Train Positive Dog!

Karen Pryor, scientist, writer, innovator, animal trainer, passed away at the age of 92 on January 4. She changed my life, and she changed the world. Doing a search online today, one of the first obits I saw was from a website based in Ghana. Karen definitely had a worldwide positive impact on human behavior and animal welfare.

I first became aware of clicker training and Karen in the 1990s, when I read her book Lads Before the Wind (1975). I had already been training my own dogs and started to assist in training classes that I would describe as “mostly positive”. My background was in Biology, Zoology, and Ethology – the study of animal behavior in the wild, not the application of scientific principles to change behavior. I became a high school science teacher and gradually learned more about dog training with my own dogs. But I did not have a mentor who was a clicker trainer, and really did not understand how to apply it to my training.

At an agility trial in the early 2000s, I won a raffle prize that included a copy of Don’t Shoot the Dog (1984) – more from Karen about training a variety animals, including humans. That book got me thinking. Still, it was not until I quit my teaching job in 2009 and was figuring out what to do next that I thought “maybe I could get paid for playing with dogs”. Because positive training seemed like play to me – it was fun for the dog and the trainer and it got results – better behavior.

I found out about the Karen Pryor Academy, and applied for the Professional Dog Trainer Program which had a course starting soon near me. And, ClickerExpo was coming to town – I signed up for one of the three days of the conference. So much information in that one day! I began to see the great potential for this way of communicating with animals, and a way for me to be employed training dogs. I graduated from the Karen Pryor Academy and started my small training business in 2010.

I think the greatest of Karen Pryor’s many achievements was bringing an understanding of science to all of us who interact with animals. Clicker training, done properly, requires that you understand what you are doing with the clicker, the treats, and the context of training. When you flip a switch, you don’t need to know much about electricity to light up a room. When you use a clicker you do need to understand the science behind the training, and how your observation and actions impact the behavior of your subject animal. However, it doesn’t take a college degree to understand the basics behind clicker training. It is a powerful tool, but the principles are not complex. The knowledge can change the way you see the world. Thank you, Karen!

More about Karen from the Karen Pryor Academy:https://karenpryoracademy.com/remembering-karen-pryor-the-legacy-of-a-trailblazer-who-ignited-a-global-training-revolution/