Here are some photos from last weekend of Beau and Gracie, two of our sanctuary residents at the horse rescue. I’ve written about both Beau and Gracie before, both of them were horribly abused and were completely untouchable for the first several years that they were at the rescue. They were terrified of people and did not even want someone to approach within 15-20 feet of them.

The three pictures below show just how friendly Beau is now. He followed us around the whole time last weekend (several hours) and was really enjoying getting scratches on his forehead. He kept trying to “help” Dawn check things on her cell phone and even let Dawn spend some time getting the tangles out of his mane. He wasn’t too sure about having his mane brushed, but he did let us get a few big knots out.

Last summer, myself and some of the other volunteers at the rescue spent a lot of time working with Beau and Gracie and we had some pretty big break throughs! Both horses are now pretty friendly and will seek out interaction with people. Beau will even do this with new people who he has never met before! Gracie, on the other hand, still usually prefers people who she knows well.

Both horses are still not halter trained — they are very, very sensitive about hands and objects around their head because of their former abuse. However, that’s one of our big main goals for these two horses for this summer and I think that we will be able to make lots of good progress! I have also already started working some with Beau on the beginning steps of picking up his feet for hoof care, and I plan to continue working on that with both Beau and Gracie this summer.

Last weekend, Dawn and I had a great time hanging out in the pasture for a couple of hours with Beau and Gracie, as well as a few of our other sanctuary residents. Beau and Gracie have been on another property for the past several months and they only recently have been moved back to the rescue’s main property. Gracie had some itchy spots on her back, shoulders, and neck and was really enjoyed getting scratched! She also let me brush all of the tangles out of her mane. She doesn’t have nearly as much mane as Beau does, so she doesn’t get the same amount of knots and tangles that he does.

I love how relaxed Gracie looks in all of these photos. She has always been much more skeptical of people than Beau. We do not know the exact nature of the abuse these two horses went through. However, it must have been pretty awful.

Beau’s reaction to people before we started working with him was always to run as far away as he could get. Gracie, however, would hold her ground and whirl and kick if she felt threatened or afraid. Because of this, we have gone much more slowly with her training. We never wanted to push her even a tiny little bit because we did not want anyone to get hurt. You can read a bit more about CAT training, the type of training that I have done with Beau and Gracie, in this post.

One more photo of two of our old timers at the rescue. The black gelding is Shadow and the white gelding is Jim. Both are over 30, which is quite old for a horse. They are the best of buds and have a great time hanging out together at the rescue. You can read more about Jim’s story or Shadow’s story on the rescue’s website. Beau and Gracie get along well with Jim and Shadow and I know all four horses were happy to see each other when Beau and Gracie were brought back to the rescue’s main property recently.

The training process clearly demonstrates how you can use a simple behavior (touching a small square target) to train something more complex (having the dog stick her head into a pot). By starting out with a behavior the dog already knows (touching the target) the learning process is nearly errorless because this original behavior can be used and shaped into the new behavior. Watch in the video how the trainer gradually lowers the target into the pot and also, importantly, how the trainer gradually fades out his hand.

Many dogs pay attention to not just the target, but also that the target is connected to the trainer’s hand. If he had dropped the target into the pot and abruptly taken his hand away, the dog might have gotten a bit confused at first. Instead, the progression of teaching steps are nearly seamless and carefully guide the dog toward the final behavior. For more ideas of behaviors you can teach to dogs (and horses, fish and other animals) using targeting, check out this post.

Watch on Youtube: The Russians are coming!

I always like clicker training videos that clearly show all the steps that went into training a particular behavior. If you know of other great videos that do a good job of breaking down the training process so that it’s easy to see the steps the trainer used to teach the behavior, let me know. I like sharing these kinds of videos because I think they help clicker trainers learn about good shaping and get new ideas for how to train fun behaviors.

The video is titled “first 90 days of horse training.” Usually, when I find videos titled “the first x days of training,” the video is crammed full of everything the trainer rushed the horse through in too short of a time. As I’ve written about before, (see this post), I’m not a big fan of trainers who set time limits on training or make a competition out of how much they can get done in the shortest period of time. I like this video because it looks like this gal is spending a lot of time hanging out with the horse and developing a solid foundation and relationship, rather than rushing forward.

One of the parts of this video that I really like is the short part around ~1:55 when she uses scratches as a reinforcer after asking the horse to take a step over with her hind quarters. The trainer has pretty good timing and she switches to scratching as soon as she gets one step over. She has a light touch and is not using much pressure to ask the horse to step over.

Also, she knows exactly where to scratch and does a good job of scratching enough for the horse to enjoy it, but keeps it short enough to keep the training session going. Scratches can be a great reinforcer, but I’ve learned it does take some practice to get timing and delivery down, and she seems to have a good feel for this.

I often use food as a reinforcer when clicker training because it is convenient and easy–the horse can eat the treat quickly and then we can return to training. However, I think it’s really important to also think about and develop other reinforcers that can be used during training. Although most horses love working for treats, there are plenty of other things that horses like as well! What are your horse’s favorite non-food rewards? Have you found ways to effectively incorporate these into your training?

Watch on Youtube: Wild Mustang Trained with Parelli – First 90 Days of Horse Training

So, I’ve been enjoying this nice spring weather and trying to spend some time outside. This is hard, since I do have the end of the semester coming up and lots of school work to do! These photos are of a neat little caderpillar who I met at the horse rescue a couple of weekends ago. He found his way onto my shirt accidentally. So, I pulled him off and he had a nice time crawling across my hand before I set him down on a tree branch.

I hope that you are enjoying spring and getting to spend some time outside playing with your animals and enjoying the weather. Below is a picture of two of our old timers at the rescue, Jim and Shadow. I snapped this picture the same day I met the caterpillar.

These two geldings, both who are around 30, are the best of buds. They are definitely enjoying this nice spring weather and were having a pleasant breakfast under these shady trees when I snapped this photo. You can read more about Jim and Shadow’s stories on the rescue’s website. Here is Jim’s page and here is Shadow’s page. We’ve recently updated our website and added new photos and information for some of our resident horses, such as these two, so please check it out!

I’ve finally finished posting my notes from the 4th annual Art and Science of Animal Training Conference at UNT. ORCA puts on an awesome conference every year, but I thought this year was one of the best! You can read all of my notes from the conference by visiting this page. We had great talks from Joe Layng, Bob Bailey, Alexandra Kurland, Ken Ramirez, Steve White, and Kay Laurence.

This year I’ve added a newsletter to my site. If you haven’t joined it yet, I encourage you to join by filling out the form to the right or by visiting this page. Every Monday I send out a short newsletter that lists the blog posts from the previous week, as well as bits of additional information about what I’m up to with my animals.

In this past week’s newsletter, I talked a bit about how I’ve just started training Amy, one of my new rats. I also asked my newsletter subscribers what they think about and do when they first start training a new animal. Since asking that, I’ve been corresponding by e-mail with one friend, Paula. Here’s part of her answer to this question: “The first and most important thing is for them to know I think they are wonderful.”

I asked her if I could share this quote because I thought this was a great statement and a wonderful attitude. I know of many training situations that would have gone much easier and much more successfully if the trainer had started with the assumption that the animal was wonderful and if the animal already had learned that the trainer liked him and wanted him to be successful.

What do you think about when you begin training? What assumptions and ideas do you have when you first start interacting with an animal?

Now, a bit about bicycling with horses, because I know you’ve been wondering about the title of this post!

My friend Hertha recently sent me a great video of her horse Boots. Recently, she and Boots have been going for bicycle rides together! Letting Boots trot along beside her is a great way for both of them to go on outings and get a bit of exercise. However, this definitely required a well thought out teaching process!

Here’s Hertha’s description of her bicycling video:

Since my hips have given up riding and my knees have given up decent running, I’ve taken to my bike to help my horse maintain some good sustained movement that is more interesting for her than circles.

Free-shaping means giving positive reinforcement when the horse displays behaviour you want to encourage. The treat earned causes the horse to display more of the behaviour that earns the treats. Once the horse gets comfortable with the new behaviour and offers it willingly, the treats can be spaced increasingly further apart. On our 3km trip with the bike we only stopped twice for a nibble of grass and a bit of apple.

Watch on YouTube: Free-shaping: Boots and the Bicycle

Since watching the video, I’ve corresponded a bit with Hertha about how she taught this to Boots. I was impressed by how calm Boots was in the video, since I’ve known many horses who were terrified of bicycles. Apparently, Boots wasn’t always this calm around bikes!

Several years ago, when Hertha originally taught Boots about bicycles, she had to break the process down into lots of little steps. She started with her son riding a bike and her and Boots following (with Boots on a lead rope). It took awhile before Boots was confident enough to approach the bike.

Once Boots would approach the bike, Hertha had her son walk with the bike, so Boots would feel confident to approach closer. Eventually, Boots even offered to sniff the tire. After that, they did lots of ‘follow the bike’ at the walk and jog, and continued to practice ‘sniffing the bike’, until Boots was completely relaxed around the bike. Then, Hertha switched things up so that she was the one riding the bike. She practiced riding toward and away from Boots, until she could ride right up to her and give her a treat.

This is one of the coolest behaviors that I’ve seen in awhile for a creative way to exercise a horse. Do you have any unique or unusual behaviors that you are teaching your animals right now? If so, I’d love to hear about them!

Behavior analyst Dr. Joe Layng gave the keynote speech at the 4th annual Art and Science of Animal Training Conference. I absolutely loved this talk and it gave me plenty to think about regarding training animals and teaching people. If you are not familiar with Joe, I encourage you to check out his bio on the ORCA website. He is an expert in the design of instruction. One of his recent projects has been the Headsprout reading program, a computer-based program that teaches children to read fluently in about 30 hours of instruction. Joe’s talk at the conference focused on how we talk about training and how we train others to train. These notes cover a few of the things Joe discussed in his talk that I think are essential to think about when we are training animal trainers.

Teaching discriminations and concepts: When is a chair a chair?

When training animals and when training trainers, we are often teaching concepts. For example, you might teach a trainer the concept of reinforcer delivery: how to reward the animal with food, playtime, or another preferred item after a successful behavior. Likewise, an animal new to training has to learn many basic concepts at the beginning of training, such as how and when to get the treat or other reinforcer.

Joe used two examples here to illustrate his main points, a hypothetical geometric figure called a zepp and the concept of a chair. Pause for a moment before you read on. What makes a chair, a chair? How would you describe a chair to someone from Mars, so that they would be able to identify an object as a chair every time they saw one?

When teaching concepts, trainers and teachers often are good at giving examples. However, according to Joe, the critical part to teaching concepts is to teach both examples and non-examples. Many teachers forget to teach enough non-examples. Non-examples are essential for learning because people learn concepts through recognizing the differences and discrepancies between examples and non-examples.

When teaching, examples and non-examples should be given in pairs that differ by just one essential property. This will help emphasize what the person needs to learn. If examples and non-examples are completely different, it will be impossible for the learner to pick out the critical features.

Also, a trainer needs to distinguish between and teach “must have” features and “can have” features. For example, a chair must have a back and a seat. However, it can be brown, black, or even hot pink. The learner must not only know which features are essential and which features can’t occur, but must also recognize which features can vary (such as color, in the chair example).

What are you doing?

Think about the last time you talked to another animal trainer about training. What sorts of words did you use? Did you use words such as reinforcement, shaping, targeting, consequence, or other words that might be considered “jargon” to someone who didn’t know much about animal training?

We use words like this because we assume the other person will know what we are talking about. However, Joe cautioned that teachers and trainers often take for granted that they all mean the same thing and are talking about the same thing, when sometimes they might not be.

For example, imagine someone told you that he “reinforced his dog for sitting” or that another person told you that she “used targeting to teach the horse to step into the trailer.” Do you know exactly what happened in each of these situations?

What if the first person told you that reinforcement doesn’t work for teaching dogs to sit or the second person told you that targeting doesn’t work for teaching horses to trailer load?

Often, there is confusion during teaching, as well as confusion when discussing training scenarios and problems, because trainers are not clear about describing exactly what happened. In the first example, lots of different things could have been going on. The dog might not have liked the treat, the trainer could have actually been punishing the behavior, or the trainer, because of poor timing, could have actually been accidentally reinforcing a behavior other than sitting.

In order to effectively teach others about training and in order to help people troubleshoot when things go wrong, trainers must learn to be very precise about describing the procedures and methods they use when training. Be very careful when using jargon, even when you think the other person will know what you mean. When giving instructions or explaining a procedure, make sure the other person understands the exact steps and requirements that are needed to make that procedure work successfully.

Using feedback effectively

This was one of my favorite parts of Joe Layng’s talk. Everyone has been in a situation where they have had to give another person feedback on the person’s performance. Joe distinguished between two types of feedback—confirmatory feedback and instructional feedback.

Confirmatory feedback: Feedback that tells the person that they did the behavior correctly.

Instructional feedback: Feedback that tells the person how to change or improve her behavior for the next time she does the behavior.

Now, most people use both types of feedback pretty haphazardly. This is not a very effective way to teach or train. Researchers, as well as expert teachers, have shown that confirmatory feedback will be most successful if it is given immediately after the behavior. Instructional feedback, on the other hand, works most successfully when it is given immediately before the person does the behavior the next time.

If you must be delayed in giving confirmatory feedback, don’t be vague or general! If you do this, the feedback will have little effect on the person’s behavior in the future. Instead, make sure you specify the exact situation and the particular behavior that you want to identify as a job well done.

This is my last post in my series of posts about the 4th annual Art and Science of Animal Training Conference. I encourage you to visit this page to check out the rest of my notes from the 4th conference, as well as my notes from the 1st and 2nd conferences.

If you’ve been around enough clicker trainers and positive animal trainers, you’ll find that everyone has an opinion about shaping, luring and targeting. And, trainers often don’t agree about which of these methods are best for training or if certain ones of these methods should even be used at all. Kay Laurence gave a very interesting lecture about this subject at the 4th Annual Art and Science of Animal Training Conference. This post is some of my notes and thoughts from her lecture.

Ways to get behavior: Shaping, luring and targeting

Shaping, luring, and targeting are three possible ways for teaching an animal a new behavior. Many clicker trainers are big fans of shaping, but have various opinions regarding how much a trainer should use luring or targeting. Here are a few definitions, just so we’re all on the same page.

Shaping: The trainer waits for the animal to do any approximation of a behavior and rewards these attempts. The trainer moves through a progression of steps, each step being closer to the final goal. This method is the most self-directed of the three methods that will be discussed in this post and the animal has the least guidance from the trainer. (Here’s a video of a rat being shaped to do a simple behavior.)

Luring: The trainer uses a piece of food to guide the animal through the motions of the behavior. During this method, the animal is highly dependent on the trainer for guidance and direction. After the initial training, the lure is gradually removed. (This video shows a finished behavior that was originally taught using luring.)

Targeting: The trainer teaches the animal to touch a target. Then, the target is used to initiate the behavior or to guide the animal through the behavior. Depending on how the target is used, this method can be a more trainer-directed type of learning or a more self-directed type of learning. (Here are several video examples of using targets during training.)

The test: Which method is best?

Kay Laurence wanted to know which of these methods was the best for teaching a behavior. Would self-taught (free-shaped) behavior be more reliable or resilient? Would luring result in an animal who fixated on the food and didn’t actually learn the behavior? Could a trainer get the same end result no matter which method the trainer used to teach the behavior?

To test these ideas, Kay taught three behaviors to three of her border collies. The three behaviors were stepping into a box, going out and around a cone, and walking along a line on the ground. Each behavior was taught to one dog using luring, one dog using shaping, and one dog using targeting. So, for example, the first dog was taught to step in the box using luring, to go around the cone using shaping, and to walk along the line using targeting.

What were the results?

All three methods were successful for training and all the dogs were able to learn all of the behaviors, regardless of the teaching method used. However, the learning process and final outcome were slightly different for each dog and each behavior, depending on the teaching method.

Over all, Kay reported that the shaping method seemed more successful for teaching the step into the box behavior and the luring method seemed more successful for teaching the walking along the line. All three methods worked equally as well for teaching the dogs to go around a cone.

So, for a trainer who is skilled in all three methods, one of these three methods of teaching is not necessarily better than the other two. When deciding what training method to use, you should consider the particulars of the behavior, as well as other factors that might affect the teaching process and the outcome.

Choices, choices, choices

So, if all three of these methods can work, how does a trainer know which one to choose? When formulating a training plan, begin by considering all your options. Consider your skills, the animal’s skills, the particulars of the behavior, and your relationship with the animal.

These different methods require different skills on the part of the animal and on the part of the trainer. For example, for luring to be successful, the animal has to have learned a high degree of discipline around food and the trainer needs to understand how to fade out food lures. For shaping to be successful, the trainer must be able to anticipate behavior and avoid frustrating the learner. For targeting to be successful, the trainer must have the mechanical skills to handle the target, clicker, and food, all at the same time.

Kay gave a list of four considerations when choosing between these three training methods. A trainer must think about:
1) The trainer’s mechanical skills and the mechanics of the behavior
2) The confidence of the learner
3) The skill of the teacher
4) The future use of the behavior

Some behaviors logically need more guidance or direction from the trainer. Most of us would not want to be free-shaped if we were being taught to use a chain saw or to scuba dive! Likewise, when training animals, some types of errors can be costly. Luring or targeting can often be used to minimize certain types of errors, since the trainer can more carefully direct the animal. On the other hand, for some behaviors, it might be much better to shape the behavior.

Be careful about discounting any one of these methods. I’ve heard some people say that shaping doesn’t work, other people say that targeting doesn’t work, and still other people say that luring doesn’t work. One reason why people say these things is that each of these three methods has lots of different variations. And, some of these variations work better than others, or work better in some situations than other situations, or work better for some trainers than other trainers, depending on the trainer’s skill level and the trainer’s history with the animal.

Is luring evil?

I’m only half joking with the heading of this section. Of these three methods, luring, by far, has the worst reputation. I’ve met many trainers who seem to think that luring is awful and should never, ever be used when training.

Kay Laurence believes that most clicker trainers dismiss luring because they have not learned good luring skills. Most people try to “lump” when they lure and train a behavior in one big piece. (What is lumping?) To be good at luring, a trainer still needs to know how to split behavior down into small pieces and needs to know how to efficiently fade out the lure.

I’ve seen some brilliant video clips of Kay and her students teaching complex behaviors using luring and then quickly and quietly fading out the lure and adding in a cue. Also, in the experiment discussed above, Kay was able to quickly start to fade out the lure because of each dog’s history with training and shaping.

A few final thoughts

Don’t discount a teaching method too quickly because it has not worked for you (or others you have known). See first how expert trainers use the method. Are they able to get results? What do they do differently that makes the technique work well? Do you like how the final behavior looks?

Want to get better at training? Watch the experts. See how they get behavior and see how they use each of these three methods. Then go practice with your own animals. Videotape yourself (or have a friend watch you) and try to decide how you could improve your shaping, targeting, and/or luring skills. Do you already know areas you could be practicing?

Which of these three methods, shaping, targeting, and luring do you use most often? Do you ever combine two of these together? What influences you when you are deciding what method to use when training a new behavior?

Who doesn’t love cute kittens? These are some photos of a few adorable kittens who were brought to the Denton Animal Shelter recently. These kittens are all very young. They are in a foster home currently so that they can be bottle fed, but they will be available for adoption once they are a bit older. Which photo is your favorite? I couldn’t pick just one, so I had to include them all!!

Unfortunately, many animal shelters and rescue groups get swamped with kittens in the spring, as the weather gets warmer and cats start having kittens. The shelter will be able to find homes for these cute kittens. However, the many kittens who will be brought to the shelter this spring are a reminder of our country’s huge pet overpopulation problem.

We can all help with the pet overpopulation problem by spaying and neutering our pets and encouraging our friends to do so as well. Also, if you have friends looking for a new pet, please encourage them to check their local shelters or check Petfinder.com.

Petfinder (and animal shelters) aren’t just for dogs and cats. Many people are surprised when I tell them that my three new rats came from our local SPCA. All three rats were owner surrenders who were unwanted by their previous owners. They have been great so far, I’m so happy I adopted all three of them.

Thanks to a generous donation, the adoption fee for all cats at the Denton Animal Shelter is $30 for the month of April. If you have friends in North Texas, please ask them to check out the animals at the Denton Animal Shelter. Also, as always (thanks to another great donor), the shelter’s feral cats are fully vetted and then available for adoption for free as barn cats. This is a great way that the shelter is able to save these cats from euthanazia, while still providing them homes with responsible pet owners. There is one orange tabby named Dwanye who has been at the shelter for quite some time now. I sure hope he finds his forever home soon! There’s a picture of him below. He’s too cute, I just couldn’t leave him out of this post! I’m sure that he will make someone a great barn cat.

At the 4th annual Art and Science of Animal training conference, Steve White talked about training choices and how they’re made. During his lecture he discussed the hows and whys of choosing different training tools and techniques.

I love listening to Steve White speak. If you’re not familiar with Steve, he’s a dog trainer from Seattle. He’s also an excellent speaker. Steve has worked with police departments training police dogs, drug dogs, and bomb dogs. This kind of training requires a great amount of precision and skill—the security and safety of many people depend on these dogs doing their jobs quickly and accurately. During his talk at the conference this year, Steve drew some interesting parallels between dog training and law enforcement. This post will be a few snippets from his talk that I found particularly interesting and have been thinking about.

The Law Enforcement Model

Steve talked a bit about how law enforcement officers must work. In any situation, an officer must do three things. He or she must assess the situation, formulate a plan of action, and then act on it. Often, this must all be done very quickly! The officer has to scan the situation and gather as much information as possible in a short amount of time, and then begin working toward an appropriate solution. Animal training is pretty similar. Although we aren’t often trying to catch bad guys or working in life or death situations, a trainer often must operate under similar conditions. When an animal trainer is called in to solve a problem, the trainer often needs to quickly come up with an effective starting point or solution, even though the trainer usually does not have the whole story of what’s been going on.

Steve said that in law enforcement situations, the officer must continuously assess the situation and select the most reasonable option relative to the circumstances as perceived at that point in time. This statement offers a lot of reminders related to good animal training! Let’s look at two parts of this statement:

Continuous assessment: First, an animal trainer must continuously assess the training situation and make changes immediately, if needed. Good trainers has a well mapped out training plan. However, a great trainer is able to reevaluate a situation and make changes to that training plan, as needed.

Most reasonable option: Sometimes, the best, most perfect, ideal training option is not available. The trainer might lack information about the situation, certain resources, or cooperation from certain people. It’s important to remember that we live in the “real world.” For most training situations, there never will be a “perfect” option. However, we can evaluate the best options and make sure we select the most reasonable option that has the highest chance of being successful for the animal.

Susan Friedman’s Three Prong Test

Steve said that trainers often are tools of last resort. People call up the trainer when they can’t solve a problem on their own and have exhausted the options of their friends and their dog training books. When making training decisions, we need to devise solutions by considering effectiveness, intrusiveness, and social acceptability. This three-pronged test for evaluating training plans comes from bird trainer Susan Friedman. However, it’s a good test to keep in mind when training any species!

Effectiveness: Did (or will) your training program work? Will the results last over time? Did you train the appropriate behaviors in all situations that they will be needed in? Will it be easy for you or the client to continue to maintain the newly trained behaviors?

Intrusiveness: How much does the training plan disturb and interfere with the owner and animal’s daily life? Remember, simple training solutions are usually better than more complex or complicated ones. How much control does the learner have over the training process? How much, if any, does your training program rely on restraint, confinement, deprivation or other procedures that alter the animal’s normal routine?

Social acceptability: Are both your training plan and the results of the training socially and culturally acceptable? Did you meet the client’s expectations? If the client feels uncomfortable with your training procedures or the results the client is not going to follow through with your program.

If you are a professional trainer, these three points are great things to consider when designing training programs for your clients and their animals. However, even if you aren’t a professional trainer, these points are important to consider for your training programs for your own animals. Does your plan work well without being too intrusive into the animal’s life? Do the results benefit the animal, as well as you?

Also, in most situations, other people also interact with our animals. This could include spouses, children, friends, veterinarians, and others. If you are designing training plans, think about Susan Friedman’s three prong test and consider whether your training program is going to be effective, non-intrusive, and socially acceptable for the other individuals who interact with your animals. If your answer is no, you might want to consider altering your training plan so that others who interact with the animal will be able to help you maintain the behaviors you train. Or, you might want to consider simple ways to train these people so that they can be helpful.

Do you find this model helpful? What additional considerations do you think are important when designing and implementing training programs for your own animals or for client’s animals?

This was the second year that Phung Luu spoke at the Art and Science of Animal Training Conference. Phung Luu is a very talented bird trainer. Last year, at the 3rd annual conference, Phung spoke about errorless learning. This year, he gave a very interesting talk about Modal Action Patterns. He discussed what are Modal Action Patterns and how trainers can use them.

What is a Modal Action Pattern (MAP)?

A modal action pattern is a genetic-like behavior or chain of behaviors that is triggered by a particular stimulus. Modal action patterns are also called fixed action patterns (FAP). However, Phung explained that some researchers are moving toward using the term modal action pattern instead of fixed action pattern because they want to recognize and emphasize that all behaviors, even highly stereotypic, species-specific patterns of behavior, are still somewhat flexible.

Common examples of MAPs and FAPs include the mating dances of many species, some types of displays of aggression, the pointing and herding instincts of some breeds of dogs, spider web building, and when a baby bird pecks at an adult’s beak so that the adult bird will regurgitate food. One example of a MAP that shows the flexibility of these types of behaviors is a bird’s nest building behavior. Birds “instinctively” know how to build nests. However, most people don’t realize that this behavior is still quite flexible and that a bird’s nest building behavior improves over the years with practice.

Here’s what trainers need to remember about MAPs and FAPs. Most animals have stereotypic or set behavior patterns that are characteristic to that species. Animal trainers need to be aware of these behaviors so that they can manage them, or even use them to their advantage. As well, if trainers aren’t aware of these types of behaviors, they are likely to get in trouble. Although the basic principles of training apply to every species, MAPs are one reason why before you begin working with a new species, it is important to spend time studying that species and becoming familiar with that species’ behaviors.

Using MAPs to Your Advantage When Training Animals

When training animals, you can use MAPs to reduce behavior you don’t want or to encourage behavior that you do want. One example Phung Luu discussed involved a jaw popping behavior that dolphins do. Researchers use to think that the jaw popping sound was caused entirely by the physical movement of the jaw popping. However, they later realized that the dolphins had a special vocalization that accompanied the jaw pop behavior. Phung discussed how Ken Ramirez worked with scientists and other trainers to teach dolphins to do this behavior on cue. This allowed researchers working on dolphin vocalization to closely study a new type of dolphin vocalization that had not been previously studied.

Phung also discussed how he has used MAPs with aggressive Andean condors. Condors are big birds, with up to a 10 foot wing span. Phung showed a few videos of these birds in his lecture. They were gorgeous birds, but I wouldn’t want to get too close to an aggressive one! One behavior that young condors do is a wing pumping behavior. This is a friendly behavior that is often done to older animals. Phung knew that condors never wing pump and aggress at the same time. So, in several aggressive condors, Phung has shaped up the wing pump behavior. He has used this behavior to decrease aggression, while teaching the bird how to interact positively with people. He starts slowly, by first reinforcing any small wing movements and then shaping the bird to lift his wings. The wing pump gives the bird an alternative behavior to do while people are present and teaches the bird a positive way to interact with people, without having to be aggressive.

Phung’s lecture gave me a lot to think about regarding how we can use “natural” behaviors to improve our training. Many times we only think of these types of behaviors as getting in the way of training. Have you used MAPs or natural species behaviors to your advantage when you are training? If not, can you think of some ways that you might be able to incorporate some of these ideas into your training?