Almost every pet owner in the world knows exactly what their animals are thinking and feeling most of the time - so why don't professional animal trainers and behaviorists? Well, because behaviorists work from a different set of definitions and may be a bit more precise in their "science".
I was at the local exotic bird club last week (my first visit) and we had a professional trainer/behaviorist as a speaker. She was going along and said something like, "we don't know why the animal does this, but we do know what he is doing". And, of course, someone in the audience wanted to tell her exactly what the bird was thinking and how to solve the problem!
Apparently, "When your bird screams whenever the telephone rings, what you should do is have the person who called talk to the bird. The bird was just confused about why you talk to a little box and screams because it doesn't know what is going on. By having the person on the phone talk to the bird, the bird then understands telephones and won't scream anymore."
Now, a professional bird trainer would never have come up with that solution with that reasoning. They would not have thought, "Oh, if I just explain what a telephone is, the bird won't scream any more." They would have gone through a process of determining what behavior was being observed, what appeared to be triggering the behavior, what were the consequences of the behavior, what is reinforcing the behavior, and then design a plan for changing or eliminating the behavior.
Behavior: anything that the animal does that you can see.
Soap Box: a platform for saying stuff loudly that you think other people need to hear (e.g., my blog).
Expert: someone with a convincing opinion to share.
Professional: someone who gets paid for it.
I own pets - but I also train animals. And, in training situations, I like being constrained to what I can observe (or intuit). I don't know what the animal is thinking or feeling. Body language may tell me how the animal is acting and what the likely consequences of my behavior might be. What the animal is thinking might be interesting - or even important - but not something I can know. I can't do it with people and I can't do it with animals.
I do a fair amount of public speaking. Sometimes, I will say, "Now, I know what some of you are thinking..." But, I don't really mean it. I don't know. I might have a guess based on what people have told me in the past that a certain number of people in a crowd this size might be thinking a certain way - it happens and anticipating it might have a benefit.
I learned long ago that, "If I just explain it to them, they will see..." doesn't always work. And, it certainly doesn't work with my parrots or dogs or employees. The best way for me is really to reinforce the behavior I want and not reinforce the behavior I don't. "I don't like your attitude" doesn't work - certainly not with a parrot.
Pet psychics abound - a good trainer is hard to find.
regarding charging fees
Hi Bob
You ask about how to charge the clients.
A little background information: I am not a trainer, I work only with dogs (and cats) with behavioural issues. Some clients call me just to get their dog to do LLW, others have serious issues with separation axiety, aggression etc. I am a vet with continued education in animal behaviour and behavioural problem solving. I only "discovered" the clicker last year. Boy, that made life easier.... Anyway:
My choice has been to offer a first consultation, payed for before I leave the house (I have been cheated once, so now I give no credit) with an optional number of follow-up consultations (paid for by the hour) for as long as it is needed. Follow - ups over the phone is included in the standard fee.
I recently started to offer packages of 2 or 3 consultations at a reduced fee, to be paid at the first visit. These are for clients with less severe problems (lol, intended joke, it is usually the client, not the animal that have a problem...) Or for those I want to be certain of seeing more than once.
I have no moral problems with charging for consultations rather than for result - I only give advice and "tools" (metaphorical tools) - it is the client that has to do the actual work. I am not about to let my income depend on how much effort the client puts into it. My effort is the same, whether or not the client decide to actually do as I suggest.
Motivating the clients are always the biggest problem, of course I want motivated clients, that end up with a good result and are happy - both for the sake of the animal, and for the selfish reason: happy clients = more clients - I do not advertise (except for having a webpage with basic advice on animal behaviour and training) I get my clients by referral from other vets and by word of mouth. Very motivating... for me...
Best regards Christina
Pet Psychics
I was at a workshop this weekend in Washington taught by Barabara Heidenreich. At the end of the workshop, one woman said, "Barbara, what do you think of pet psychics - do they really exist?" Barbara graciously deflected the question but I chimed in and somewhat flippantly said, "Oh yes, I have met several - lots of people can tell you exactly what a pet is thinking and feeling and why." The woman took me seriously and wanted to know all about it.
Well, we started talking and I found out that the woman was very concerned about a number of the birds that she has rescued and was sincerely looking for help in understanding their past history and hoped that a pet psychic might help. All of a sudden, I didn't feel so flippant - this woman wanted help.
We had a long talk about behavior and how we can't really know the details of an animal's past treatment and how we need to work on "replacing" past negative experiences with positive ones. I heard several stories this weekend of animals being put down because some other trainer had told the owner that the animal was hopeless - "Once they start this, you can't do anything with them!" Well, that's just not the way we do things around here folks! Around here it's, "If the trainer can't do anything with this, let's find a real trainer." I didn't say that to this woman.
I think she was encouraged by our talk. I think she had hope that the history wasn't as important as the present and the future. I know she was in pain empathizing with these wonderful, surrendered or abandoned birds. I know that I will try to take questions like this more seriously in the future.
Do you find that it makes
Do you find that it makes it hard for you to charge them for your services when the client doesn't like your advice even though it is correct? I know it is for me. I want so much to provide benefit and value that I want to charge based on results rather than effort - but when the client has so much responsibility for the results, what do you do? I would love to hear some feedback of what pros actually do in these situations. What you should do may be different, but what do you actually do? How do you feel about it? Maybe I will do a blog entry on this soon. Best regards, Bob
LoL Great post
That is so true. You have a great way of saying things! Your posts are easy to understand and funny too, which always help one remember the content better.
I meet "the petowner that knows" very often. It can be quite hard to convince them to follow my suggestions, when they are so sure that they *know* what the animal is thinking....but if they already know, why did they call me for help?
Christina