Chapter 2 in which I float balloons at 3: am and Alex hugs my horse

Saturday night I went to sleep easily but woke up at 3: am with thoughts buzzing in my head.  I was thinking about the way I approached the situation of Percy being frightened of the chicken.  I realized I had made a mistake to try to approach with him because, unlike other situations in which I approached scary things with him, I had no control over the chicken.  While I did not really think that the chicken would harm him, it could have naively approached us (in search of a tasty morsel in the grass) and that might have caused Percy to think I wasn't doing a very good job of keeping him safe.  I really need him to trust me and I can't give him any reason to think he'd be better off leaving me behind and saving himself.

I wanted to have some clear facts with which to proceed and so I sorted through my thoughts and came up with the following.  I called them Percy's balloons because I was afraid that after staying awake thinking about this for an hour and a half, I'd forget it all as soon as I fell asleep again, the thoughts floating off like Winnie-the-Pooh to the honey tree.  I used my phone in the dark, so as not to wake my roommate Sarah, and jotted down these thoughts:

1. Knowing Percy's mother, she does not hit the end of a rope even when explosive.  Neither does she run into you.  Percy seems to be as body aware as she is but I am not yet sure he is as careful as she is.  
2. If allowed rope freedom, Percy has never gotten away or even tried to pull away from me.  He is polite even when excited.  
3. If you try to restrain him,  he will fight.  He's been that way since he was a foal.  A combination of my respect for his athletic abilities and respect for his nature has prevented me from trying to force him to accept restraint.  Through clicker training, I have been able to train him to accept various kinds of restraint, from a halter to hoof trimming to a firm grip on his head to examine his teeth.  
4. Clicker work calms him, as it had done the previous day.  Leaving him alone to settle down does not.  When my husband had to repair the sheep barn roof last winter and was climbing up and down a ladder and walking around on the roof, Percy watched in horror.  I left him, assuming he'd get over it, but when I returned hours later, he was still staring, giraffe like.  Another time I had tied a tarp to the round pen on a windy day and his initial reaction was the same but we approached it together, one step at a time, only advancing when his head was below his withers and for a click and treat of each step.  The closer we got, the calmer he became.   He'd done lots with tarps previously but never when they were flapping and snapping in the wind.  But all that work with the tarp was at liberty- I was not forcing him to approach, I was reinforcing when he did and he was free to leave at any time. 

I had hoped that work like this would make him more trusting, exposing him to more things in life and he'd continue to stay with me in scary situations.  But then there was the ostrich potential.  So I had questions- should I do more tai chi wall work with him so it became a comforting thing rather than a forced control?  Should I have "put him to work" to distract him from the chicken rather than facing it? 

When Alex arrived the next morning, she found me cleaning Percy's stall.  Now that she has her own barn and home base, she seemed to be like the rest of us, enjoying a morning mucking.  She picked up a fork and cleaned Kizzy's stall while I shared Percy's balloons.  At the end, she was even more convinced he needed hugging.  

During the morning discussion, she explained an exercise she had developed at another clinic earlier in the season.  This was for a mare who did not want her girth area approached  (and she was quite adamant about keeping people away).  She adapted the exercise with Percy thusly: we set up two lawn chairs as large cones.  Alex stood on one side and I on the other side.  We were probably about 20 feet apart- each 10 feet from the invisible line drawn between the chairs (with the mare, who was an event horse, the chairs had been jump standards and they built up a jump for her to go over each way).  We each had a target stick.  I think we began by having me "send" Percy to Alex who was holding out her target stick.  He needed to investigate the chairs a bit first (not minding when he knocked one over) but then went and touched her target for a c/t.  Alex then took firm hold of his halter, wrapped her left arm over his nose where the noseband of his halter went and gave him a squeeze.  The moment he relaxed a tiny bit, she clicked and released.  She repeated this process several times, turning him in a small half circle after a few so that he was headed back toward me and hugged him some more.  Then using her left hand on his halter and right at his shoulder, she gently sent him back to me so I could do the same.  

Over that session and another one the next day, we made progress from Percy's nose, to his head, his poll, his neck, his withers and finally his girth area.  I feel conflicted writing this because I don't want it to sound as though we were physically restraining him while he fought to get away.  There were times he resisted but we certainly couldn't hug a 1200 pound horse to us when he didn't want it.   

Alex did state that we should take hold of his halter and not allow him to leave.  This was about him learning that pressure was ok and it was also not optional.   In his past, I had gone just to the point of contact with him, waited for a release from him and then released myself.  This was about going to the point of contact and pulling him to us, c/ting when he relaxed to the contact.  It wasn't a surrender, it was a relaxing.  I could feel it when he relaxed into my arms and I could see the expression in his eyes soften when he relaxed to Alex's hugs.  

Now, Alex being Alex, there were many other things going on at the same time below the surface.  These weren't just random hugs.  These were progressive flexions.  She was precise in how we held his head and neck, where our arms, and then hips, were placed so that we supported correct body mechanics.  He was not to wrap down and around but maintain a more correct alignment.  She felt a kink in his neck when she got halfway down.  I did not feel it but did feel him make a big step toward relaxation after she sent him back to me the next time.  Once we got to his chest and wither, she showed me how she used her hip at his shoulder in a lifting position, rather than pulling down on his withers- it reminded me of the way a chiropractor uses their body to manipulate a patient.  I need to review my anatomy.  

Caroline asked if a chiropractor or massage therapist would be helpful in that kink.  Alex was firm in saying that professionals can be very helpful but also that we can do a lot for our horses ourselves with the exercises we use.  This rang true for me because a daily morning yoga ritual keeps me putting one foot in front of the other each day without pain and vertigo.  We know our horses bodies- daily careful grooming ingrains the feel of their legs in our brains so that we sense the slightest heat or swelling- why not carry that over to the rest of the body?  Grooming him at home yesterday, I changed the feel of my currying with the grooming mitt so that I was feeling muscles and looking for potential tight spots, rather than just massaging the skin.  

I seem to have a very snuggly horse now.  I have previously worked on getting him to relax and lower his head when I comb his forelock- yesterday he voluntarily buried his head in my chest and with a wing and prayer, I wrapped his head in my arms, squished his ears and hugged tight- he didn't move a muscle. When I was picking out his run-in, he came over and instead of begging to play games (backing away, pricking his ears, trying to steal the pitchfork), he just wrapped his neck around me in a hug.  

Chapter One, in which Kizzy goes to Lilliput and Percy becomes undone by a chicken

This past weekend was the long-awaited yearly clinic with Alexandra Kurland.  I must start off by saying that the host, Caroline Albert, gets the Energizer Bunny award of the year from me.  With two school-aged children, four dogs in various stages of training, 8 horses, and a startup bustling dog training and daycare business, somehow she invited us into her home and barn and even cooked fabulous meals for us for three and a half days.  Her businesses are Click for Confidence (equine) and The Grateful Dog (canine).  A year and a half ago, she and her family (kids plus husband Wayne who is a farrier extraordinare) rescued a weanling colt.  The photos were heartbreaking: emaciated, barely strength to stand, covered in rain rot which came off in chunks, structurally unsound, one could only wonder what kind of future this poor thing could have.  Below, a photo of him this past weekend.

Smitten- now the picture of health and fitness

Amazing, isn't it?

When we arrived at the farm on Friday late afternoon, we were a truck and trailerful:  Percy, Kizzy-as-companion-to Percy, Eloise the Jack Russell, Sarah Memmi who traveled down with us for wonderful conversation and support, and myself.  I unloaded Percy who couldn't figure out which way to look first and Sarah unloaded Kizzy who saw there was grass so all was well in her world.  Percy has an amazing ability to turn into a giraffe when he needs to see all the world at once and so with head held high, we proceeded toward the paddock which Caroline had waiting for us.  As we approached, a small head and body appeared around the corner of the barn.  One of the farm minis had snuck between some rails and ended up in assigned paddock.  Had Percy been able to raise his head even higher at this astonishing sight, he would have.  Caroline's daughter grabbed a lead rope, lassoed the escapee and returned him to his own paddock.  We opened the gate and entered with Percy and Kizzy.  The mini returned.  With reinforcements.  And attitude.  We now had two minis in the paddock with us and they seemed rather incensed by the visitors so they skirted Caroline's daughter who was trying to catch them again and presented themselves front and center.  At 12 hands (which may be generous) Kizzy has never towered over anything before.  A bit concerned at what Percy was going to do about this situation, I nonetheless had to giggle at the Lilliputians.  Sarah handed over Kizzy's lead rope and the minis were once again captured and led off to their stalls.  Relieved that Percy hadn't ended up splayed out and staked to the ground by a miniature race, we proceeded to settle everyone in.  

Saturday was Day 1 of the clinic, a day which Alex sets aside for data collection.  She observes horses and handlers and begins to lay her plans for the work to come.  Our assignment is to work our horses as we would at home and see if the behaviors are all in order.  We could either proceed or back up as warranted.  The previous evening I had said that my goal, if Percy was Percy, would be to work on some emotional control.  All in all I had been pleased with how he had handled the Advance of the Minis and was drooling over the lovely flat sand arena, unlike anything we had at home.  What fun it would be to work in there.  Alex later quoted John Lyons saying that we can have all the training in the world, but horses being horses, things happen and what are you going to do when an ostrich walks up the drive?  Well, in our case, the ostrich was a chicken.  A rather attractive laying hen had ventured from her pen to graze in the grass next to the paddock which Percy and Kizzy were in.  Percy was alarmed.  

He stared, he blew, he retreated and advanced.  He clung to Kizzy.  He did his giraffe imitation.  The chicken was unconcerned.  She did her little chicken walk around in the grass, searching for bugs seemingly without any knowledge of the large horse she was intimidating.  Percy was a farm boy but our chickens were in the other barn and he'd never seen them.  Alex watched from the barn door as I put his halter on.  He obligingly lowered his head into his halter but shot it back up when I opened the gate and went onto the grass where the chicken was.  She had puttered over to the other side of the lawn.  I told Alex that if I was at home, the first thing I would do would be to address the chicken.  Not in a formal commencement speech sort of way, but in a more casual introduction of "Percy this is a little red hen.  Little Red Hen this is Percy".  Alex was concerned for my safety and sent us back into the paddock.  She didn't like me being on the side of Percy that would be leapt upon if he leapt.  She gave us a mat and a circle of cones in the paddock...a slightly stony, slightly side hill- just like home.   And so we went to work.  Percy settled with the familiar exercises.  He wasn't quite focused enough to show off left and right error-free but he could do his foundation exercises.  He gets fussy about just how to perfect his feet on a mat and was true-to-form there.  But he targeted, head lowered, backed (even on voice), stood for Grownups and his ears were mannerly.  His "stretch" command was only half quality (at home his nose is right at the ground as he walks).  

Alex observed and made helpful suggestions.  She commented something about spending the weekend hugging him...

Is Positive Reinforcement Bribery?

No.  There are distinct differences between the two.  Whether you are clicker training an animal or TAG teaching a person (of any age), you are using a scientifically researched and proven method of teaching or training which involves the pupil learning something new.  This might be a completely new behavior or a new way of performing a previously known behavior.  Good teaching or training also involves a plan.  A key element in Clicker Training and TAGteach is breaking the behavior down into manageable steps (which will be different for each learner) and reinforcing each step along the way.  

The downfall of bribery is that each bribe only gets you one behavior.  There has been no learning involved, therefore, no long term change will occur.  The bribe is offered before the behavior: “do this and I’ll give you this”.  Without the bribe, the behavior doesn’t happen.  This frequently leads to the pupil demanding the bribe before repeating the behavior.  They think, “well, last time I got a cookie for getting into my car seat.  I want to be sure I get one this time too!”.  This is a one-time deal.  

With animals, we don’t have the ability to tell the animal, “if you get on the trailer, I’ll give you a carrot”.  So those using bribery stand on the trailer with a bucket of grain, shaking the bucket and trying to lure the animal in.  They might give a bite now and then, but there is rarely a plan for how this training is taking place.   Without an understanding of the other things affecting the horse’s behavior, those bucket-shakers don’t change the long term behavior of the horse.  They may get the horse on the trailer, but the next time they need to load, they will be back there shaking that bucket. 

With clicker training, no treat is offered ahead of time.  The animal does not know what will earn a click, or if it will earn a click.  Therefore, he must think.  He must try different things to see what works.  The animal becomes actively engaged with using his brain to figure out this puzzle.  Engaging him in this way changes the training picture entirely.  In addition, we don’t click and treat the same behavior, differentiating Clicker Training from luring and bribing.  The animal must keep working, keep thinking, keep trying in order to continue getting clicked.  Standing still on the trailer ramp doesn’t work.  Backing off and then putting the front feet on again over and over doesn’t work.  Clicker trainers use measurable criteria to determine when progress is being made and they mark that with a click.  Once it is trained, as long as nothing else changes that training (such as a bad experience), you have a well-trained loader.

With people, we have the advantage of language to be able to communicate exactly what will earn a tag.  We aren’t bribing a person for a finished behavior.  One doesn’t tag for “good position” or “a clean room”.  One breaks the position down into manageable steps.  The tags occur when that step is achieved- our bodies need to experiment to find that right spot and then TAG!  The brain processes that and tries it again- TAG!  Once we have been tagged several times, we know the feel of the correct position.  We can repeat it.  At that point the teacher goes on (using the training plan) to another piece of the position.  Through this gradual process and understanding that one piece may slip when a new one is introduced, we can help a student achieve that final position we are looking for.  Through this process, we have also helped the student to feel good about the position.  Therefore, no bribery is necessary to maintain it.  

In case you are wondering, you can devise a plan to TAGteach for a clean room :)  

Accomplice

Today, I wanted to try to transition to my giving the "walk on" cue from his back- something I hadn't been able to get him to understand when I worked alone.  He would move, but felt this awkward weight on his back (me) and found it easier to go backward or sideways.  Because he is so sensitive, there wasn't anyone I felt comfortable asking to lead me.  But now I had an accomplice.

Before we could do that, I needed to teach Anna my routine.  She had participated yesterday, but as the rider, not the handler.  I sent her off around the cone circle with him, but there was something (can't remember what now) I wanted to demonstrate to her so I approached them.  Percy pinned his ears when I got close.  Aha- I was confusing him again.  I am his person, and here I was approaching but Anna was a perfectly good vending machine so now what was he to do?  We decided to take turns being his handler and Anna came up with a wonderful "transition" exercise.  When we switched handlers, the new handler would offer a fist target a couple times as the other person left, and then the new handler took over.  That person would do a circle or two and then we'd swap again.  He could look forward to the new person approaching because that person would offer a fist target he could interact with, and then he'd get to work with them.

It worked quite wonderfully.  And I was able to get on, swing my legs a bit, feel my wonderful boy and take some steps.  Because we had done so much before getting me on, we didn't do too much after that.  But she'll be here tomorrow too!

Cues as Reinforcers

As I head into the last month of my KPA course, I find myself extremely grateful for a better understanding of Cues as Reinforcers.  Attending Clicker Expo for the first time in the midst of my KPA course was a wonderful immersion in all thing clickerly.  I saw and heard many examples of cues as reinforcers there as well.  When I returned home, I decided to put this into action and had an "aha" moment in my first attempt.


It was early Spring and I was longeing Ande over a little jump.  We're still working on combining all the preferred criteria over fences: a nice forward approach but not rushing, good form over the jump, and a polite, clean landing.  The landing was giving me the most trouble.  If the jump was nice and I clicked at any point over it, he landed with the brakes on to receive his treat.  If I clicked when he landed, he screeched to a halt.  If I did not click until several strides after he landed (trying to reinforce a polite landing), he would either hesitate as if wondering why I did not click or the quality of the jump would deteriorate.  


I can't remember now if I went out with the intention of using a cue as reinforcer or if it came to me in the moment.  Ande has been reinforced oodles for trotting on voice cue- for years and whether in an up transition or a down transition.  Therefore, "trrrottt" fit the description for a cue that could be used as a reinforcer: it had been taught and maintained with +R, had a solid reinforcement history and was a fluent behavior.  


So this time when Ande approached the jump in a forward active trot, rocked back and was clean with his knees, instead of clicking, I said "trrrottt" as he went over.  It was magic.  He landed with his ears up and trotted cleanly off with no hesitation, no question, no frustration, no structure-jarring halts.  I let him trot 5-6 steps and then clicked.  Voila.  It was so easy it was ridiculous.  All this mystery of how to fade clicks and treats disappeared.  Not only was I the cookie, behaviors themselves had become the cookies.  


This opened up all kinds of opportunities for me to utilize cues as reinforcers more often.  Over the years I have built up quite a little treasure trove of individual behaviors.  Now I can link them together with an understanding of how cues work and how chains work.  Certainly all the foundation lessons are useful as reinforcing cues.  Instead of viewing all my requests as more demands on the horses, I now see them as welcome cues.  They know this stuff- they enjoy it (obvious by their willingness to offer them to me even without asking sometimes).  It isn't a burden to them to comply- it's an opportunity to interact and earn more reinforcement.  By mixing them up, I gain more attention and interest from the horses.   I can balance them in ways that enrich each session. 


Standing still for grooming is now so reinforcing that I was able to finally get Percy to hold a quiet mouth with a bit in it.  When I focused on the bit, so did he (chew, chew, chew, tongue rolling, head twisting).  When we focused on the grooming, the bit became a part of the pleasant process.  I spent years working with him on allowing me to touch and groom different parts of his body so that he really enjoys it rather than tolerates it.  Just this week I realized how much better he is about being groomed than his mother is (sorry Zoe).  She loves parts of it but hates other parts of it.  There are days she enjoys it, days she tolerates it and days you wish you'd stayed in the house.  Percy happily stands in the barn aisle for grooming.  He is not tied, he has access to both his paddock and a hay pile but instead he stands.  He has worn his bridle and practiced his new yawning behavior while I go over every inch of him with all the different brushes.  When I stop, he reaches into his grooming box and hands me another brush (he likes the rubber ones).  Actually, he just keeps handing me brushes whether I stop or not.  Handing me things is a fun behavior- I can use that to reinforce other things.  


I have now taught him to back on voice cue.  I've tested it in several situations but next want to expand my experimentation to see if he'll do it when I'm somewhere other than in front of him (can I stand behind him and get him to back to me?).  Since retrieving is such fun, I can use that as a reinforcer.  I'll just hold his little toy, ask him to back and then toss it for him, clicking and treating when he hands it to me.  


I'll need to be sure that all these behaviors stay reinforcing- with a background in traditional training, it's easy to get caught up in the riding and forget that.  If my flexions are reinforcing, then I can use them to reinforce a nice transition.  If transitions are reinforcing, I can use them to reinforce flexions.  Either way, I get a happy balanced horse.  

Duration Lab with Kay Laurence Part One- stillness

This lab was subtitled Duration in Moving and Static Behaviors, yet Kay broke it down even further (part of a clicker trainer's M.O. obviously). I am actually working on this behavior as I type this- with Eloise the dog, not a horse, but the correlations are obvious.

Kay broke stillness behaviors down into "calm stillness" and "contained anticipatory" stillness. The first is when you want your animal to chill out and relax, such as Eloise lying on her mat next to me as I type right now. The other is when you want the animal to wait for the next active cue- a start line in agility or perhaps the start box for XC?? In all instances you may want the animal still, but the difference is the accompanying emotion- sleepy? or taut like a rubber band pulled tight?

Kay uses a specific body position to differentiate which type it is. She uses the type of click and the food delivery- both style and placement- to help shape the behavior. And she uses follow up

behaviors which correlate. In this first photo, Eloise was still wanting to jump up when she heard me click. Continued slow clicks and methodical feeding gradually calmed her to stay in position.

Dogs have many positions they can lie down in. There is the sphinx like position from which they can launch up into activity and there is the position when they are rolled over on one hip- a more relaxed position in which they would be more likely to sleep. There is also the flat out position ("dead dog" in our house). When I pulled Percy's mane this Spring (I had let it get quite long and thick over the winter out of sheer laziness), I reinforced him for longer and longer durations of standing while I worked. I do this when I work on his mane and he's quite good for it (I use a cheater comb so no pain involved!). But this year we added a new twist and I'm thinking that I can use Kay's methods to a specific "stand" while I pull his mane. The twist was that he yawned fairly early on in the process and I clicked because it was a relaxation sign. So he yawned again....and again. But he made himself sleepy in the process! Pretty soon his eyes were drooping and his head was hanging (he was loose in the aisle). Just exactly what I wanted while working away at his mane. Not the "stand" I'd like for a halt in the dressage ring- this was a different behavior. So I think I will intentionally ask for the yawning type of stand in many little sessions while I keep his mane short this summer.

Kay also stresses the importance of watching your animal to know how he or she functions normally- WHICH hip does your dog sleep on most? Observing the dog sleeping on its own will help you determine which position she's most comfortable in and therefore more likely to stay in when put there on cue. Once you get the dog to lie down in front of you- perpendicular to your knees such that when they curl, it is toward you, you then treat by placing the food toward the dog's tummy so it encourages them to relax over onto the far hip. Likewise, while working on Percy's mane, I did not ask him to step back or turn to get the treat. I reached out slowly (but promptly) and delivered it to the low position his head was in. Kay quoted Skinner as saying, "the way the reinforcer is delivered is more important the what the reinforcer is".

Ever know you could click differently according to the behavior you're working on? I do this subconsciously with a tongue click when I'm working with horses- quiet behaviors get a very quiet little almost "tic", whereas active behaviors get a loud "KLOCK". One encourages maintenance of a quiet attitude, the other keeps a horse jazzed up. Kay even does this with the clicker. Using a box clicker, she showed how you can rest your finger flat on the metal piece to quiet the sound (and you can also muffle it behind your back or in a pocket) vs using the tip of your finger to get a louder click. For still behaviors, she also separates the two parts of the click- holding for a bit before releasing the tab. Usually I do this when I click by mistake and wish there was a way to stop mid-click!!!

How you end a training session matters as well. I chose to work on Eloise's "settle" behavior while typing because I knew that Eloise would eventually doze off as she relaxed next to me. She did. Her eyes are open in this final picture because she heard me click the camera.

So alternately, if you want to work on stillness that contains excitement, you feed while they are still in the sphinx position, you use a clear, sharp click, deliver the food fast but in a position that reinforces staying in position and end the behavior by cueing an active behavior or releasing for a wild play session.

This is the type of halt I'd like for a dressage test. Square and collected, ready to spring into the next gait requested.

Clicker Expo!

I finally got to attend Clicker Expo. I've wanted to attend several times and last year even made plans to before life got in the way. You'd think nothing could actually meet the expectations I had built up over all that time but Clicker Expo did. One of my anticipations was actually meeting people face to face that I had befriended via The Click That Teaches yahoo group list and on Facebook. It was great fun and as someone else said, just like seeing old friends.

I also got to see The Great Minds of Clicker Training, hear some of them speak, and even ask a question or two. An added bonus was that a surprise birthday celebration was given for Karen Pryor who will turn 80 in May. I truly hope I am as physically, mentally and emotionally active at that age as she is. What an inspirational woman.

Now I can see the Herculean task that people like Katie Bartlett, Mary Hunter and Amanda Martin take on when reporting back to others about the talks and labs at Expo. Neither Katie nor Mary were at Expo this year (they both attended the ORCA conference - the Organization for Reinforcement Contingencies- this year and wrote reports). So I still have meeting them to look forward to at a future Expo. Amanda Martin did attend, however, and I had the great pleasure of rooming with her. Katie, Mary and Amanda all have websites and/or blogs that are well worth looking at to find reports of past Expos, ORCA and other helpful information.

Since they do such a fabulous job of reporting back, and since this blog is really about my experiences with Clicker Training, I thought my approach should be one of sharing tales of putting what I've learned into use. Hopefully that will allow me to stretch my shared experiences over time and encourage me to continue going back to my notes for inspiration. For now I will tease you with the names of the lectures and labs I attended. A lecture is just that, and they were an hour and a half each. The labs were opportunities for those who brought their dogs to get direct instruction from The Greats on the topic just presented and for the rest of us to see the reality of attempting to put skills into action. They were also an hour and a half in length and I really admire those who shipped dogs long distance and were willing to get up in front of a large group AND a great mind, to try their hands.

Friday I attended:

Hang in There! Duration in moving and static behaviors with Kay Laurence (a very entertaining woman in addition to being brilliant)

Generalization- scientifically explored with Jesus Rosales Ruiz. (the man actually put generalization into an algebraic formula!)

Positively Solved, a complete approach to common behavior problems with Debbie Martin and Tia Guest (this was a very practical lecture and a relief after the former head spinning talks)

Saturday:

Theresa McKeon presented a great talk on TAGteach. Theresa is one of my heroes and is a teacher of people that we should all aspire to be like. This talk was for Academy graduates and students only so it was an extra that I felt very fortunate to attend.

1+1=3 Adduction & Combining Cues- Ken Ramirez is a fabulous speaker, teacher and trainer whose day job is the VP of animal collections and training at the famous Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. He showed videos of amazing training of sea animals....and some of his adorable pet dog :)

1+1=3 in action- this was a lab where he helped individuals with the challenge of taking two different behaviors and adding them together to get a novel behavior. What follows is a brief video of one of the attendees whose dog quickly caught on to adding "spin" and picking up his leash, to spinning with his leash.

I topped off a full day with Ken when I attended his Aggression Treatment and Context lecture at the end of the day.

From 4:- 5: there was a panel discussion with Kathy Sdao, Karen Pryor, Jesus Rosales Ruiz, Alexandra Kurland, Aaron Clayton, Ken Ramirez, Julie Shaw and Michelle Pouliot.

The guest speaker that night was Clive Wynne, canine cognition expert from the University of Florida

Sunday:

First off was a presentation from Helix Fairweather on utilizing the module format for designing dog training courses. On the flight home, I scribbled it into a translation for horses and look forward to giving it a try very soon!

The AL-Lure of Luring lab with Kay Laurence- an interesting concept to compare to work with horses.

Smart Reinforcement lab with Ken Ramirez- the use of various reinforcers (play, or tactile reinforcers for instance) and how to be sure that they are truly giving you the reinforcement you desire

Seeing the Future with Alexandra Kurland- a lecture where she showed the advantages of utilizing video and replaying it at various speeds in order to see "what happens before" so that you can predict it the next time.

That will keep me busy for a while, don't you think????