Training

I love posts like this because I think everyone who starts clicker training after trying other sorts of training has a similar experience. This post from a guide dog trainer's journal describes a simple moment when some positive, rather than negative, response to animal management becomes the first response, and shows itself to be far more effective and easier than expected. In other words, this is about a clicker training who really "gets it"!

This week, Malcolm Gladwell wrote a fawning piece about Cesar Millan in the New Yorker (May 22). Gladwell shows why he's a very good writer, but not a good reporter (which may be the reason I thought his last book, Blink, was a vapid but nonethless enjoyable read). In this article, Gladwell doesn't even indicate that there is anything controversial at all about how Millan achieves his ends. No scent of behavioral science enters the discussion. There's no attempt on Galdwell's part to be objective, ferret out alternative opinions or provide balance. Malcolm is definitely not in the middle. He's wonderous.