiculously lucky in New Zealand/Australasia within 2019 – not only with the amount but also the quality of amazing Animal Training learning opportunities available to us. I got to hang out with Dr. Susan Friedman, Ken Ramirez, Steve White, Peta Clarke, Sarah Stremming & an AMAZING opportunity with Veronica Boutelle from Dog Biz (the dog pro industry’s leading business consultancy).

If you don’t know Veronica and the great work her and the team are doing at Dog Biz … you can listen to a couple of previous ATA podcast episodes with her below >>>

And to build on learning from Veronica at her NZ workshop – I’ve also been super fortunate to watch roughly 8 hours of lessons with her and business partner Gina Phairas (as part of the Karen Pryor professional dog training certification). Every time I learn from Veronica, I leave refreshed and full of inspiration about new ideas, ways of thinking and practical tips that I can implement in my business.​

Here are the top 5 animal-training business-building lessons I’ve learned from a combination of the content we have created together, her NZ workshops and my time doing the KPA certification.​

* Business Lesson #1 A different kind of business card

One of the biggest things Veronica has taught me over the years is about using content marketing, especially alternatives to business cards. Veronica suggested  providing some content about something cool to do with animal training along with your contact information, instead of a regular business card.

For example you might have a handout showing how to train your dog to go in it’s crate. And instead of leaving your business card at your local vet, you might have this helpful hand out with your business/contact information on it. ​

I would totally love to know if you have implemented something like this in your business. You can reply directly to the email and let me know how (bonus points for photos).​

* Business Lesson #2 Setting your prices (higher than they are right now)

Another HUGE takeaway for me has been about pricing. I’ve learned numerous reasons why we should be raising our pricing, and how to price based on the market you are operating in. Part of our pricing strategy is paying attention to what your competitors are charging and noticing how different prices affect clients’ decision of who to choose.

This is a totally scary concept and so to help build on this make sure to listen to the first podcast episode above. Specifically at around the 20 minute mark where we dive into this topic! Here’s the link again >>> http://bit.ly/ATA_Boutelle​

* Business Lesson #3 You’re better than you think you are (even though there’s always more to learn) 

I also have learned more about the role imposter syndrome has when we take on clients. If you don’t know what imposter syndrome is you can learn more about it in this short video with myself and past ATA podcast guest Stephanie Edlund >>>

​When working with clients we might have stress & anxiety that we can’t achieve the things our clients want us to. There’s always more for us to learn and skills for us to develop … However if you are following this blog/email list chances are you are heavily subscribed to the R+ way of training. Consequently your implementation of training with your clients animals is highly likely going to be significantly better then they will ever achieve on their own.​

* Business Lesson #4 Building trust by conversing with confidence

At the live workshops, Veronica walked us through some scripts to help us talk with clients and make sure we are both effective with our time and focused on our goals. Sometimes in conversing with clients I find I can get stuck in super long phone and/or in person conversation (which can actually do more harm than good). There’s value in us being confident in what we offer and when we offer it.

A possible and undesirable consequence of not being confident and clear is the client eventually ends up thinking positive reinforcement doesn’t work. This could happen for example if the clients dictates how many sessions they want vs how many they might actually need. If we don’t give enough resources to our clients challenges and because of this we don’t solve their problems the blame might be placed on the technique rather than the lack of resources. ​

This is one of numerous reasons how a client might end up thinking they have tried positive reinforcement but it doesn’t work. Therefore being strategic about how we work with our clients is SUPER important! ​

* Business Lesson #5 Do the challenge for them

And number five is the value of training the clients animals for them as opposed to teaching the clients how to do the training themselves! Veronica offered the example of a tradesman – You wouldn’t want a mechanic for example to say to you; I am going to show you what is wrong with your car, show you how to fix it and then come back in a week and see how you are getting on!

Often though we do the animal training equivalent with our clients and their animals. Consequently, I have completely re-evaluated how I approach helping clients out. ​To help your understanding of this idea – listen to the second podcast episode listed above at roughly the 26 minute mark! Here’s the link again >>> https://www.animaltrainingacademy.com/podcast/training-tidbits/veronica/

I hope you have enjoyed this Blog! And If you want to learn more from Veronica – we also have a 90 minute web-class on marketing your animal training business available within the ATA membership areas. In this class Veronica dives deep into strategies to help you get more customers so that ultimately you can help more dogs/animals. ​​

To see the class; register for your $1 ten day ATA trial membership today! >>> https://www.animaltrainingacademy.com/2020-membership-trial/

We look forward to having you in the tribe!​

Best Regards
Ryan Cartlidge
Animal Training Academy

P.s you can head directly to the Dog Biz website by clicking HERE

Recently I was super fortunate to head back to Moonlit Sanctuary in Melbourne Australia for my fourth visit. I’ve been working with this organization for just under 2 years helping to develop their animal training programs and I visit every 6 months or so (it’s one of my favourite times of the year!).

You can see part 1  of the – Behind the scenes ? Exotic animal training – Consulting @ a wildlife sanctuary – blog post here https://www.animaltrainingacademy.com/moonlit/

One thing that gets me really excited about doing this work is how I get to leverage all of the amazing things I have learned since starting ATA. Consequently, I thought I would share with you five exercises we did with the team on my last visit – and pair this with corresponding content from within ATA for you to learn more.

1) Leslie McDevitt’s’ pattern games with Cinder the Dingo and his trainer Sian.

A HUGE take away for me from this trip was the value of repetition and patterns when working with animals that might be displaying behaviors we label as fearful (or avoiding certain situations & stimuli)! During this recent trip, we implemented Leslie McDevitt’s pattern games with Scorch the dingo to build upon his confidence. In the video below you can see us doing Leslie’s 123 treat pattern (I’m the one dancing in the background lol).

Listen to the Leslie McDevitt podcast episode here >>> http://bit.ly/ATA_Leslie_McDevitt

Want to see/learn even more? Register for your own ATA premium membership and gain access to a 90 minute web-class replay – Pattern Games in Control Unleashed: The Power of the Pattern – with Leslie McDevitt … Grab your $1 ATA trial membership today >>> CLICK HERE

2) Sarah Owings and Helix Fairweather’s Cyber scent training with Scorch the dingo and her trainer Kiandra.

With permission from Sarah and Helix we have been SUPER lucky to be able to leverage the cyber scent curriculum to work with Scorch the Dingo. In this video you can see Scorch’s carer Kiandra using classical conditioning to pair the smell of lavender with delicious chicken (one of Scorch’s favourite food items)

Learn more about cyber scent with some of the training I have done with my own dog Fibi here >>> http://bit.ly/Fibi_scent

3) Eva Bertillon’s & Emelie Johnson Vegh’s flow charts

The Moonlit team have really been taking the flow chart idea on board with their training. One of the animals we have been working with is Banjo the Koala and his routine around being picked up! Working with the team on consistency – specifically in areas where behavior was breaking down – has really helped set everyone up for success! Humans and Koalas alike. See an example below.

See a previous ATA blog post on how to do your own Animal Training flow charts here >>> http://bit.ly/ATA_Flowchart

And if you want to see a full members only ATA web-class replay where behavior nerd extraordinaire Eva Bertilsson teaches about flow charts you – register for your $1 ATA trial membership now >>> CLICK HERE

4) Mary Hunter and Jesus Rosales-Ruiz’s PORTL game

This was actually the first time I had played this! And I think to say the team enjoyed this would be a MASSIVE understatement! The reinforcing value of it being confirmed by the team requesting we bring it the pub with us! lol (see photo below).

CLICK HERE to listen to a podcast about PORTL with Mary Hunter >>> http://bit.ly/ATA_Mary_Hunter

5) Susan Friedman’s FAID (Functional assessment & intervention design).

It had been twelve months since I originally went through the first full FAID with the Moonlit team. I’m thinking I can now pretty much call them seasoned pros, hehehe. The reason I am so passionate about this problem-solving tool is that it helps us devise an intervention tailored to the unique animal in front of us. This intervention is based on the animals individual behaviors and the functions these behaviors serve.

To learn more about FAID listen to Susan Friedman talk about it in greater detail in this podcast episode here (specifically listen @ 18:29) >>> http://bit.ly/Friedmanpodcast

Well there you have it just some of the ways we learn from and implement strategies taught by the amazing ATA content creators! What about you? I would be super keen to hear (and if possible see) how you have implemented what you have learned from ATA with your animals.

Ryan Cartlidge – ATA Founder/Connector/Facilitator

Happy 2020!

The start of a new year is a time of contemplation about what we would ideally like to achieve over the next 12 months. Consequently, I thought I would create this practical exercise to help you work through splitting down larger, more lofty goals, into smaller more achievable approximations – using the following 5 step process…

Step 1:
Imagine you have unlimited time, money and resources and can do anything you want!

On a blank piece of paper write down all of the things you would like to do with your animals (training & behavior related)!

Step 2:
Then split this list into the things that you think you would like/are most likely to achieve in the next 3 months! Place these items under a heading short term goals … & everything else can go under the heading long term goals.

Step 3:
Then when you have your short term goals, the next approximation is to do a five week plan. When I say five week plan – what I mean is … look at your list of short term goals and write down what you will achieve towards working on these goals over the next five weeks, like this;

* Week 1) What will you aim to achieve?
* Week 2) What will you aim to achieve?
* Week 3) What will you aim to achieve?
* Week 4) What will you aim to achieve?
* Week 5) What will you aim to achieve?

Step 4:
After five weeks is up, review and do the next five weeks.

Step 5:
Once 3 months has gone by review your list. Cross of the things you have achieved from your short term goals and move over new items from the long term list to the short term list. (And feel free to also add new items to the long term goals list).

Doing this exercise is an attempt to do what we do with our animals and that is split our goals into smaller & smaller approximations. Generally, I find the first time we do this – that our goals over the 5 weeks are much larger than we can achieve with the resources we have available. Therefore, using this process can potentially help us teach ourselves to concentrate on smaller approximations.

And then another benefit of this exercise is valuing the importance of looking at all the things we achieve and celebrating them ALL – no matter how small or insignificant they may seem. I say this because all of the time and energy we put into our goals – is in my personal opinion – approximations towards our larger goals!

Even if we haven’t necessarily achieved what we set out to … my thoughts are that (more than likely) you will be in a position to move forward with more information then you had before and consequently make smarter decisions. #Celebrateapproximations

I feel sometimes we spend a lot of time putting mental energy on things in that long term list – & there can potentially be value in focusing on the smaller approximations and celebrating them as we go …

I hope this makes sense, let me know what you think and/or if you have any questions and I look forward to seeing your lists (and am grateful for your feedback on this idea).

Best Regards
Ryan Cartlidge
Animal Training Academy

P.s Want even more help with your animal training goals? ATA members have shared how the ATA membership has helped them achieve theirs (see below) >>>

https://www.facebook.com/pg/animaltrainingacademy/reviews/

Start your $1 ten day ATA trial membership NOW >>> https://www.animaltrainingacademy.com/2020-membership-trial/

I was fortunate enough to be able to attend AZA’s (Association of Zoo’s & Aquarium’s – America) Animal Welfare: Evidence Based Management professional course earlier this year. I thought you all might be interested in hearing my top 5 take-aways from it.

1). AZA has assembled a dream-team of instructors. Every single one of them is an amazing person. If you don’t know them, you should!

The course was hosted at the beautiful Brookfield Zoo in Chicago, Illinois; whose dedication to science-based animal wellness is inspiring. The instructor team consisted of some of the most passionate and empowering people I have ever met. Each one of them is pushing the zoological community forward in enormous ways. I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to learn from this group! They were:

• Lance Miller- Vice President of Conservation Science & Animal Welfare Research, Brookfield Zoo
• Greg Vicino- Curator of Applied Animal Welfare, San Diego Zoo
  • (Together, Greg and Lance created the “Five Opportunities to Thrive” animal welfare model. Check out the podcast Ryan just did with Greg!)

• Don Janssen- Cooperate Director of Animal Health DVM (retired), San Diego Zoo Global
  • (Don authored Upside-Down leadership: A Zoo Vet’s Journey to Becoming a Servant Leader)
• Jill Mellen- Education & Science Director (retired), Disney’s Animal Kingdom
  • (Jill is one of the original masterminds behind the SPIDER enrichment framework)
• Sharon Joseph- Director of Animal Welfare & Research, Denver Zoo
  • (Sharon has created a progressive animal wellness program at Denver zoo)
• Beth Posta- Curator of Behavioral Husbandry & Research, Toledo Zoo
  • (Beth has been a mentor of mine for a long time, so it was great to see her again. I actually did one of my first internships with Beth’s department in 2012 which very much influenced my career path!!)
  • As an added bonus… Tim Sullivan is the Curator of Behavioral Husbandry at Brookfield so you might even get to chat with him in between classes! Check out Ryan’s podcast with Tim;

2). The way we look at welfare has evolved a lot over time. (HINT: it even involves choice and control!!)

They emphasized that we have moved beyond the “The Five Freedoms” model of animal welfare, which advocated freedom from negative experiences. We now feel that the absence of negative experiences doesn’t necessarily mean an animal is thriving. AZA has combined WAZA’s, “Five Domains” model with the “Five Opportunities to Thrive” model (Miller and Vicino), to create their suggested animal welfare framework, shown below.

• Nutrition-a suitable, species-specific diet will be provided in a way that ensures full health and vigor, both behaviorally and physically.
• Environment– animals will experience an appropriate environment that encouraged opportunities to self-maintain and promotes ongoing comfort and safety.
• Health-animals will have opportunity to experience good physical health including access to preventative health care and rapid diagnosis, treatment of injury/disease to ensure ongoing robustness and vitality through all life stages.
• Behavior-quality spaces and appropriate social groupings provided that encourage species specific behaviors at natural frequencies and appropriate diversities while meeting the social and developmental needs of each individual in the collection.
• Choice and Control- animals have the opportunity for choice and control to seek out and achieve a positive welfare state while able to avoid suffering and distress.
• Affective/Mental State- conditions provided in which animals have opportunity to experience a predominance of positive emotional states and minimize negative survival related experiences and emotional states.

3). Welfare is everyone’s job.

Every single person that works at an animal care facility impacts animal welfare in some way. Even if you work in operations, horticulture, or guest service departments. Animal wellness programs are most successful when staff training occurs at every level and welfare is integrated into the institutions core values, so that employees understand how their role can impact welfare from day one.

4). It’s all about inputs and outputs.

Thinking about your animal welfare program in terms of inputs and outputs is a great way to start wrapping your brain around this multifaceted topic.

• Inputs are resource based. These are the things YOU do for the animals under your care. Think- training and enrichment programs, management strategies, nutrition, environment. All of our inputs can contribute to animal wellness either positively or negatively. Think of inputs as the ingredients for your animal wellness program.
• Outputs are animal based measures. These are how the animal is actually impacted. Activity level, body condition, fur/feather quality, and behavior are all examples of outputs. These things can be identified as indicators and used to monitor animal wellness over time.

5). Communication is key.

These five take-aways were just a tiny bit of the information that I took away from the course. I thoroughly enjoyed it and would highly recommend it to anyone that works in an animal care facility.  But wait, there’s more! AZA’s Animal Welfare Committee has partnered with San Diego Zoo Global to put together a comprehensive FREE course that is available to anyone. So if you want more information, check out the links below:

FREE COURSE: https://sdzglobalacademy.org/courseAnimalWelfare.html

Don’s Book https://shopzoo.com/products/upside-down-leadership-a-zoo-veterinarians-journey-to-becoming-a-servant-leader

Like what you see here? And want more amazing resources from Animal Training Academy. CLICK HERE to see what’s on offer for you within the ATA Membership.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR – ATA member Kaitlyn Wiktor

Kaitlyn Wiktor grew up in Massachusetts & always wanted to become a zookeeper, volunteering at local zoos from a young age. She received a B.S in Wildlife Care and Education from Unity College, interning and seasonal zoo keeping in a variety of areas at Omaha Zoo during the summers (bird dept, desert dome, apes). After graduation Kaitlyn secured an internship in the Behavioral Husbandry Department at Toledo Zoo where she got to plan, implement, and evaluate enrichment, and collect behavioural data on their collection of polar bears. She also got to participate in training sessions with their harbor seals and grey seals. This is where her interest in behavior management was established.

This is me coming clean to anyone reading this. Although, it’s not something I’ve necessarily kept a secret from absolutely everyone – I’ve openly told some people about it, although It’s kind of embarrassing to be honest. And I feel it’s definitely contributed to one of my weaknesses as an animal trainer … something that lately I have become more and more aware of. ​

So here’s the confession … I think I kind of, might have “cheated” at University to get my degree. Here’s what I mean … I currently hold a Bachelors of Science from Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand. Being a science degree I obviously had to produce scientific reports – part of which was collecting and displaying data. ​

When it came to writing these reports I wrote amazing abstracts & introductions, followed by really well articulated discussions and conclusions. Sandwiched in the middle of all of these things though was the data collection and analysis component. ​

I did this component. But I found it really challenging and confusing. I didn’t like the computer software we were required to use and I also knew something about how to get a degree … & that was I didn’t really need to worry about the data section to get good grad​es.​

The Data section was only worth a small component of the entire marks for the paper. So as mentioned I just aced the abstract, intro, discussion and conclusion and normally scored about 75%. Boom I have a degree! (I was between the ages of 18-21 when I did this, now obviously I would make different decisions)​

Now bringing us up to 2019 – recently we created some content here at ATA with an amazing human being by the name of Eduardo Fernandez. First was a podcast which we named “Everyone can shape with data” You can see this here >>> http://bit.ly/ATA_Eduardo​

This was then followed up by an even more amazing ATA premium members only web-class where Eduardo went in depth, sharing how to do specific animal training related data collection, for example preference testing. As mentioned the web-class is for ATA premium members only. however you can access it today, with a 10 day $1 ATA trial membership here >>> http://bit.ly/ATA_Trial_Membership​

When I was at uni, I thought I was pretty clever to do as little data collection and analysis as possible. Now I realise that it’s a skill I need to develop to become the best trainer I can be. As Eduardo reminded us, to call ourselves behaviour analysts, we need to actually analyse behavior (I.e collect data, analyse it & then make our decisions based on what the data tells us). ​

Additionally, to build on this I am currently enrolled and practically applying myself within the Karen Pryor professional dog training certification! Part of what I am learning about is how to collect and understand your data (and they also provide amazing data sheets on how to do this). It seems potentially the universe is trying to tell me something, hehehe 😉 ​

So I am setting myself a challenge. And to be honest with you – I am shaking my head as I write this because I have been avoiding this since I finished my degree nearly 15 years ago! I need accountability and am going to challenge myself here in front of the whole ATA audience to do more data collection. ​

My first approximation is admitting I have a problem, hence this post! What about you – do you systematically collect data from your animal training? Do you think this is important? Please feel free to share your thoughts, feelings, questions and ideas with me by leaving your comments below – I look forward to hearing from you.​

Best Regards
Ryan Cartlidge
Animal Training Academy

A while back I had the absolute pleasure of putting together and presenting a webinar for the Canadian Association of Zoos and Aquariums (CAZA) on crate/trailer loading.

So, I thought I would share with you some of the videos we covered in this class! With the three main topics being:

1. Benefits to training your animal to willingly go into their crate/trailer
2. Suggested steps to increase success
3. Problem solving tools.

There are many benefits to crate/trailer loading your animals and for me this is a foundation behavior. Watch the video below to learn about foundational behaviors and their benefits.

You can help set yourself up for success by maximising your reinforcers when training your animal to load into a crate/trailer! This includes giving your animal increased control with the ability to leave when/if it wants and as possible. You can see how this is implemented in the video example below with Molly the owl.

It’s also really valuable to have a shaping plan in place tailored to suit your individual animal. Watch this in action below with Devey the brush tail possum.

The above video is actually a paid lesson out of the Clicker Training Fundamentals course available within the ATA premium membership.

NOTE: If you want to get access to the entire Clicker Training Fundamentals course work you can do so via the ATA membership. Follow the link to get your exclusive trial membership and gain access today! >>> https://www.animaltrainingacademy.com/2019-membership-trial/

Finally when it comes to problem solving – creativity is really important!

Check out this video of Kim Archer – at the time working at Brooklands Zoo, Taranaki, New Zealand. Kim trains 3 meerkats at the same time in a super creative way.

Training your animal to voluntarily enter a crate is just one part of the training program, there are many more steps to get the animal comfortable with the crate/trailer. One of the biggest approximations is them being transported between locations.

See this blog post of voluntarily trailer loading a horse that includes video of the animals first bit of movement in the trailer >>> bit.ly/ATA_Trailor_loading

What ideas could we potentially add to this great training in this blog post to set the horse up for success even more?

I’m looking forward to everyone’s thoughts and feelings and please feel free to leave them all in the comments section below. We would love to hear from you.

Best Regards
Ryan Cartlidge
Animal Training Academy 

P.s Currently I am working on some duration training in a crate with my dog Fibi as she is going to need this when her and I do our practical examination for the Karen Pryor professional dog training certification that I started this week.

To do this I have utilised a manners minders remote feeder and a Wyze brand digital camera so I can watch Fibi on my phone whilst I leave the room. See below.

I’ve been working really hard on my never-ending Catio project over the last wee while and thought an update was long overdue, as the last one was in May >>> bit.ly/Cat_blog1 (& video from FaceBook here … http://bit.ly/Finally_lol)

One of the BIG projects has been building ‘the first’ of the new outdoor climbing structures which is now fully painted and complete with fake grass (see below)!

As we move into Summer in New Zealand we really want to use our beautiful front balcony as it gets all of the afternoon sun. Consequently the idea of Catio Version 2.0 was born! 

I brainstormed a lot about how to do Version 2.0 and decided for a modified approach. What I have come up with is assembling panels beforehand and then fitting them all together like a giant Catio jigsaw puzzle! See my first test panel below.

More cat net arrived this week and the posts for an experimental larger sized frame are all cut to size and painted – ready to be pieced together (will update again soon).

Aside from playing carpenter, we have been SUPER busy with content creation for ATA! Below are 15 of our most recent pieces of content. You can find everything from Monitor Lizards, Dogs, Parrots, horses & more – as well as offerings from amazing content contributors like Dr. Susan Friedman, Sarah Owings, Peggy Hogan, Patricia McConnell and the list goes on and on…

Have you been keeping up with the Blog posts?

• My animal is not food motivated – AT ALL! (your 9-point motivational checklist)
• Does your animal training flow(chart)? 
• Nice hat. Ugly face. Nice top – 2 essential skills for animal trainers (giving/receiving feedback & Self evaluation)
• Do you lie down when you train? If not – you totally should! (Scent work training with Fibi-dog #2).
• Training a Lace Monitor Lizard at Moonlit Sanctuary, Melbourne Australia – A video case study. By ATA member, Hannah Wiggs.

Here’s what’s been happening with the ATA podcast show;

• (Episode 101] Veronica Boutelle – 8 Biggest Dog Training Business Myths
• (Episode 100) – Dr. Susan Friedman & Ryan Cartlidge; Off the perch
• (Episode 99) Pamela Clark – 10 things parrot consultants need to know in 2019
• (Episode 98) Tim Sullivan – Brookfield Zoo; Curator of behavioural husbandry
• (Episode 97) Dr. Patricia McConnell – The human-animal relationship

And check out what LIVE training in the ATA premium membership; (if you’re not already a member, you can start your $1 trial  and get instant access to the full library of content, including these).

• A humanistic learning approach to canine training (a web-class about training people); with very special guest Dr. Robert Hewings
• Being Evidence-Based with your Animals: Using Data to Optimize Animal Training & Welfare; with very special guest Dr. Eduardo Fernandez
• Peggy Hogan & Sarah Owings – Two Species, one journey! – Teaching animals to wait for cues without extinction!
• An Animal Training Content Creation Conversation – With very special guest host Malena DeMartini and presented by Ryan Cartlidge
• Shaping – from basic to advance with very special guest Agnieszka Janarek

There is so much more sensational content lined up for the rest of the year – so keep an eye on this website for our next piece of amazingness!

AND if there’s anything you really want to learn more about and/or people you would like to see on the ATA podcast show please let me know! You can do so by leaving a comment below.

Best Regards
Ryan Cartlidge
Animal Training Academy

Have you ever wanted to train an animal that was ‘not food motivated’? 

This challenge is something I have often heard people tell me over the years! And I always think to myself “does your animal eat?” If the answer is ‘yes’ then I’m curious if we are able to say it’s not food motivated. An alternative way to describe these animals could be to say ‘they’re potentially not motivated by the kind of food you are offering and/or the context you are offering it under!’ 

Huh ?!? ?- “Ryan what the heck does that mean?” lol … Below are some offerings for you to ‘chew’ over & I would love to hear what you think about them.

1) Is there an underlying medical issue you don’t know about!

Regardless of what behavioural intervention and/or training we might be doing for our animal, checking that they are in good health is always step number one. Book an appointment with your vet to get their expert opinion. 

Also, consider specific veterinarian subject matter experts that might focus on certain physiological areas of our animals health – for example a gastro expert (it could be possible for health issues to be missed, especially if you consider rarer conditions) 

2) Is your animal just not eating in your presence?

What happens if you leave the food there and walk away? Does the animal eventually eat it? Does the latency (time it takes) of the animal to come and get the food decrease over time? 

This might happen if we are working with a fearful, nervous, aroused or anxious animal. (Note: what the observable behaviors are that aid us in hypothesising how our animals are feeling can vary significantly between animals and contexts).

You can learn how to work with an animal that might not eat in your presence in this podcast episode here  (Listen in around the 34 minute mark) >>> https://www.animaltrainingacademy.com/podcast/training-tidbits/erin-davidson/

In this situation you could also potentially try a remote feeder such as a manners minder or put tutor. Or present the food on a long stick and/or pair of tongs? 

3) Have you tried to use food in different contexts?

There are always competing reinforcers on offer in our animals environment. Consequently, trying to use food for training in a less distracting environment could be a great place to start.

For example your dog might readily take food at home but not out at the dog park! 

If this is a situation you are experiencing – implementing a training plan that slowly increases more and more distractions over time is something to consider. 

4) Have you reached out and asked your network for their thoughts and input?

This can often lead to new ideas and thoughts. My recommendation is to ensure that you find a tribe of people that you trust and you know share the same values and ethics as you. Whenever I have a problem I always ask ATA members in the ATA premium  membership community areas ? (members only FB group and website forums).

5) How are you presenting the food?

I’ve heard some people tell me that their animal won’t eat if they try to hand feed them – however if they throw the food and the animal gets to chase it then it will eat it! 

Maybe offering the food in a different way might yield different results? ?

6) Can you use not food reinforcers to motivate your animal? 

Maybe you don’t even need to worry about motivating your animal with food and they will readily work for other non food related reinforcers. What have you tried so far?

7) Are you leveraging motivation operatives to your advantage?

Examine your animals diet, daily routine and eating habits. 

Regarding the food item you are attempting to use as a reinforcer; Does your animal have access to this at other times of the day? If so, how much and how often? Possibly by examining your animals daily access to specific high valued food items, (for example only making them available during training and/or select periods of time) we can make these items seem more valuable & consequently increase motivation to work for them.

I’m not saying you have to give your animals less of a particular item just suggesting a possible review of where and for how long your animals have access to specific high valued items. 

8) Offer variability.

How many different food items are you offering your animal? Maybe by adding a lot more variability to what you are trying to offer you will see an increase in motivation? Or you might just find a food item that your animal goes nuts for!

You can even get your animal to choose what reinforcer they want by teaching them to pick! I have seen this done really well with animals being able to point to food items they wanted – from a selection offered in front of them.

9) Have you collected actual data on your animals?

It’s possible that sometimes we tell ourselves stories that are more based on how we feel about our animals and situations then raw hard facts! This is something I learned recently in an amazing ATA members only web-class where we were super lucky to have Dr. Eduardo Fernandez join us to talk about Being Evidence-Based with your Animals: Using Data to Optimize Animal Training & Welfare.

If you want access to the full web-class replay click here for your exclusive ATA trial membership >>> https://www.animaltrainingacademy.com/2019-membership-trial/

You can also listen to a free podcast about using data to make decisions with Dr Fernandez here >>> https://www.animaltrainingacademy.com/podcast/training-tidbits/eduardo-fernandez/

This is by no means an exhaustive list of options and ideas that cover every situation but hopefully it can help you brainstorm if this is a challenge you come across. And if you think I can build on this list please post your ideas and suggestions in the comment section below – I can’t wait to hear them!

Best Regards
Ryan Cartlidge
Animal Training Academy

Flow charts are amazing! Do you include them in your training?

It was back in November of 2017 in an ATA podcast episode with Swedish trainer Eva Bertilsson that I first heard of this idea (Eva sharing the concept on behalf of her & ‘her training partner in crime’ – Emelie Johnson Vegh). Listen to the episode HERE (Specifically at around the 20 minute mark for our flowchart conversation)

Since that time I have been fortunate enough (with Eva’s blessing) to teach flowcharts to others! To help demonstrate how they work I put together a little video using audio from that podcast! You can watch it below;

I can’t recall a single time where I have been stuck & flowcharting didn’t help my training move forward. As Emelie Johnson Vegh and Eva Bertilsson say, it’s the only time you can erase mistakes in your training.

These two tips will help you get started with flow charts (if you fancy giving them a go).

1. I like making it simple. Focus on one of your learners behaviours you are challenged with. Then have two options – Either your learner did what you want OR they did something else. This is opposed to all of the options I gave myself in the video above.
2. Figuring out what to do when your animal doesn’t do what you want – doesn’t mean you need to add in the perfect consequence (you can always change this up later). Instead – and to begin with – do something, you are well practised at (obviously using ethical animal training techniques).

Hopefully from the above you can get started with some flow charts of your own. However, if you want to take your learning even further – Eva was SUPER kind and joined us for a LIVE ATA members only web-class specifically on this topic. She covered how flowcharts work, gave some examples and even went through a live demonstration with an ATA member and their Agility dog.

ATA premium members can watch the full web-class by clicking the image below >>> 

Not an ATA premium member? Not to worry … Access your exclusive $1 ATA trial membership here >>> https://www.animaltrainingacademy.com/2019-membership-trial/

Are you already using flowcharts? Or maybe you use some other system to plan out your sessions in advance! If so I would love to hear about your experiences! You can leave your comments below!

Best Regards
Ryan Cartlidge
Animal Training Academy

P.s One aspect I absolutely love about the ATA premium community areas is when members share their notes/doodling that they quickly put together whilst simultaneously consuming content from the ATA library! Here’s some from this web-class with talented ATA premium member Lili Chin.

See more of Lili’s professional/polished artwork here >>> https://www.doggiedrawings.net/

Two important skills for you to develop as a professional animal trainer are 1) giving & receiving feedback & 2) self evaluation. Consequently here are 3 pieces of content from the ATA library to help build on you knowledge and skill-set in this area.

1) From Dr. Robert Hewings (Four three feedback)

The first piece of content comes from a LIVE ATA members only web-class that we did recently called ‘A humanistic learning approach to canine training’ and was presented by Dr. Robert Hewings. Here is a 5 minute extract from this web-class talking about an alternative to the traditional “feedback sandwich.’

To view this web-class in it’s entirety you can register for your exclusive $1 ATA trial membership here >>> https://www.animaltrainingacademy.com/2019-membership-trial/

2) From Arianna Bailey (The art & skill of learning as humans in the animal field)

The second piece of content is a podcast episode we recorded last year with the amazing Arianna Bailey (Natural Encounters, Inc. USA). In this podcast episode Arianna and I talk about an article she wrote called ‘The art & skill of learning as humans in the animal field’ (Listen in at around 27:27).

• LISTEN – (link to article found here as well) >>> http://bit.ly/Arianna-Bailey

Arianna’s article includes a list of – 10 amazing tips when giving, getting and applying feedback – (written by Dr. Susan Friedman). 

3) From Sarah Owings (brave learning)

In this podcast episode Sarah Owings shares her offering of what it means to be a ‘brave learner‘ (listen in at 20:48) >>> http://bit.ly/SarahOwings

Sarah talks about focusing on specific observable behaviors that we & our learners have done well & consequently what we want to see more of in the future. Then to build on this considering ONE small possible criteria/approximation change for our next training session.

1. Specific observable behavior that you (or the person you are giving feedback to) did well
2. Specific observable behaviors that the animal/learner did well
3. A possible approximation to build on you & your learners awesomeness for next time.

For ATA premium members see a blog post Sarah wrote on this topic in the ATA members only FB group here >>> https://www.facebook.com/groups/ATAengage/permalink/457105088109372/

What about you? What have you found works well for you and your learners when giving/receiving feedback & when self evaluating? We would love to hear from you – please leave your comments, thoughts, feeling and questions below!

Towards the end of June I wrote a blog post containing some of the scent work training I had been doing with my dog Fibi. If you missed that post you can see it here >>> http://bit.ly/Fibi-scent

Since that time we have been flat out proofing her indication behavior and adding all sorts of variation into our training (including me lying down)! Consequently, I wanted to provide you with an update on some of this training – with 5 more short videos to share;

And as always, many thanks to my amazing teachers Sarah Owings & Helix Fairweather and the fantastic Cyber Scent community where I am learning all about the wonderful world of nose work!

Video 1 – Lying down

We are enjoying the process of adding as much variety to our indication behavior as possible. This is both with what I am doing and the containers the scent article is concealed within.

Note: this is potentially the first time I have lied down intentionally to cue a behavior lol … & you will see on the first one I couldn’t get up fast enough to reinforce Feebs!

Video 2 – Different rooms

We had a go at doing some indications in different rooms of our house and practising timing of our ‘eyes on” cue to the moment Fibi surged ahead of me helping to build her independence in the search.

Video 3 – Adding chatter to the background

Here we added in different words – whilst Fibi was targeting and additionally when she was on her way to the odour. She shifted her body weight slightly in response to some of the words but you can see her stay on target.

Video 4 – Leash pressure

In this video you can see me staring to add pressure to the leash whilst Fibi is targeting and Fibi hardly even flinches;

Video 5 – Discrimination training

Now we are working on discrimination and fibi learning it really is all about the scent. She is starting to quickly pass over the containers with no scent in them and indicate on the “hot one”.

We have one month left of our cyber scent journey before our next adventure! Fibi and I will be starting on our Karen Pryor professional dog training professional program and we couldn’t be more excited!

What about you? What training are you up to at the moment? I would love to hear about it, you can leave your comments at the bottom of this page.

Best Regards
Ryan Cartlidge
Animal Training Academy

What was your biggest ever failure in your career? … OR … In other words your biggest ever opportunity to learn?

I’m busy getting ready for tomorrow’s live, premium-members only, Animal Training Academy (ATA) web-class – An Animal Training Content Creation Conversation – where I will be sharing my story about how and why ATA got started! 

If you think back to all of your highs and lows in your career and then imagine you had to showcase them for everyone else to learn! That’s exactly what I will be doing tomorrow… and I think my failures are what I am most excited to talk about.

Although, calling them failures isn’t personally how I believe you should view these events. I’m curious if our minds automatically go to that word because that’s how society has trained us? What do you think? When things haven’t gone as you expected, have you let that get you down … OR … risen up through the ashes to move on to bigger and better things?

Do you view these events as failures … OR … potential opportunities to learn? Opportunities to move forward with more information and make better decisions next time.

Anyway … on to one of the biggest failures/”opportunities to learn” ATA has afforded me thus far – It all come after reading this book (see the picture below), have you seen it before?

This book explains how to launch your Animal Training courses etc online. And you can use it to become very successful! In fact I know numerous animal trainers and behavior experts who have done just that!

And the truth is after I read the book for the first time, I applied what I had learned & did really well – using it to sell one of my first ever online courses clicker training fundamentals! I was so happy! I thought well that’s great all I have to do is repeat this process – but to more people!

So six months later … I launched my second course – The RECIPE for animal training success.

Using what I had learned from the book – I sent out information about the RECIPE course to an email list of people – 7 times larger than when I launched clicker training fundamentals! I was ready for the success to start flooding in! 

… however all I got was crickets! Nothing! Nada! Due to overlooking a large number of factors – my implementation of what I had learned resulted in ZERO sales.

This was a very hard pill to swallow. It seemed like no one was interested in what I had to say & resulted in me having no money (Embarrassingly I had to go to my mum and ask her to support me financially). I struggled to get out of bed in the morning and everyone was telling me I had to get a job! It destroyed my confidence and left me with a lot of questions;

However I got up every morning and pushed on! Over time I actually became extremely grateful that I was given this opportunity to grow.

One of the big lessons that this taught me is that putting content out into the world is not just about having an email list or a FaceBook page – but about the relationships you have with the people in these lists/groups. I would rather have a group of 100 highly engaged people then 10,000 that couldn’t care less about what I had to say! My main focus now with every piece of content I make is to build a relationship with my audience based on trust & create content they is relevant to them and helps them out with their goals.

This has resulted in the Animal Training Academy membership and podcast show which helps 1000’s of animals and their people on a monthly basis and around the globe! Tomorrow’s web-class is all about me sharing my story and everything else that I have learned which has helped my become a successful creator of online Animal Training content and make a living out of it!

Are you making online animal training content yourself? Are you wondering how you can use what you are doing to create a living for yourself? Then you are not going to want to miss this class.

Actual class time will be 7:30 am New Zealand time Sunday 14th July 2019. Convert to your time here >>> http://bit.ly/ATA_Content_creation

As mentioned this event is for ATA premium members only. However, we don’t want you to miss out, so we’re giving you the chance to join us for just $1!

Grab your trial premium membership trial link here to gain access >>> https://www.animaltrainingacademy.com/2019-membership

Get ready for me to open the lock on Animal Training Academy’s story! We hope to see you there!

P.s. this class will be presented by ATA founder Ryan Cartlidge and will have a special guest host – Separation anxiety subject matter expert & Animal Training Academy premium member Malena DeMartini. You can listen to a past podcast episode with Malena here >>> http://bit.ly/ATA_Malena

When I decided I wanted to learn more about nose/scent work – I was thrilled to learn that past ATA podcast guest Sarah Owings was running an online learning opportunity called Cyber Scent with her colleague Helix Fairweather! 

Cyber Scent is set up as a – learn at your own pace – (perfect for me) monthly subscription service, for people who already have clicker training skills and where you get drip fed course instructions based on your progress!

I am not quite at the end of my cyber scent journey yet … however, this week we had my dog – Fibi – doing her first little mini searches! And I got so excited I just had to share some of the awesomeness from my Cyber Scent experience so far!

So here are 5 of my favourite training videos of mine and Fibi’s scent work adventure.

Video 1 – Classical conditioning!

In this video you can see Fibi and I pairing the odour we will be using with high valued food items. The odour is located in the bottom of the bowl under a Colander. We did MANY repetitions of this so that when Fibi smelled the odour it would be associated with good things/feelings.

Video 2 – Adding movement with Fibi targeting the odour

Here we have added a verbal “eyes on” cue to the behaviour of Fibi targeting her nose over the odour (Still in the bowl under he Colander). And you can see I am starting to add the distraction of – me moving-  whilst – reinforcing her for keeping her head in the bowl.

Video 3 – Different containers & Me in different positions

By this stage Fibi is offering a small duration nose target with the odour hidden in different containers! And she is also doing this with me being positioned in lots of different places around the room!

Video 4 – Fibi targeting odour up high.

In this video we have moved the odour up of the ground with a few distractions in place! Fibi is showing some of her first signs of actively sniffing out the odour!

Video 5 – Fibi does her first little mini search

In this video we have moved the odour onto objects in the room! The first time I put it up on the heater is one of the biggest searches Fibi had done up until that point! LOVING this so much!

This is fast becoming one of my favourite things to do with Fibi and I am just totally in love with everything I am learning at the moment from so many amazing trainers and instructors!

I highly recommend the Cyber Scent course if you already have clicker training experience and are looking to learn more about getting started in scent work yourself. I know I have absolutely loved my experience with it and am looking forward to learning even more over the coming whilst form other great minds in the industry! Especially Steve White who will be in New Zealand later this year! EEEEEP!

We were also totally lucky to have Steve join us at ATA a few months ago to present an amazing web-class called “Reading dogs scenting behavior” where he taught us  – MacKenzie’s eight scent-work indicators (with video examples for all 8):

• Pull
• Nose Height
• Tail Carriage
• Breathing
• Cadence
• Circling
• Crabbing
• Head swing (Nose anchor)

If you missed this class when we did it live and are interested in seeing the replay you can do so in the members area on the ATA website! To gain access here is your exclusive $1 14 day ATA trail membership >>> https://atamember.com/14-day-trial/

What about your nose/scent work journey? Leave a comment below to share with us your experiences!

The Karen Pryor Academy (KPA) professional dog training certification is coming to New Zealand! And when this was mentioned at a four day Ken Ramirez workshop I was attending, I very excitedly ran around telling everyone I was already registered to do it and had paid my deposit!

People were excited for me, but what really surprised me was how many people wanted to know why?

* “You’re already a trainer, recognised in our industry, why would you want to become certified?”

And

* “You’re are an exotic animal trainer, why would you want to do a professional dog training certification?”

As a behavior nerd who goes around with an obsession of behavior geekiness all of the time – I will be honest – I was a bit taken aback by this. I thought “hang on – isn’t everyone a massive behavior nerd that just wants to do all of the behavior things all of the time? Isn’t it obvious why I would want to it?”

Apparently not! Consequently, I thought I would write this blog post outlining the three main reasons why I want to (and additionally think it’s very important that I do) do my KPA certification.

1) Sharpening my saw! I have always been someone who just loves learning! Pure and simple! And I want to know the best way to do the things that I love to do! Could I continue on with my career and be successful with Animal Training Academy without doing this certification? Certainly, but that’s not the point.

I’m reminded of when I was just beginning to work in zoo’s and I was doing my certificate in captive animal management! This was a certificate that was required in Australia (where I was living at the time) to get a job in a zoo.

At the same time to do the certificate, you needed to be working full time in a zoo keeper position! lol, it totally didn’t make sense! I however managed to get a full time job and yet I still chose to do the certificate – and was a better keeper because of it!

In a similar vein – currently, I run what I’m going to label as a successful animal training business, yet I still want to get certified. And I think I will be a better animal trainer because of it.

2) I want to stay up to date with the tribe (i.e. Animal Training Academy members)

One thing we like to do within the Animal Training Academy is toot our own horn and celebrate any/all approximations towards our animal training goals! In fact I give a free ATA membership to someone just for managing what we call the “toot your own horn” thread in the ATA members only facebook group!

Because of this I am very aware of what ATA members are doing and what learning opportunities are most popular!

The certification that I feel I see the most ATA members doing is KPA! Hence to stay updated and relevant I want to know what this is all about! Hence I’m doing the certification myself.

3) I believe regulation and certification will help more animals and people.

From my understanding, the sad reality is that in many places just about anyone can call themselves an animal trainer. That means anyone can grab an electric shock collar and/or a choke chain and charge someone money to tell them to use it on their dogs! I am not okay with this.

I am lucky that ATA has grown over the years and has an audience of beautiful like-minded people from around the globe! As someone who has the privilege of creating content that reaches an audience of 15-20,000 hungry behaviour nerds on a monthly basis I want to share my story with the ATA audience (with you) to discuss something I think is really important! This is Certification!

This is something that is highlighted by the Animal Training Academy podcast show! Watch the video below to see a 12 minute mash-up highlighting the podcast guests’ visions for the future (which includes the need for certification and regulation).

And that’s it. This is what I told people at the Ken Ramirez workshops why I am doing this! And it made me realise you might be interested in why I’m doing it too.! Hence this blog post.

What about you? Have you done certification? Do you think it’s important? Why? (Leave your comments in the comments section below)

Best Regards
Ryan Cartlidge
Animal Training Academy

If you could have dinner with absolutely anyone in the world – who would it be?

Someone at the top of my list would definitely be Ken Ramirez! Well last week, I had this specific opportunity, spending three and a half hours having dinner with Ken, and – amazing past ATA podcast guest – Laura Ryder.

We talked about SO many things – the conversations were MEGA insightful, emotional (at times) & hilarious!

And if this wasn’t enough, we additionally got four whole days of workshops from Ken – talking about non-food reinforcers, concept training, problem solving, aggressive animals, medical training, training the trainers and conservation training! (VIA the fantastic NZ Association of pet dog trainers, APDT conference) The learning was amazing! So I wanted to sit down and share with you some of the things I learned! Here are my top five take aways;

1) At the risk of sounding like a broken record lol – the ATA tribe is AMAZING! I got to see so many of our NZ/Australian members as well as meet some for the very first time!

2) The importance of teamwork, brainstorming and making sure we have all the information!

Ken shared with us many stories where creative solutions were required to solve training challenges. One of these stories will stick with me forever!

This story was about some conservation work Ken did with wild Stella Sea Lions! Ken and his team were stuck on one aspect of the training plan and were sat in a room with many subject matter experts/professionals brainstorming solutions! They were having a really challenging time until eventually an intern – who was sat in the corner observing – stuck their hand up and suggested a really simple idea! This idea was implemented and proved to be a fundamental component of this projects success!

Sometimes we can’t see what’s right in front of us! It might take someone a little bit removed from the situation and seeing things from a different perspective to provide an idea and/or insight that can change everything!

3) Techniques for training aversive procedures!

Ken shared with us stories about his experience training blood draws and injections with animals! He talked about how we might approximate an animal accepting a needle being pushed through their skin! One technique I learned was where an animal presents a body part and then accepts an object interacting with this body part. One day it might be a blunt pencil, the next a dish brush followed but a scrunched up piece of paper, then a tennis ball, then a cloth and so on and so forth. Consequently what the animals learns is something will interact with this body part but the animal doesn’t know what. And inevitably it’s a needle through the skin. Ken also says he leaves significant gaps between needles, to the point it might only happen every couple of months.

4) The use & training of new non food reinforcers

Ken shared his strategy to teaching animals brand new non-food reinforcers and how he integrates this into his training. This can be anything from a clap, to a head scratch to a splash of water for marine mammals! Ken also outlined how he maintains the value of these reinforcers over time and integrates this into his everyday training! This was brand new to me to think about using and training reinforcers in this way! I’m SO excited to now have this in my learning repertoire and looking forward to adding it to my training!

5) Thinking about the balance of reinforcement when problem solving

One of my favourite sessions was when Ken shared with us his problem solving strategy. Part of this presentation included exercises to think about the balance of reinforcement when working through a behavior we might be labelling as problematic. This requires us to hypothesis possible reinforcers and punishers for either and/or both the behavior we want and the unwanted behavior we are seeing.

When the hypothesised punishers outweigh the reinforcers for a desired behaviour, then we can experiment with shifting the balance by strengthening reinforcers and removing punishers! By testing out our hypothesis via the animals future behavior one HUGE outcome is that we can move toward revealing the “true motivation” behind the behaviour/s we are focusing on.

When I think about this, it seems so simply – but ken did a really good job of explaining it and also offering practical exercises to compliment the idea.

— — — — —

Well there you have it! My top five things I took away from four days with Ken Ramirez! “Nearly” as good as having dinner with the man himself!

Have you learned from Ken as well? I would love to hear what he has taught you?

And if you haven’t then here is your exclusive opportunity – First make your self a nice meal, then sit down to eat and put on this amazing ATA podcast episode with myself and Ken – Listen HERE!

OR… if you want even more!?! Ken also joined us for a 2 hours, 15 minute LIVE Q&A earlier this year! This is for ATA premium members only but you can access if (& all other 59 ATA web-class replays) via this exclusive $1 trail link >>> CLICK HERE … we hope to see you on the inside! (See a full list of past ATA web-classes here).

Best Regards
Ryan Cartlidge
Animal Training Academy

Last week I was super excited to head back to Moonlit Sanctuary – my third visit – for a fun filled week hanging out with the amazing Bosch the Barking owl & the wonderful world changing team of animal care professionals! Here are 5 of my favourite takeaways from my time with the team and our furred, feathered & scaly friends!

* 1) Potoroos might just be my new favourite species! So cute! Watch the video with trainer Sian Mulhull below

* 2) As always we were constantly reminded about the importance of celebrating approximations and breaking things down into the smallest learnable chunks for both our animals & human learners. Here we achieve great results by teaching Ash Herrod (the human learner) about luring with the critically endangered Orange Bellied parrots (Neo & Spot). 

* 3) I was reminded about how much I absolutely LOVE doing what I do! My rate of reinforcement was so high throughout this whole visit getting to work with creatures great and small – including this spotted tree monitor in the video below with the amazing Hannah Wiggs!

This animal hasn’t been involved in a formal training program before and we were unsure if it would even take food from us being so close! Consequently it was reinforcing to get this result & equally so – to see the Joy in the trainers eyes!

* 4) In my opinion – as important (if not more important) then the time we spend in front of the animal is the time we spend planning! ?

Consequently, we relished the opportunity to get super geeky & use Susan Friedman’s – Functional Assessment & Intervention Design (FAID) tool – to consistently work through some of the bigger challenges at Moonlit sanctuary!

This tools helps us come up with an intervention based on the individual animal in front of us, their unique antecedents & learning history whilst simultaneously honouring the function of the behavior we are labelling as undesirable!

I hope everyone has been enjoying these weekly(ish) posts? I’ve had such good feedback and I’ve been loving all the personal comments people have been posting! So much so, that I’ve decided to slowly turn everything into a blog on the ATA website (which is what you are seeing here).

Additionally this week I have a few exciting updates based on numerous things we have been talking about recently!

* Firstly, our cat enclosure is now finished to a level where the cats can go outside! ARGHHH I am so excited about this, as are our cats! See update in the ATA public forum FB group here >>> http://bit.ly/Finally_lol​

You can see more info about the project “in action” in the ATA blog here >>> bit.ly/Cat_blog1

* Secondly a few weeks ago I sent our a email called “Everyone has compassion fatigue & we need to talk about it!” See It here >>> http://bit.ly/ATA_Compassion_Fatigue

In this email I spoke about my realisation that I was at or past the point of burn out with the amount of time and emotional energy I was dedicating to animal training and ATA (Animal Training Academy]) I also highlighted steps I have taken to move to a healthier place!

The email was inspired by a – at the time – an unreleased podcast recording with the amazing Petra Edwards who bravely shared her journey with compassion fatigue and burnout! Well, we actually released this episode this week … which was followed by an outpouring in the ATA members only community areas from tribe members who identified with Petra’s story!

This is an absolute MUST listen for anyone that works with animals and in a caring role! CLICK HERE >>> htttp://bit.ly/ATA_Petra_Edwards

After listening to this episode I would love to hear your thoughts! Did you relate to any parts of it? What parts? Does it make you want to change anything about what you are doing? Do you have your own story to share?

As always looking forward to your thoughts and you can leave a comment below

Best Regards
Ryan Cartlidge
Animal Training Academy​

P.s This coming week I am doing a week long in person zoo consult at the wonderful Moonlit Sanctuary in Melbourne Australia (My third time visiting here)! We will be working with Eagles, Koalas, Wombats, Dingos, Goanna’s, Quoll’s, Cockatoo’s Potoroo’s & more! I will make sure to send some cool updates – so stay tuned! ?

Last week I got to spend an amazing 4 days hanging out with Dr. Susan Friedman, Peta Clarke and 200+ behavior nerds (& dogs) deep within the beautiful Barrington Tops in New South Wales Australia!

Not only did we get to see Wild Platypus on a Daily basis but we got to geek out on both scientific and practical aspects of what we do!

So as I sat at Sydney Airport nearing the final leg of my journey home I thought I would start to write this email and share – whilst still fresh in my memory – 5 amazing takeaways for me from that sensational week! Here they are

1. I was reminded of how little I know! OMG was I ever! I got to experience Susan’s Emotions inside out presentation and consequently there is going to be some latent learning as I process all of this over the coming weeks/days/months! I was left with the words “emotions track contingencies” and I’m currently working on fully digesting what this means and how it works

2. The ATA tribe is AMAZING! – This was four days of meeting so many individuals from ATA’s audience in the flesh and getting hugs that in some instances have been years in the making!

3. Some offerings on definitions of choice & control. I realise how much I use these words interchangeably and I really had to stop and think about the different definitions. At the moment I am left with the these two thoughts – control is all about giving the learner the ability to manage/control outcomes with their behavior, and choice is about settings up contingencies in ways that offer the animal many different outcome options – including the option/control to say no. What do you think?

4. The use of reinforcement placement – it was an absolute joy to watch Peta Clarke in action coaching numerous trainer/dog teams! One topic that came up time and time again was reinforcement placement. This is definitely something I am going to be thinking about more and more in my training over the coming while and how I can improve my skill in this area.

5. High rates of reinforcement. Seeing the contrast in rates of reinforcement when Peta Clarke demonstrated some live training for us in relation to some of the other dog/trainer teams working at the event really allowed me to see how much Peta skilfully moved behavior. This was so beneficial for me to see live and was one of the biggest take aways for me!

To be honest I could go on and on and on… lol and I’m sure as the events of the last week marinate in my mind over the coming whilst latent learning will provide me with so much value from the richness of spending time with individuals at the cutting edge of what we do! #feelingblessed! 

If you want to find out more about these two wonderful human beings check out some previous ATA podcast episodes where we were very privileged to have them as guests!

ATA podcast episode with Susan Friedman here >>> http://bit.ly/Friedmanpodcast

ATA podcast episode with Peta Clarke here >>> bit.ly/ATA_Peta_Clarke

Best Regards
Ryan Cartlidge
Animal Training Academy

P.s Want access to over 6 hours of exclusive interview time with Susan Friedman?

You can access two (3 hour long) web-class replays with Dr. Susan Friedman inside the ATA members only area right now! These are for premium members only but we are giving you the change to view them for just $1 – CLICK HERE for your trial membership and get started now!

What’s your never ending animal project?

Everywhere I go people are requesting updates on how my cat enclosure is going! Well I should say the never-ending cattery building mission – because it’s not actually going to enclose anything until it’s finished! And I thought I would be finished 4 weeks ago! lol

We have just moved house and are consequently needing to build a new cattery! Our two beautiful felines don’t leave our property for a variety of reasons! One of the big one’s being I am a huge conservationist and we have a lot of native New Zealand birds visit our gardens & I feel out cats would love to … (fill in the blanks).

So here’s it’s evolution in pictures! All the wood used so far is wood brought with us from our old house & wood lying around on our new property!

The cat netting is also recycled from our old house where out entire back garden was netted over!

I got told off for the photo below from wifey! She was totally correct – selfies and ladders don’t mix lol … But now that it’s taken it’s cool to see a birds eye view!

Next step was access from the house! – The guy who installed the cat doors said this was only the second time in 50 years he has put a door somewhere as odd as an elevated bathroom window (Which will be their exit from the south end of the house! – with added climbing structures of course).

Finally this week I have added a door so we can access the space from our garden. Once again this was recycled and used to be on the front of our previous house to prevent the cats from running out onto the road…

The final wall is going to go where the step ladder is in the above image! So excited to hopefully get this done soon ? ??? lol

What about you? What projects have you started for your animals that have taken a little bit longer than expected? Looking forward to hearing from you!

Best Regards
Ryan Cartlidge
Animal Training Academy

P.s see photos of my old cat enclosure in this thread from the Animal Training Academy public forum on FaceBook >>> bit.ly/ATA_FB_old_cat_space

This week I was really lucky to record a podcast episode with one of the bravest guests we have had on the Animal Training Academy show so far! They bared all by sharing their personal story working as a dog training consultant and realising that they were suffering from compassion fatigue.

Recording this podcast was actually quite confronting for me.

Firstly, this person shared the idea of compassion fatigue being a spectrum and that we likely all experience some of the related feelings and behaviours involved – but to different degrees.

Secondly an activity, involving breaking down into percentages how much time and emotion we put into the different things/aspects in our life’s was discussed. The guest shared that doing this activity was quite shocking for them as it made them realise how much emotional energy was spent on their own clients and dogs!

As a result of spending so much time and energy on our own & our client’s animals’ – other aspects of our lives – like, partners, family and friends have the risk of being attended to with very little to no emotional reserves.

It scares me to think that I feel I give about 70-80% to Animal Training, behavior and my business… After this what valuable energy might I have left for my wife, my family, my friends and for my own health and wellbeing?

Whilst recording this episode I was also reminded of my episode with Jean Donaldson who talked about burnout. One of the things Jean suggested was that we need a hobby away from what we do!

This idea was highlighted for me when I was in Australia for a four-day animal training conference recently which had over 200 delegates attending. I had a lot of people come and tell me how much they love Animal Training Academy! Which was really nice. Additionally, and on more than one occasion I was asked what hobbies I had outside of Animal Training. The scary thing is I didn’t know what to say!

I’ve realised my focus might be labeled as maladjusted! So I’ve taken action!

Firstly, I spoke to my wife about this in what was quite an emotional conversation! Then together we identified 5 areas I could focus on in my life that have nothing to do with animal training and/or ATA! … And each week I am going to set goals in these areas that I will email to my wife so that she can hold me accountable!

Here are the 5 areas

1.Marriage
2.Family
3.Friendship
4.Fitness and health
5.Self-care/hobby

I’m writing this to be open and possibly encourage others to be open about it as well. Because left undiscussed compassion fatigue and burnout can lead to depression and other mental health challenges!

What’s your experience here? I want you to know you’re not alone and we’re here for you if you want to talk! You can comment below… And please make sure to reach out to your local R+ Community!

Thanks for taking the time to read!

Ryan Cartlidge
Animal Training Academy

P.S Here is the episode with Jean Donaldson where she talks about burn out (listen at 29:38) >>> http://bit.ly/Jean_Donaldson

P.P.S Last year I was super lucky to connect with Dr. Vanessa Rohlf to talk specifically about Compassion Fatigue, grief and other challenges as they relate to our industry. Listen to this episode here >>> http://bit.ly/ATA-Vanessa-Rohlf

P.P.P.S See another post about compassion fatigue on ATA members Kelli Inglis’s blog here >>> bit.ly/Kelli_Blog

Training Lacie, Training Myself… (Written by ATA member Hannah Wiggs)

Moonlit Sanctuary is a privately owned Wildlife and Conservation Park, involved in a number of conservation programs, as well as a commitment to educating its visitors whilst maintain a high standard of animal welfare.

For many years the only animal training that happened at the park was based around encounter animals and basic husbandry of a couple of species, such as dingoes. In 2015, keepers worked with an animal trainer to create a Conservation in Action show, which includes free flight birds, mammals and recently training has extended to reptiles.

Whilst initially utilised as a tool to increase visitor interaction, and hence education, we have now begun training animals to assist in their own husbandry/participate voluntarily in their own health checks, and remove themselves from their enclosures (if desired) for maintenance. All using positive reinforcement techniques.

My training journey commenced with Lacie, the lace monitor – creative name I know! Lacie had no prior training, nor did I. She very rarely had positive interactions with keeping staff aside from her feeding time, which consisted of a bowl being dropped over the wall into her enclosure from outside. Historically to health check her, she had been forcibly caught and restrained whilst being weighed, checked over and removed from the enclosure whilst maintenance occurred.

However, handling Lacie at all posed a risk – with a very powerful tail, long and sharp nails and a nasty bite she was a formidable opponent. Not only was it dangerous for us to interact with her in this way, it was extremely stressful for her also. She communicated this to us by loud hissing, writhing away from grips and attempting to whip, scratch and bite. I had two bits of information to go off:

1. There were potential hazards identified with working with Lacie (and management plans in place to mitigate these).
2. She liked food… a lot

Initially I was hesitant to train such a ‘respectfully powerful’ lace monitor. – I was intimidated, apprehensive and even scared of her, and I dare say she felt much the same about me. Progress was difficult to see and came very slowly. I begun by loading a clicker, which in retrospect was the most difficult thing to train. This may have been because we had not built a relationship and trusting bond at this stage, or perhaps because I could not interpret her body language to the same extent as I am able to now.

Want access to the whole kit & caboodle of Animal Training Academy resources… CLICK HERE to see what’s on offer via your very own Animal Training Academy membership.

I was unsure if she was responsive to the clicker, to my hand movements, me dropping the food or another antecedent that was not obvious to me. All of this training has been done from outside of the enclosure, and numerous food delivery methods were trialled (and largely failed as you can see below). I decided to simply ‘drop’ balls of mince on to the perches and other smooth surfaces in her enclosure.

In consultation with more experienced keepers, Lacie was introduced to a target stick. Her body language became clearer to me at this point. If she was ‘uncomfortable’, she would raise her head high, coil her tail, clench her hind legs and simply walk away from me. Whilst it was not the behaviour I desired, it provided clarity as to where the limits of our trust bank stood.

With a prior learning that objects coming over Lacie’s head were used to immobilise and catch her, I predicted that she may perceive a target stick as an aversive stimulus. It took countless sessions over numerous weeks (and an immense amount of frustration and feelings of inadequacy) to make any headway with the target sticks. Subtle changes started to occur in her body language. Her eyes would steadily stay on me during the training; she was focused. She had now learnt that I meant food was coming – and that I was pretty alright due to this.

Her tail became less and less coiled when the target stick, and myself, were present. If it were coiled, her legs would not be clenched and she would not walk away. Eventually I could lower the stick into the enclosure, have her look at it, *click* and be rewarded. Once her look became direct and obvious, I altered the criteria – encouraging her to move towards the target stick. At the time I was unsure how to do this, but thankfully she was not.

I clearly remember a moment I shared with her at this stage- she looked at the target stick for ~3 seconds, then looked directly in to my eyes as if to say ‘Where is my food? I have done the behaviour thank you very much’. I think it was in this moment that I truly appreciated her intelligence, her capability of thinking and ultimately her choice and ‘animality’. Thankfully, it was also after this glance that she took a step closer to the target stick.

Now, she is a completely target trained and ‘respectfully powerful’ lace monitor. Most sessions she eagerly awaits me, except for when it is too hot or cold. I have also introduced her to a set of scales, targeted her on to them and rewarded her for stationing on them- she weighs herself! No more capture and restraint for this aspect of her husbandry.

Going forward, I intend to utilise target training to crate train her and get her to participate in her own husbandry and health checks- with Lacie maintaining complete choice. However, life is not perfect and training is not perfect. We have had setbacks both minor and major, with the onset of winter weather greatly impacting her eagerness for training and her food consumption. Currently, I feel as if training is in limbo – we cannot currently move forwards, and I am questioning if she will retain her learnt behaviours or forget them (and me) by Spring. Optimism and hope, however, are integral to working in the zoo keeping industry, and I will wait with baited breath for our next learning opportunity together!

Training and animal welfare go hand in hand. It is incredibly exciting to be involved in this movement, and be given a platform to educate visitors as to the depth of intelligence our scaly friends possess. Training any animal, let alone a reptile with such a difficult past, was completely new to me- and I believe that she has trained me, taught me and shaped me much more so than I have her. My perception of this ‘fierce beast’ has changed dramatically- I have witnessed her sweet nature, seen her excitement, and discovered her individuality. Training her has become my favourite part of the working week, and I cannot wait to see where we end up on our training journey together.

Like what you see here? And want more amazing resources from Animal Training Academy. CLICK HERE to see what’s on offer for you within the ATA Membership.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR – ATA member Hannah Wiggs

Hannah Wiggs is the Team Leader of Reptiles and Logistics at Moonlit Sanctuary, in Victoria, Australia. Whilst she grew up with a respect for animals and the environment, she only realised her desire to work directly with them post- high school, and indeed after dropping out of an unrelated university degree.

Her interest piqued after gaining employment in the café of Moonlit Sanctuary. To improve communication and understanding between ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ staff, she started volunteering once a week with the keeping staff. Within weeks, her priorities shifted more and more to the great outdoors – despite the infamous Melbourne weather. Shortly, she begun running nights tours and accepted an offer for paid keeping work.

This week I’ve really been enjoying listening to some great podcast episodes from other animal trainer’s shows! I especially loved a recent episode from Hannah Branigan’s – Drinking from the toilet – podcast where she spoke to John McGuigan about “Training trolls” …

They were of course talking about internet trolls not the beings from Norse Mythology lol

Wikipedia describes an internet troll as “ … a person who starts quarrels or upsets people on the Internet … in an online community … “

This episode really hit home with me because a lot of my day is spent engaging with other people on social media and although I don’t necessarily come across as many trolls as John McGuigan – I definitely do find some engagements much more challenging than others!

Consequently I thought I would compile my own list of 5 things I recommend doing to successfully engaging with other animal trainers online, especially if a post has triggered a strong emotional reaction in you and you have a different opinion – (Or you can just let the cat do it for you; hehehe) … see list below under photo;

1) Take your time to reply… you don’t need to reply straight away.

A weird thing I find about social media is that it feels really urgent! Like we need to reply to this person right now! Although in my experience when emotions run high this doesn’t put us in a very good position to respond!

I am becoming more and more aware of this nagging feeling to respond immediately, whilst at the same time am becoming better at giving my response some time.

This doesn’t mean you can’t write out a response straight away though, I often do this and then revisit it 24 hours after I have had some time away from it.

2) Respond with curiosity. 

Recently I had the absolute pleasure of recording a podcast episode with Steve White! Steve actually taught me, what I think is going to be one of the biggest lessons I take away from 2018 … >>> Be curious <<<

Rather then jump in and just unload your thoughts and feelings! First seek to understand why the other person did what they did … what led to the decisions they made?

You can listen to the full episode with Steve White here (Steve talks specifically on this subject at around the 38 minute mark!) >>> http://bit.ly/ATA_Steve_White

AND watch your inbox! Steve will be joining us again LIVE in the ATA members area for a special members only web-class later this month! EEEEE! More on this soon.

3) Think about what you want from the conversation.

4 amazing questions to ask yourself before you respond;

• What is the ultimate goal you want from the conversation?
• What does the other person want from the conversation?
• What do you want for the relationship?
• What don’t you want from the conversation?

I learned about these questions in my favourite book of all time! Crucial conversations! If you haven’t heard about this book, this is a MUST read! You can learn more about it in a special ATA podcast episode we did on this topic right here… http://bit.ly/Crucial_conversations

Most of the time – everyone wants the same thing! To do what’s best for the animal! (Both you and the person you are talking to) We just have different ways of going about it.

What I see happen though – is people end up being blocked, deleted from the person’s friend list or removed from a group. At this point – our ability to be able to help is gone! Like we do with our animals there’s benefit in focusing on the relationship first!

4) Privately edit the response from the other person before you answer…

Sometimes I literally cut and paste someones comment from social media into a separate word document and before each label the person uses to describe their animal I will write “… what this person calls (insert label here).

Additionally I will do the same with opinions. Before everything the other person wrote that is just an opinion I will write “ … in this person’s opinion (insert opinion here) … ”

I will go through an entire post like this inserting those 2 things where appropriate.

I will then read the post again and reply to this modified version. This really helps me narrow down on fact and explore that curiosity of what behaviors are actually behind the labels being used and why the people have reached the opinions they have…

5) Focus on one thing at a time

This is really something new I am experimenting on! Often I find my responses can get long and I focus on a lot of different aspects of the conversation. But by doing the suggestion from number one – and taking some time away from my draft response – I can normally pick out what is most relevant and just focus on one thing in my reply.

This makes your response much smaller and I feel easier to achieve the goals you set in point 3 above with regards to what you actually want from the conversation! The jury is still out on this one though… time will tell if I repeat, modify or suppress this behavior moving forward.

— — — — —

What about you? What have you found to be successful in engaging with others online? Especially when emotions run strong, stakes are high and opinions vary? Let me know by commenting below.

Best Regards
Ryan Cartlidge
Animal Training Academy

Landgoed Hoenderdaell is a small zoo, which tries to do the best for their animals. Large exhibits, which are as natural as possible.

They used to have a birds of prey demonstration where most birds were tethered to their perches in between shows. This didn’t fit the idea of the zoo anymore. Also due to the changing of public opinion and the fact that there are groups that are against bird shows, Landgoed Hoenderdaell wanted to change their way of keeping their birds.

A plan was made to build a huge complex, where all birds are housed in big aviaries with direct entrance to the demonstration area.

Of course, this meant that the way of training had to be different as well. And that is where we came in.

Silke Kruk is an experienced falconer and I am an experienced PRT trainer. We long had the ambition to combine this and start training birds of prey with PRT. But in Holland, this is not common yet.

We were given a couple of ‘rules’ by the owner when we started:

• No animals tethered.
• All animals had to participate voluntarily.
• We had to do it with the staff that was available (volunteers and old skool trainers).
• And we were given more than double the birds that were originally there.

Want access to the whole kit & caboodle of Animal Training Academy resources… CLICK HERE to see what’s on offer via your very own Animal Training Academy membership.

So a big challenge – but one we were ready to take. We soon figured out how we wanted to do it, use positive reinforcement to make the bond between trainer and bird stronger. And use small steps to get the birds used to the new area and the fact that they now have a choice.

Training the birds was not the hardest part.

Most of the animal training steps you can see in the video above.

We gave this presentation at the IMATA conference 2018 in Portugal. We received an award for second best presentation in the Conservation and Education Category. Which we really appreciated. It is a physical compliment for all the work we did.

But the training of the staff, that was and still is a big challenge. Something we didn’t really put in the presentation, but want to address here more clearly.

We have 3 paid animal caretakers in our bird division and the rest is done by volunteers. The volunteers are all very well intended, but most of them are not experienced with PRT. Also, the old staff was very used to the way it always was done.

The staff and volunteers were used to walking with the birds on the glove, attached to the glove. They were used to using the weight as a way of determining if the birds can fly. And they were used to always show the food when calling an animal. Also, in the old demonstration, they used a whistle to call the birds. In the new situation, we use the whistle as a bridge. To tell the birds they have done a good behavior and will get a reward. Totally different….

And as most of us know, changing the behavior of people is way more difficult than changing the behavior of animals. And not only their behavior had to be changed also their way of thinking.

We started with explaining them positive reinforcement training. The benefits, the use of the bridge and the way we start training new behaviors. We did this in a theoretical course. Most of them understood this theoretical course, but we still had to change their way of working with animals.

When we started, our staff missed the control over the birds. They missed the walking around with the birds. And they had to get used to the fact that in the beginning, they couldn’t do everything with all birds, as they were used to.

In the beginning, mainly Silke and I did the training. And when the birds understood the process, the volunteers could start working with the birds again. At this point in the training, we needed the experience and consistency. Most volunteers work 1 or max 2 days a week… Things can change very much in one week.

Slowly we started to show the volunteers 1 by 1 what we expected of them and how it worked. But since every day we have a different team, this is difficult. What we told person A on Monday, changed in a week and was different to what we told person B on Saturday. And the next week we had to tell everyone different things again. So this resulted in some setbacks in training.

For instance: we were training our Southern Hornbill to pick up a fake snake and shake it. Like they would do in the wild to kill the snake. At first, we would reward for picking it up, then for a small shake etc. So we told person A they could reward for picking it up. But in a week the Hornbill knew how to shake very well. We just forgot to tell person A. So she kept rewarding for just picking up…. The hornbill got confused by this and stopped shaking altogether.

This made it clear we had to make a system where people can read the most important changes. But even making people read a board or reading and filling in training sheets, which they never had done before, is pretty difficult…

Even now, after almost a year, still not all volunteers get the part of not showing the food. Or they think they are hiding the food, but it still can be seen… They are so used to that, it is very hard to change that habit. Even the use of the whistle was something that was hard to change. One of the reasons why we bought a new whistle. Just to break the habit.

It took a while for all birds were flying well in the new situation. But now the birds are doing great and the volunteers can see the results: higher flying weights, more interest in participating and all the positive feedback we get from visitors and of course from all of you.

Now the volunteers start accepting the new way. And are more motivated to change their old habits. They even start thinking about how they can train new behaviors.

That is the reason why we wanted to do the presentation in the first place. To show people all over the world that changing a habit can be done. And that changing the old way of training is possible. It takes some time, but it can and I think should be done.

Cheers Saskia Verbruggen and Silke Kruk

Like what you see here? And want more amazing resources from Animal Training Academy. CLICK HERE to see what’s on offer for you within the ATA Membership.

About the Author – ATA member Saskia Verbruggen

Saskia started her career as a pinniped trainer at the Dolfinarium in Harderwijk, the Netherlands in 2002. This was her first encounter with positive reinforcement training (P.R.T) and she worked there for 8 years until she decided she wanted to gain some experience training other species as well.

In the next 7-8 years, Saskia had various jobs training and working with different animals, including; training birds of prey with a falconer, managing a petting zoo, training seals and harbor porpoises at a seal rescue center & training parrots in Oasis Park on Fuerteventura.

In April 2017 Saskia started her own company ‘Roundeurope Animal Training’ where she hopes to get more people interested in P.R.T, help animal caretakers (private and professional) to be better trainers and improve the welfare of all animals.

In September 2017 Saskia got offered a job at Landgoed Hoenderdaell where she was asked to start training all birds (parrots and raptors) with P.R.T, a really big challenge.

Saskia’s next challenge will be training the big cats at the rescue center of Stichting Leeuw.

• CLICK HERE for Saskia’s website
• CLICK HERE for the Landgoed Hoenderdaell website
• CLICK HERE for the Stichting Leeuw website

I know it’s not a parrot! ?

On the 10^th March 2017, I shared this video on Facebook, with the wider falconry and animal training community. This is Jess, a nervous female Harris Hawk whom I had been working with closely. Jess, like all birds of prey, is very intelligent but we were having issues with neo-phobia (fear of new things and objects) when out flying and during public demonstrations. I decided to explore the idea that enrichment and training may help her overcome some of this fear…. and it worked! This video though not only showcased Jess’s problem solving and memory skills (this was the first time she had seen this puzzle again for 6 months) but it also had wider implications for me. Amongst the many positive messages, I also received a backlash from, shall we say, more traditional members of the falconry community. This including informing me that Jess was not a parrot, which I knew, and that I should stop messing around with her and fly her properly, which I already did!

This got me thinking, are we really so set in our ways that certain groups of animals get left out of enrichment and +R training? After a bit of digging, I discovered that there were very few resources and articles regarding birds of prey specifically so I would have to come up with my own ideas and training plans, this blog details some of the results…

So the first thing I looked into was the concept of cognitive enrichment, I found two definitions that helped me a lot:

Enrichment: “an animal husbandry principal that seeks to enhance the quality of captive animal care by identifying and providing the environmental stimuli necessary for optimal psychological and physiological wellbeing”

page 1. Shepherdson, D. J. (1998). Tracing the path of environmental enrichment in zoos. In: D. J. Shepherdson, J. D. Mellen, & M. Hutchins (Eds), Second nature: Environmental enrichment for captive animals (pp. 1-14). Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution.

Cognitive enrichment: (1) engages evolved cognitive skills by providing opportunities to solve problems and control some aspect of the environment, and (2) is correlated to one or more validated measures of well being”

page 6. Clark, F. E. (2011) Great ape cognition and captive care: Can cognitive challenges enhance wellbeing.? Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 135,1-12.

Although we tend to categorize enrichment into various forms such as environmental, food, social etc it seems that cognitive enrichment can span a few different categories and all animals use their brains in all situations.  I decided to focus on two main areas with my birds, environmental and training.

Environmental components for cognitive enrichment

One of the main points that stands out in Clark’s definition above is the idea of control, we are all getting quite on board with the idea of control during training but what about in the animal’s normal environment. Birds of prey in particular often have very little control over their aviary space, with many hawks and falcons being tethered. Tethering does have its place in husbandry but I am not going to get into a debate about that as it is a vast subject for discussion… maybe for another blog. Anyway, I made the decision early on in my business that all of my birds would be what we term free lofted, that is in an aviary without tethering so they are free to move around different perches.

This is where the element of control comes in, if all the perches in the aviary are made of the same thing and behave in the same way, as in are fixed, then although it looks like there is an element of choice this can be increased by changing the perching design. We use many different perches: swings, rope, branches, astroturf, logs, bungees covered in astroturf and platforms or shelves. We have also designed a unique perching bracket system (see video below) that allows us to change elements in the bird’s aviaries very quickly keeping the environment flexible and stopping the birds developing repetitive flight paths, a massive problem for birds in aviaries.

The other elements we can control in the aviaries is the addition of sand baths, water baths, showers, tunnels, and plants. These static objects may seem like small additions but they can help encourage natural behavior and foraging. Sand baths are great for adding live insects such as mealworms and locusts too, our small owls love chasing them around and digging through the substrate for them… in fact, our larger birds do as well. Watching a long-legged Harris hawk run after a locust is very enriching for us to watch too!

Want access to the whole kit & caboodle of Animal Training Academy resources… CLICK HERE to see what’s on offer via your very own Animal Training Academy membership.

Food presentation

For birds of prey one of the main reinforcers in their life is food, in fact, with some, I get the impression that I merely exist to them in order to bring them their dinner. Food presentation can be a great way to get a greedy bird to slow down and think things through a bit, as well as a great learning opportunity to explore new objects and problem-solving behavior, such as seen with Jess in the first video.

Our common buzzard, Elki also enjoys a forage box, with newspaper twists with bits of food in, and sticks and leaves. Once he has destroyed the box completely and got every bit of food out, which normally takes him up to an hour to do, he will then carry around the torn paper and sticks and ‘play’ with them for several hours afterward. This is one of his favorite enrichment items and he seems to get very excited when I bring the box over, more so than just his food straight on to a shelf as normal. This is also a wonderful demonstration of contrafreeloading, the theory that when given the choice, an animal seems to prefer to earn its food rather than be handed it on a plate. I have come across this so much whilst working with my birds and it is a lovely thing to see. Elki will ignore food he has already removed from the box in favor of finding more pieces still in the paper and sticks.

Another ‘puzzle’ feeder idea that we made was a meal worm dispenser over a sand bath, this worked very well for Kit, our African Spotted Eagle owl. Kit, bless his soul, is not the most active owl shall we say, and also has a habit of wolfing down his food and then stomping round his aviary complaining that every one else is still eating so why isn’t he! The aim of the meal worm feeder was to keep him mentally and physically active for longer in his aviary. We made it out of his normal tyre sand bath with a piece of plastic piping in a loop over it, and attached a reptile meal worm dispenser that you can buy at the pet shop. It worked really well and he did work out eventually that if he landed on the pipe it would dislodge the meal worms quicker so we have now added a perch to the top of the pipe.

Positive reinforcement training as an enrichment tool

It is a much-debated topic in the animal keeping industry as to whether training can be classed as enrichment or not. I personally believe it definitely does and, in a way, can be one of the most enriching things we can do with our animals. Training allows them to experience more freedom, choice and control in many situations, and in the case of our birds ultimately leads to free flight. Flying is arguably one of the most enriching activities a bird can do. At The Feathery Folk we have tried to take this one step further. We always try to use +R training with our birds and in its essence traditional falconry is the original +R. Without trust and reward our birds will not fly for us and those principles underpin everything we do. We have tried to adapt slightly though and we are working on a lot of husbandry training at the moment. Most of our birds will now sit on a glove to have their beaks and talons trimmed, with little or no restraint. This is a massive step as beak trims generally mean full restraint wrapped in a towel which is stressful for everyone involved so I am very glad that we have managed to almost completely phase this out now.

I am currently working with Boo, the Striped Owl, with the aim to be able to do a full unrestrained equipment change. He is still learning his bridge, ‘good’, and is not the most patient or still owl to work with so you can see from the video below that we have a little way to go. He does seems to love these training sessions and I have noticed a massive improvement in his all-round demeanour. He is more relaxed in his aviary and seems to be a lot less unnerved when we go in with new equipment or tools now.

The last point I would like to touch on is species-specific training. I have a collection of 14 birds of prey, consisting of 13 different species from a Little Owl to a Harris Hawk, so we have a lot of different natural skills there. We try to find each individual species niche and to find a behaviour that may be unique to them. This gives us a great training opportunity and really get our brains, and theirs, working overtime trying to work on this new behavior. All our birds are trained to various generic hand signals and commands such as a whistle recall and wait. We then work on their unique talents, Kit our African Spotted Eagle owl for example loves to run around on the floor. This is natural for him as they are a ground-nesting species and will forage amongst the grass. Since we built this into a specific behavior he has really come out of his shell in demonstrations and keeps the audience amused by legging it around the arena looking for little pieces of food we have scattered. It is also an excellent educational talking point, so not only enriching for him but also the public.

My proudest training moment however has been with Pippin, our 1 year old Common Barn Owl. Pippin has surpassed all my expectations so far and I am so excited to see how far I can go with her. To date she knows 4 different commands and hand signals, one of which is ‘up’ for a hover behaviour. Hovering is very hard work for a bird and barn owls will do it for just a few seconds allow themselves to pinpoint their prey accurately. It was a staged process with Pippin involving a lot of shaping but she picked it up so quickly and as you can see in the video below she is pretty good at it now!

I hope I have enlightened you a little on the possibilities for enrichment for birds of prey, but also I hope that I can encourage everyone to not think of the supposed restrictions of the taxa you are working with. Owls are generally thought of within the falconry world as being a little bit slow and stupid, and certainly not something worthy of spending time enriching. I, however, think that they are vastly underrated and are far from bird-brained! In fact, having worked with them now for 10 years I feel we should reclaim that insult and we should be proud to call ourselves bird-brained, I know I am.

Like what you see here? And want more amazing resources from Animal Training Academy. CLICK HERE to see what’s on offer for you within the ATA Membership.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR – ATA member Libby Cooper

Libby has always had a love of birds and owned two Senegal parrots in her teens, one of which, called Stoney, had a lot of behavioral issues due to being caged continually without any toys or interaction. Helping Stoney sparked an interest in +R training and enrichment for birds. Libby has been working with birds of prey for about 10 years after undertaking a falconry apprenticeship alongside studying Animal Management at Reaseheath College.

Libby set up The Feathery Folk as her own business nearly 4 years ago. Having always been interested in training and enrichment Libby was keen to incorporate this into the husbandry of her birds, even in a commercial setting. In 2016 she gave her first presentation on the subject of enrichment for birds of prey at the Abwak (Association of British and Irish Wild Animal Keepers) Symposium at Folly Farm in South Wales. It was very well received and on the back of this, the Bird of Prey Enrichment Facebook Group was set up. This now has over 1000 members from all over the world and has been a great platform for sharing ideas. Since then she has given presentations on this subject for other organizations including The Female Falconers Club.

Libby is very proud of The Feathery Folk teams’ husbandry and training practices and they have even designed and pioneered a new changeable bracket perching system that has even been used by London Zoo.

If you would like to follow The Feathery Folk on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheFeatheryFolk/
Website: www.thefeatheryfolk.co.uk

Behaviors You Wish You’d Never Started – Open Wide, The Saga….

Have you ever started teaching a new behavior and then wished you hadn’t?  Have you ever done this having painted yourself into a corner by publicly declaring your intentions? That’s even more fun.  A few months ago, I made that very mistake by publicly announcing I was going to teach my dog, Breezy (AKA Pooh), to open his mouth for tooth exams.  This is the story of a somewhat rocky journey…

First, get the behavior:

Easy!  Dogs open their mouths all the time, right?  How hard can it be to capture, lure or shape it?  For some, very easy.  For us? Not so much.

Method 01 – target upper and lower jaw.

This was my first choice.  On the face of it, using targets seemed like a no-brainer.  It is a very common way to teach a dog to open its mouth.  Almost every video of dogs I’ve seen used this method.  Pooh understands nose and chin targets.  In fact, he has a very strong sustained nose target – a full minute when timed. However, for a dog with such a strong sustained nose touch, it proved useless.

After many sessions of trying all I had was…. variations on a sustained target.  He WOULD NOT MOVE! We could get a lovely chin rest.  We had perfect, rock solid tooth targeting. Nose to hand, any position, no problem. Unfortunately, they all resulted in perfect stillness – except the eyes.  He would roll his eyes as if to say ‘well, come on! Click already!”.

Result? Fail.

Method 02 – open mouth around a large object.

I’m led to believe that this is a common method used by zoo trainers.  The large target is presented and the animal is clicked for opening their mouth in anticipation of grabbing at it. Maybe this works well because the animal doesn’t actually have to carry the item?  I don’t know, but for us I still couldn’t get any indication that Pooh was opening his mouth for any reason other than to grab/target the object.  There was very little anticipatory opening – either my timing really sucks or he was just incredibly quick and focused on the end result; he is, after all, a highly trained competition obedience dog – trained to retrieve just about anything. Present an object?  He’s thinking of carrying it.  Back to the drawing board.

Result? Fail.

Method 03 – open for a spoon or treat.

Another tried and tested method by the zoo community.  This time the animal is clicked for opening its mouth in anticipation of the food reward.  This sort of worked, maybe.  However, a bit too much learning history of manners and impulse control made this a little confusing and somewhat stressful.  It felt like I was teasing him.  Once the penny dropped that he was ‘doing something’ that made the click happen, he started offering previously learned behaviors such as eye contact and lick-your-nose. We both got frustrated. Oh well.  Another idea bites the dust.

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Result? Fail.

Method 04 – toss and catch.

After posting a few snippets of our struggles, someone suggested capturing the mouth open from tossing treats.  This was great fun, improved my food throwing and Pooh’s catching no end but didn’t further our quest much.  Again, timing was an issue and Pooh is not a dog to stand around with his mouth open hoping your aim is good. LOL

Result? Fail.

Method 05 – physical prompt.

By this point, I’d been struggling for weeks and I’d nearly given up.  However, I am nothing if not stubborn!  Re-watching a few of the earlier videos I saw something I’d missed the first times I’d viewed them: Pooh opened his mouth in anticipation when I stuck my thumb out.  There were a few times I’d been trying to place my thumb on his upper lip and missed, it had gone in his mouth which he’d obligingly opened for it – and I’d clicked it.  This was not intentional but hey, who cares! I could use it.

After some work we got to the stage where I’d present my thumb, he would offer a ‘top jaw target’ (usually resting his front incisors on my thumb) and stay there with his mouth a little bit open.  We were back to the duration ‘freeze in place’ problem.  Ok.  I bit the bullet and decided to try a physical prompt to see if I could get that bottom jaw to move even slightly.  I really didn’t want this to be aversive so I was very cautious about how I introduced it.  A very light touch with my other hand, while maintaining the ‘thumb target’ saw his lower jaw move.  YES!!!!  The process was:

‘Present thumb’ – rest top incisors on thumb – ‘physical prompt’ – open mouth – mark/reinforce.

I was hoping that by linking everything into a very predictable tight sequence the ‘present thumb’ cue would eventually cue the whole lot and I’d be able to drop the physical prompt.  We stayed at this point for quite some time.  Repeatedly I tried to fade the prompt. Repeatedly he told me that without it he was fixed in place.  Targets mean duration.

I was too close to give up now!

One of the things we as dog trainers are repeatedly told is ‘avoid unnecessary frustration’.  Good advice and something I try my best to do in my training.  However, for this, I decided that maybe a bit of frustration would be my friend.  What happens when you get frustration? Usually, the animal offers something else.  I decided to see if Pooh had been noticing what he was doing every time I’d touched his lower teeth.

I gave my thumb target cue – he gave me a lovely thumb/tooth rest.  I waited. He rolled his eyes. I waited longer. He started adding sound effects.  At this point, I was almost ready to bail.  He lowered his bottom jaw.  Click – PARTY!!!

You will never believe how much patience that bit took. It felt horrible!!

A few weeks of shaping that initial move and I had almost what I wanted – a cue and a distinct ‘open mouth’ behavior.

Time to add back some duration.  Pooh understands ‘wait’ to mean freeze in place.  Because it was positively trained I don’t find it adds stress or conflict so I’m happy to use it to ‘explain’ a task to him. So, by cuing ‘wait’ instead of clicking at the widest point of the open mouth, I quickly got ‘open and stay open’.  It was pretty easy to drop the verbal ‘wait’; it’s a process I’ve used a lot and he understands the game well so I continue to use it to ‘explain’ something to him as necessary.

It’s all very well to be able to ask a dog to open its mouth for you, however, it won’t be much use in real life if it’s not ‘proofed’ and the only person who can cue it is the owner.  I’d like to be able to use this in a veterinary setting if possible. So, the steps we are working on now are adding context and generalising to other people.  I am at the stage where I can shine a torch in his mouth, and peer about.

Next, I will see if I can lift lips or touch teeth with a pen.  This might take a while but we’re on more solid ground here because Pooh has already worked through many, many behaviors where ‘weird stuff to be ignored’ has been added.  He knows the game.

I have also had my husband start cuing the open mouth behavior.  Pooh is less confident about this but it’s coming.  The first time he asked, Pooh looked at him, looked at me, looked back at the hand signal and offered the tooth target behavior.  The opening of the jaw took a couple more reps but we’re getting there nicely now.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if next time my vet wants to check his teeth I can tell him how to ask – and Pooh will be able to have his oral exam without any pressure or restraint! A goal definitely worth working for I think!

Like what you see here? And want more amazing resources from Animal Training Academy. CLICK HERE to see what’s on offer for you within the ATA Membership.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR – ATA member Sarah Ripley

Sarah originally hails from the UK but swapped hemispheres 15 years ago and now calls Dunedin (New Zealand) home. She is a self-confessed science geek and avidly devours the latest research and thoughts of the R+ training community. Sarah grew up surround by dogs and farm animals in the beautiful Sussex countryside, then moved on to working with horses before returning to formal education. Her degree in Animal Behaviour and Psychology channeled an early fascination with the natural world into a life-long love of learning.  

Over the last 12 years, Sarah has been a strong advocate for R+ in Dog club training at all levels. Her personal training goals have focused on showing what R+ training can achieve in the Competition Obedience ring (an area renowned for less than kind training methods) making her border collie/husky, Pooh, up to Obedience Grand Champion in 2016.   Since becoming a professional dog trainer she has focused full time on ways to better communicate the joys, benefits, and subtleties of reward-based training for pet owners and dog sport competitors. If you would like to find out more, she can be found on Facebook and online.

CLICK HERE to see Sarah’s business page on FaceBook

CLICK HERE to see Sarah’s website