Kathy Sdao, ClickerExpo faculty member, has been a professional animal trainer for two decades. Her experiences have included working for the US Navy training dolphins for open-ocean work, and training at the Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium in Tacoma, Washington, working with beluga whales, walruses, sea lions, polar bears, and otters. She also created Tacoma's first dog daycare facility, Puget Hound Daycare, and began teaching group classes for pet owners. Kathy now travels frequently to lead seminars for dog trainers and instructors on clicker training. Her ClickerExpo seminars have drawn rave reviews for her infectious enthusiasm and powerful insights.
Dogs
Back to School: Clicking at Karen Pryor Academy
By Miranda Hersey Helin on 09/01/2008Editor's note: Canadian dog trainer Andrew Turner was among the first to graduate as a Certified Training Partner from Karen Pryor Academy (KPA), an innovative dog training school that provides superlative learning through online coursework and onsite sessions at locations across the country. Andrew studied with KPA faculty member Emma Parsons in Franklin, Massachusetts. We spoke to Andrew about his KPA experience, and why it matters.
Clicker Bridging Stimulus Efficacy
By KPCT on 09/01/2008By Lindsay Wood, MA, CTC. Abstract: Acquisition of a multiple component task, such as approaching and touching a target apparatus on cue, plays an important role in animal training and husbandry. Experimental training of two groups of 10 naïve dogs (Canis familiaris) to perform the target task differed only by the assigned bridging stimulus: a clicker or spoken word "good." Although both types of bridging stimuli are used in the training field to indicate the precise instance of correct behavior, this study represents the first systematic comparison of the efficacy of these two types of bridging stimuli.
Revision and Real Life
By Karen Pryor on 08/12/2008
I have been devoting a whole month to revising a key chapter in Reaching the Animal Mind, the chapter on neuroscience and clicker training. That means five hours a day of intense concentration at the computer, usually between 6:00 a.m. and noon.
Jessie Gets Radical: Teach Your Dog to Skateboard!
By Tia Guest on 08/01/2008Imagine coming home from ClickerExpo, your head full of ideas, and getting a new dog! That was my situation recently. So, I did what any enthusiastic trainer would do—I trained my new dog to ride a skateboard!
