Picture the possibilities Imagine teaching your dog to put his hind feet—just his hind feet—on a mat. Or, imagine teaching your cat to give a high-five. What if you could teach your dog to use his nose to ring a bell to go outside? These fun and useful behaviors are all examples of targeting a body part to a specific …
Bad behavior: the big picture Did a new dog join the family recently? Are you aiming to start with fine habits and manageable goals? Is this the time to tackle your dog’s problem behaviors, the ones that have had you perplexed? A solid foundation in positive training gets you off to great start, either with that new puppy or with …
At an annual meeting of the Association for Behavior Analysis, where over 2,000 behavioral scientists gather each year, a woman professor with whom I was acquainted told me she had organized, among her students, a Rat Olympics. I was excited! What a good way to interest students in operant conditioning! Alas, when I saw her videos, I was disappointed. Students were luring rats to …
