Training 101 - From Puppies to People
Have you ever trained a puppy? You got this squirmy, silly, sweet ball of fluff and suddenly you either had to teach the puppy rules and manners, or else you had to live with the random chewing and smelly little mistakes that happen without training.
For most of the last century, dog training was best described as βjerk and yell.β You put a training collar on your dog and as soon as he did something wrong, you issued a verbal correction (often βNO!!β) and jerked on the collar. Thankfully, dog training has come a looooooong way since then. Dolphin trainer Karen Pryor wrote a breakthrough book in 1984 entitled βDonβt Shoot the Dog! β The New Art of Teaching and Training.β Through her work with dolphins, she saw that positive reinforcement was the fastest, most reliable way of teaching any species. The book is considered foundational to those who train their dogs in this century and is also a very useful look at how to train people.
Yes, people. In her book, Karen describes specific pos...
