Karen Pryor Clickertraining - Trainer Interviews

Clicking Birds: A Veterinarian's Perspective

KPCT — Sat, 01 May 2004 00:00:00 -0500

Leigh Clayton is a resident in avian/exotic animal medicine at Boston's Angell Animal Medical Center, formerly Angell Memorial Animal Hospital, specializing in avian care. Recently we asked her a few questions about why she recommends clicker training for every patient she sees.

Clicking in Scandinavia: Norwegian Champions

Miranda Hersey Helin — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 00:00:00 -0600

Morten Egtvedt and Cecilie Køste, two of the newest ClickerExpo faculty members, are a married training team from Norway. The pair were early adopters of clicker training and are Scandinavia's leading authors on this technology. Morten and Cecilie have been top European competitors in obedience, tracking, and agility. Their clicker training school focuses on using clicker training to win in competition; teachers and students from their school are not just top clicker trainers, but also top-notch competitors in European dog-related sports. Morten and Cecilie edit and publish a full-color magazine on dog training, and publish and sell Don't Shoot the Dog, as well as many other clicker titles in Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, and Finnish. Recently we spoke with Morten and Cecilie about their background and success.

Clicker Training: The Fad that Became a Technology

Julie Shaw-Lewis — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 00:00:00 -0500

The first dog I trained was my own dog 22 years ago. I attended a traditional training class, which I tagged "yank and thank." We waited for the dog to "get it wrong," then yanked on its choke collar and promptly "thanked him" (praised him). It makes as little sense to me today as it did then, but at the time I knew of no other options.

Michele Pouliot: Dancing on Air

Miranda Hersey Helin — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 19:00:03 -0500

Michele Pouliot has trained dogs for more than three decades. Since first joining Guide Dogs for the Blind in 1974, she contributed to the organization in many different ways, and today is the director of research and development. Michele is also a champion in canine musical freestyle and participates in equestrian combined driving events. This year, we're proud to welcome Michele to the ClickerExpo faculty. We recently spoke to Michele about her breadth of experience and success.

Want to Be a Clicker Trainer? Join the FBI

Miranda Hersey Helin — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 15:27:14 -0500

Steve Benjamin, CPDT, is a faculty member of Karen Pryor Academy for Animal Training & Behavior, our brand-new institute for clicker trainers. We spoke to Steve recently about his career as a dog trainer, and how his 28 years with the FBI were, surprisingly, an excellent foundation for clicker training.

Sue Ailsby's Tools for the Job: A Clicker and Patience

Aidan Bindoff — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 00:00:00 -0500

Sue Ailsby is a well-known and highly accomplished clicker trainer who has competed successfully with her dogs in just about every possible competition venue. She now gives clicker training seminars across Canada and the US. Sue has put years of clicker training wisdom into her online Book of Training Levels and has also posted a blog of her clicker training adventure with her service dog in training, Stitch, at www.dragonflyllama.com.

Blazing a New Trail: Training Gun Dogs

Aaron Clayton — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 00:00:00 -0600

Dogs have assisted humans in hunting for sport since the Middle Ages. Today, many gun dog trainers are still using well-worn, ancient training techniques-traditional methods that often involve force and pain. As with any area of animal training, however, the impressive results of all-positive clicker training are clearing new territory.

Meet the Master of Freestyle: Attila Szkukalek

Miranda Hersey Helin — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 00:00:00 -0600

In his day job, Attila Szkukalek is a biochemist in Norwich, England. In his private life he's a husband, father, and dog training instructor. To the rest of us, Attila with his dog, Fly, is the best freestyle trainer and performer on the planet-UK freestyle champions that perform regularly at Crufts and throughout Europe. Attila and Fly's performances are a powerful ambassador for reinforcement-based training. Attila is also one of the newest members of the ClickerExpo faculty. We spoke to Attila recently about his career, and his success.

Lawyer Ditches Legal Briefs for Clicker: Meet Morgan Spector

Miranda Hersey Helin — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 00:00:00 -0600

We're proud to announce Morgan Spector as a new member of the outstanding ClickerExpo faculty. Morgan established Best Behavior Dog Training in 1995 to apply clicker training methods to competition obedience training. This work ultimately led to the writing of his popular book, Clicker Training for Obedience. We recently spoke with Morgan about his career and the status of clicker training today.

Cue the Lion, Please

Miranda Hersey Helin — Sat, 01 Jul 2006 00:00:00 -0500

We met Chris Davis at ClickerExpo Newport. Chris came to the conference looking for innovative ideas in working with his staff at A to Z Animal Management Consulting, www.zooconsulting.com, a company that provides training and consulting services worldwide. We spoke to Chris recently about his work and the success of his training company.

Herding Cats in Hollywood

Miranda Hersey Helin — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 00:00:00 -0500

Samantha Martin has been training animals for commercials and films for 15 years. Based in the Chicago area, she has crawled through the subway stations of New York, demonstrated trained rats in Rome for national television, and trained chickens to crow, cluck, flap wings, and hover over chicks on cue for an award-winning documentary. Her raccoon shoots baskets, her groundhog raises a flag, and her duck plays a guitar and drums. And then she has cats—20 of them—which she trains for films and commercials. The Rockcats, starring Dakota, Pinky, Waldo, Tuna, and Nue, take turns playing drums, guitar, and piano. Recently we talked to Samantha about her career and her success with clicker training.

Teaching Clicker Training Across Borders

Miranda Hersey Helin — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 00:00:00 -0500

Virginia Broitman and Sherri Lippman are the expert training team behind the Bow Wow videos and seminars, and veteran members of the ClickerExpo faculty. While the training team is accustomed to traveling for workshops and consultations, the concept of travel took on a new dimension when the pair traveled to Taiwan in February 2006 to present their training seminar to trainers and pet owners.

Across the Pond: Kay Laurence

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

WagMore Barn opened its double-wide doors in 2005, and is already a mecca for clicker trainers across the UK and the world. Fulfilling a long-held dream of Kay Laurence, master clicker trainer, educator and ClickerExpo faculty member, WagMore is the physical center of Learning About Dogs (LAD), Kay's training and publishing business.

Expo Faculty Profile: Jesús Rosales-Ruiz, Ph.D.

Gale Pryor — Sun, 01 Jan 2006 00:00:00 -0600

Jesús Rosales-Ruiz, Ph.D., ClickerExpo faculty member, is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Behavior Analysis at the University of North Texas. As a researcher and mentor to graduate students in Behavior Analysis, he has developed a focus on applied operant conditioning, bringing formal study methods and data collection to real-world animal training sessions. Many of his students have gone on to work as behaviorists and trainers in zoos or as academics exploring the principles of behavior. Dr. Rosales-Ruiz's areas of interest include antecedent control of behavior, generalization, behavioral cusps, fluency-based teaching, treatment of autism, teaching of academic behavior, animal training, and rule- and contingency-shaped behavior. We were delighted when he recently agreed to answer a few of our questions about his work.

JavaDawgs: Clickers and Coffee

Miranda Hersey Helin — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 00:00:00 -0600

Clearly, JavaDawgs is more than your average dog training group. "This is not a top down training group," explains group founder Lisa Clifton-Bumpass from her home in Hayward, CA. "We function as a team, working for the betterment of each dog-owner team and as a larger team of people focused on bettering themselves as dog enthusiasts. Not all members are on the field at once. Some members work their dogs, others act as training coaches, and others are observing dog body language, timing-criteria setting, and handling skills. All voices and observations are of value in this process as we are all developing our skills as a team."

A Positive Oasis: Rivendale Learning Center

Gale Pryor — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 00:00:00 -0600

Steve and Jen White have been training animals positively for more than 25 years—long before clicker training became a household word. Steve has been a faculty member of ClickerExpo since its inception, and Jen has now joined the Expo team as a coach.

Steve brought marker-based training to the training of Seattle's K9 unit, while Jen helped introduce positive training to rehabilitate aggressive dogs at the MSPCA in Boston. Since their marriage in 2003, they have joined their formidable talents to teach more clients, both professional trainers and pet owners, the power of the principles of operant conditioning and positive reinforcement.

Recently, we asked them to tell us about their new life work, the establishment of Rivendale Learning Center, a hub of teaching and training in no force, no fear techniques in Woodinville, Washington.

Helix Fairweather on the Art of Dog Play

Gale Pryor — Mon, 01 Aug 2005 00:00:00 -0500

Helix Fairweather became interested in the skills dogs need—and too often do not have—to play happily with other dogs. She decided to launch a series of Dog Park play sessions to allow skilled dogs to teach other dogs the art of playing and to teach handlers the observation skills necessary to understand canine communication.

Service with a Click

Gale Pryor — Sun, 01 May 2005 00:00:00 -0500

Debi Davis, service-dog trainer and ClickerExpo presenter (Minneapolis, November 2005), writes training articles for national and international magazines and is an Internet mentor for service-dog teams in training. In 1998, she co-founded OC-Assist-Dogs, a Yahoo Group Internet discussion list for those clicker training service dogs, now the largest service-dog discussion list on the web. In 1999, her papillon, Peek, became the first toy breed and first clicker trained dog to earn the Delta Society's National Service Dog of the Year award. In 2003, Peek was among the Pedigree Paws to Recognize Canine World Hero nominees. Peek and Debi were also profiled on a segment of the international television program Dogs with Jobs. A member of the APDT, IAADP, IABC, and the Delta Society, Debi lives in Las Vegas, Nevada, with her husband and five clicker trained dogs. Recently, we spoke to her about clicker training assistance dogs and her experiences attending ClickerExpo San Diego.

An Interview with Emma Parsons

Gale Pryor — Sat, 01 Jan 2005 00:00:00 -0600

Emma Parsons, author of Click to Calm: Healing the Aggressive Dog (KPCT, 2005), is a canine behaviorist and trainer. We spoke to her recently about her life with dogs, and how she developed the innovative clicker-based techniques presented in her book.

An Interview with Sheri Soltes, Texas Hearing and Service Dogs

Gale Pryor — Mon, 01 Nov 2004 00:00:00 -0600

Sheri Soltes is the Founder and President of Texas Hearing and Service Dogs. She pioneered positive training in the assistance dog industry. Recently, we spoke to her about her new training facility and her plans for the future.