It's like computers. I had an awful time with my first computer--'word processing' was NOT easy to learn. I plowed through some terrible software learning curves, with some truly terrible softwear. Even the games could have you kicking the walls. My grandkids, however, start off where I am now, doing research on the Internet, throwing graphics into their e-mails, playing amazing games. What was hard, then, is easy now.
Karen's Letters
Clicking Is Really for the Birds!
By Karen Pryor on 09/01/2003Back in 1979 I taught a training course for keepers at the National Zoo. The zoo had a display full of abandoned cockatoos, some of which had been relinquished for behavior problems, others simply because they had outlived their owners. They were so hungry for attention and stimulation that one of my students taught a bird several tricks (hanging upside down from a branch, for instance) with the 'click' being a tap on the glass with her class ring, and the primary reinforcer nothing more than a chance to pretend to nibble her ring through the glass. Ever since, I have been touched and saddened by the loneliness and impoverished environment of many captive parrots and their relatives.
101 Things to Do with a Polar Bear
By Karen Pryor on 07/01/2003I recently posted some reports from the zoo world about using the 'creative' game-training an animal to think up its own behaviors-with a gorilla. 101 things to do with a Gorilla. People sometimes think of the training we do as something artificial. Why would you want to demean the animal by making it play games? Never mind if the animal loves the game! Furthermore, to some people the '101 things to do with a Box' game seems particularly confusing and problematic when applied to dogs. How does the dog 'know' what to do if you don't tell it? Why would you want it to just guess?
Clicker Classes for Pet Owners
By Karen Pryor on 06/01/2003High-Five Cat Contest Winner
By Karen Pryor on 05/01/2003Your Cats magazine, in England, held a contest, sponsored by Friskies UK, for the cat that learned to do the best "high five." I was the judge. There were so many entries (by photograph) that we couldn't pick just one winner. Here's one of the entries, and you have to agree, it's a quintessentially British scene. I don't know who's having more fun, the cat or the owners.
