This post isn’t exactly about behavior – it’s about the broader effects of behavior and about why I became a trainer and behaviorist. It is slanted toward dog professionals, but if you are simply a dog lover you can mentally edit the references to business.
It all started about 35 years ago. I was out of college with no real desire to pursue my chosen profession – architecture. After working a succession of jobs in the town where I went to college, I was offered a job managing the local humane society. For the next eight years I worked in some aspect of the humane industry and became convinced of something. Continue reading
At a seminar I gave in Wichita, Kansas, one of the attendees was Dr. Ogden Lindsley – brilliant pioneer behaviorist, inventor of “Precision Teaching” and donkey trainer extraordinaire. Og’s influence on clicker training and operant conditioning and training has been significant though not always recognized. When you hear clicker trainers talk about “fluency”, they are unknowingly using Og’s terminology and frame of reference. Og is one of the few behavior analysts who is an expert at actually teaching real animals in real surroundings to perform dependable and intricate behaviors. His jack donkey, Silver Butte Jack, played basketball, carried a full size miner’s pick in his mouth on cue and fetched the mail from the roadside mailbox – about 200 yards from the house. Other than a little drool and slobber, the mail arrived in better shape that some scent articles I’ve seen.