Category: Critters Other Than Dogs, OC in the Class Room ¤
  Author: Ann Jeffree with response from Bob Bailey ¤
   Title: OC Works on All Species! ¤

 I overdosed on clicker training different species today. I visited a 
 friend, and we worked on some specifics we wanted to tackle.
 
 First, we conditioned her three dogs to ignore my cat - pretty 
 successful. We had each dog, one by one, doing a side-by-side sit-stay 
 with the cat. Meantime my cat was learning to get over his nasty fright 
 from being attacked by a strange dog I boarded some time ago, and to 
 respond in a new environment.
 
 Then we worked with Jordie to be calm around my friend's red deer. Less 
 successful, but the good news is when she later (accidentally) got an 
 opportunity to bite the deer, she just licked her nose instead. <whew!
 
 Then we worked with her 3 chickens. One was starting to target to a 
 target stick, one was learning to get up and down onto my friend's leg 
 while she sat on the ground, and not to mug me while I held the bowl with

 the food in it... and the third? Well, she learned to train us to feed 
 her - pretty smart chicken, right?
 
 Boy, these chickens are hard work. I'm pooped. Nighty-night. 
 

 :-) AnnJ

Bob Bailey's response:

Folks, this is what it is all about.  This technolgy WORKS.  It works with
dogs, cats, elephants, killer whales, macaws, chickens, lizards, turtles,
oscars, goldfish, catfish, squid, cockroaches, and the list goes on and on.
 It works with gimmicks.  It works without gimmicks.  It works with great
precision. It works with little precision. It works when we are aware of
it.  It works when we are not aware of it. It is how we learn.  It is how
other animals learn.  We can cover it with layers of other methodologies,
such as we do in our classrooms, and still students learn.  Remove all of
the other stuff and leave pure behavioral technology, the kids just learn
faster.  Some places (Chicago schools, for instance) are just getting the
message. 

Does that mean the behavior analysis, or operant conditioning, is only
about positive reinforcement?  Of course not.  Behavior analysis, applied
or not, is about changing behavior using scientific principles.  It is
training with a minimum of emotion and a maximum of planning.  It is
training that pays as much attention to the behavior of the train-or as the
train-ee.

Does this mean that behavior analysis has all of the answers?  No, but
there are a lot of good people looking for those answers.  And, the answers
will come from testing and more testing, and from data and more data.  Less
and less of our training methods and techniques will come from seat of the
pants experiences.  The trainers just starting today will be better because
others have paved the way, not with anecdotes, but with facts.

So, the next time you pick up a clicker, remember that you may not be
shaping just the behavior of a dog, you may be helping to shape of the
entire field of applied behavior.  We have written in psych journals that
psychology lacks cohesion.  It lacks the cohesion of chemistry, physics, or
biology.  Psychology, as a whole, lacks the framework provided by a Newton,
Lavoisier, Einstein, or a Darwin. Skinner was a start, but, even he knew
that he missed the mark.  In one of your classes, there could be a younster
who will hear the sound of the clicker, and that will start in that kid's
mind the same kind of inexorible search started by Newton's apple - and we
will finally discover why we do what we do.  Think about it.  It is a long
way from training chickens.

Bob Bailey