Times have changed. Now zoos are paying keepers to come to this conference and other training conferences, like our ClickerExpos. Trainers have formed companies to provide consulting help to other zoos; at the ABMA meeting, I observed keepers looking for consulting help and senior trainers happily finding new clients. While some zoos still resist the change, the keepers themselves are making it work, with all kinds of organisms, in all kinds of facilities, and with management support or without. Here, if not everywhere, I think the tipping point has been reached.
Karen's Letters
Clicker Training for Gymnasts
By Karen Pryor on 03/01/2004In February, I traveled to Charlotte, North Carolina, to spend a few days with gymnastics coach (and ClickerExpo faculty member) Theresa McKeon, her husband Brian, and their kids. While the purpose of my trip was to visit with Theresa and her clicker-trained gymnastics students, after single-digit temperatures in Boston during most of January, the balmy early spring of Charlotte was a blessing. Early crocuses, a few cardinals, and robins starting to sing a little. Theresa's horses were lying on their sides in the pastures, soaking up the sun.
KPCT Clicker Community Letters
By Karen Pryor on 01/01/2004Every month the members of the KPCT Clicker Community get this letter from me, about whatever training thought or event is currently uppermost on my mind.
First ClickerExpo a Smash Hit
By Karen Pryor on 12/01/2003ClickerExpo Central in Chicago was a smash educational success. Over 200 people attended three days (of three tracks) of sessions, all on some aspect of clicker training. They brought about a hundred dogs with them: calm, sweet, well-behaved dogs, and quite a few were fresh from shelters and rescue organizations. They all brought an aura of positiveness, of acceptance, friendliness and interest, that wowed all of us-staff, volunteers, and speakers alike.
Assessing the Clicker Skills of Individual Trainers
By Karen Pryor on 11/01/2003Good idea number one: Kay has developed a way of assessing the clicker skills of individual trainers. The program tests the trainer's abilities, not the dog's performance. The test is valuable not so much as a measure of achievement but as a clear-cut way of finding out what you know and what you still need to find out, a very difficult thing to judge for yourself.
