Karen Pryor Clickertraining - Karen's Articles

The Poisoned Cue: Positive and Negative Discriminative Stimuli

Karen Pryor — Tue, 25 Jun 2002 00:00:00 -0500

Why clicking and correction don't mix.

Behavior analysts refer to a learned stimulus that triggers an operant behavior as a 'discriminative stimulus.' The behaviorists do not, as far as I know, differentiate between a discriminative stimulus that was trained through positive reinforcement and one that was trained through negative reinforcement.

On Being a Change Maker

Karen Pryor — Sun, 01 Nov 1998 00:00:00 -0600

So you've become a clicker trainer. Naturally you are very excited. You want other people around you to stop using punishment-based methods and start clicking. So you introduce the clicker at your dog club or high school or wherever you are using it. And guess what: people not only don't change, they get mad at you.

History of Clicker Training I

Karen Pryor — Thu, 01 May 1997 00:00:00 -0500

Behavior analysis is the science that underlies the technology of reinforcement training. Applications of behavior analysis include performance management, in industry and business; precision teaching, in schools; behavior modification, in clinical practice; and clicker training. The annual meeting draws some 2000 psychologists, from around the world. The speech reproduced here was given as part of the opening ceremonies. Karen Pryor's address at the Animal Behavior Society convention in Chicago, May 1997

History of Clicker Training II

Karen Pryor — Thu, 01 May 1997 00:00:00 -0500

Yes, it is charming; but it is also rather sad. We have been training animals for thousands of years, and we almost never ask them to DO this! To bring their own abilities to the table. To think. If you'll excuse the expression. ((laughter)).

The Training Game

Karen Pryor — Sun, 01 Jan 1995 00:00:00 -0600

The Training Game is a great way to sharpen your shaping skills and have fun at the same time. It allows you to see and experience other trainers' decision points, and to be aware of what you might have done instead. It also allows trainers to make mistakes, and learn from them, without confusing some poor animal or unsuspecting person! Maybe most valuable of all, it allows you to see the training process from the viewpoint of the trainee, which is often a highly illuminating experience. The training game also helps us get rid of the superstitious behavior of putting the blame for problems on the person or animal we are working with, instead of on the training contingencies, where it belongs.

The Sea Food Circus: Training Fish

Karen Pryor — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 00:00:00 -0500

Are fish trainable? And if they are, why bother?

How to Cure a Cat-Chasing Dog

Karen Pryor — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0500

When I brought Mimi the Burmese home at the age of twelve weeks I was quite worried about my older dog. I felt sure that my young poodle, Misha, and the new kitten would rapidly become friends and playmates (which they did). However Twitchett, a nine-year-old border terrier, represented a serious threat. In fact, one senior animal behaviorist had e-mailed me advising that I rethink my plan of getting a kitten.

Chase the Dot: The Ultimate Cat Sport

Karen Pryor — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 00:00:00 -0600

Pet stores sell lots of interactive cat toys you can use to amuse your cat: feathers on springs, battery-operated mice, and so on. We sell a few toys of our own, too—the Kong Swizzle Bird Cat Toy, the Kong Tennis Ball Mouse, and the Cat Dancer. One of the best toys in the world for most cats, however, is the laser pointer, which you can get from any office supply store.

Teach Your Cat to Play Piano

Karen Pryor — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 00:00:00 -0600

It's easy to teach a cat to play the piano; I've often done it in other people's houses, with their cat, as a sort of after-dinner amusement. Here's how.

Making Cats Friendly, Clicker Style

Karen Pryor — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 00:00:00 -0600

Clicker training, the science-based system of teaching behavior with positive reinforcers and a marker signal, is becoming immensely popular, world-wide, with some dog owners and trainers, while still being rejected by others. It seems so alien, so different from traditional training, that many are very reluctant to try this new system on their already well-trained dogs. Why not leave your dogs out of the picture for the time being, and explore the clicker experience for yourself, with an animal you don't really need or expect reliable performance from: Your cat.

"Clicking" With Cues: A Powerful Tool in Agility Handling

Karen Pryor — Tue, 01 Mar 2005 00:00:00 -0600

Here's something people often don't get, and not just in agility training: cues—the signals you give your dog to tell it what to do—can be clicks. If your cue tells the dog to do something it understands, and something with a guaranteed positive outcome or reinforcer as a result, it becomes a potential reinforcer in itself. And you can use it to shape behavior.

Fish Enrichment

Karen Pryor — Wed, 01 Dec 2004 00:00:00 -0600

We don't often worry about the mental state of a fish, but fishes enjoy stimulation and something to do, just as much as land animals. Aquarists know that the environment is important for keeping fish in good health or bringing them into breeding condition. That doesn't just mean places to hide and clean water to swim in; it can also mean a variety of foods including live food to chase, the right tank mates, the right plants, and, yes, an opportunity to learn.

Pony's Choice: On Behavior Revisited

Karen Pryor — Sun, 01 Aug 2004 00:00:00 -0500

The article below is excerpt from On Behavior entitled "Pony's Choice." This selection comes from a speech, The President's Invited Scholar's Address, which I gave to the Association for Behavior Analysis (ABA) in 1992. I chose it as an example of how one could use operant conditioning techniques to develop abstract thinking—the weighing of alternatives—even in an animal not generally considered intelligent.

Adding the Cue

Karen Pryor — Thu, 01 Jul 2004 00:00:00 -0500

When we first start out clicker training, we tend to get very excited about the fact that we can teach the dog a new behavior in just a few clicks. Suddenly we have a dog that sits, does a belly flop down, a spin, a paw wave, and six other things-but all at once. You're hoping for a sit/stay, and the dog is running through his entire repertoire trying to find something you'll click.

Clicker Trained Rats Make Headlines

Gale Pryor — Sat, 01 May 2004 00:00:00 -0500

On May 18, readers of the New York Times were treated to a front-page story on mine-sniffing Gambian giant pouched rats. The reporter, Michael Wines, traveled to Mozambique to discover the latest breakthrough in mine detection technology: a squad of rats, outfitted in tiny harnesses and hitched to 10-yard clotheslines. When the rats catch the scent of TNT, the give-away for a buried landmine, they deliberately scratch the earth.

Got Puppy Nipping? Take the Clicker Approach

Karen Pryor — Mon, 01 Dec 2003 00:00:00 -0600

Using the clicker to help eliminate puppy nipping.

All puppies like to play and wrestle and nip each other. When they come to live with people, they want to play in the same way. They don't know that our skin is far more tender than their littermate's fur—so sometimes those nips can hurt!

Play the Cup Game

Karen Pryor — Mon, 01 Dec 2003 00:00:00 -0600

Here's a simple exercise I gave to the DogRead online list, to introduce people and their dogs to the clicker philosophy.

Sit on the couch. Put a paper or plastic cup on the floor. Now, using clicker and treats but not throwing the treats near the cup, can you get your dog to knock the cup over and knock it around the room? Try it!

A Swinging Pair: Using Paired Cues to Accelerate Learning

Karen Pryor — Tue, 01 Apr 2003 00:00:00 -0600

Train two behaviors at once? Teach two cues simultaneously? How? Why? Teaching certain cues in pairs can speed up the learning process, as well as teaching a dog a concept that it can apply to new learning.

Pet Dog Versus Performance Dog

Karen Pryor — Sun, 01 Dec 2002 00:00:00 -0600

Some trainers differentiate between training the pet dog and training the performance animal-the dog used for search and rescue, police work, hunting and field trials, or as a service dog for the disabled. The view seems to be that the performance dog must be trained with special methods, methods the pet doesn't need because it is only a pet.

101 Things to Do with a Box

Karen Pryor — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 00:00:00 -0500

101 Things to do with a Box: A Good Exercise for an Older, Suspicious, or Previously Trained Dog

This training game is derived from a dolphin research project in which I and others participated, "The creative porpoise: training for novel behavior," published in the Journal of Experimental Analysis of Behavior in 1969. It has become a favorite with dog trainers. It's especially good for "crossover" dogs with a long history of correction-based training, since it encourages mental and physical flexibility and gives the dog courage to try something on its own.