How 2 Train a __________ [Fill in the blank] From Aardvarks to Zebras, Applied Behavior Science has a Rational Prescription for Creating Behavior Change by Dr. Patricia Barlow-Irick, Ph.D
A very interesting title and a very long subtitle. I saw this book mentioned online a few weeks ago and curiosity resulted in this purchase.
Dogs!
This is definitely a worthwhile book for training enthusiasts. It makes many direct references to well known trainers (Bob Bailey, Susan Friedman, and more) and you can also see how her training has been influenced by those.
The first half of the book is written in a sort of bullet point (but full sentence) format. This part is about different aspects of learning theory and it’s especially heavy on vocabulary. Sometimes I was wanting a reference because the definitions were different than what I’ve heard elsewhere. And other times I was very appreciative of how short and to the point those descriptions were. The separate sections made it very clear what terms and concepts were being discussed and overall the book does a much better job explaining and defining terms than the many psychology textbooks I’ve read. I had a little trouble seeing how some of the concepts or terms were directly relevant to training or how that piece of information could be used by someone training animals.
Horse clicker training ~2003!
The second half of the book was mostly discussion from the author about how she handles some types of scenarios, what to expect, professionalism in training, and the types of records and training procedures she uses. I found this to be equally (or more) valuable than the first part, but it didn’t seem like the two sections went together very well.
TAGTeach (though not direclty by name, she used “TAG Coach” ) was mentioned towards the end as a strategy for helping trainers become better at some of their body language and responses, thou
The author’s primary training experience is working with horses who are not used to being handled (and this book was written to be part of the materials for some of the instruction she gives on training horses) and that definitely impacts some of the things discussed in the book. I love reading about the training experiences of people who have worked with a massive number of animals and doing my best to learn from -their- experiences!
One of my clicker training projects. 2003.
Throughout the whole book, the writing style is very causal. It’s sometimes hard to know what’s “real” definitions and information and what is an opinion or experience of the author. For me, sometimes the friendly discussion with the reader seemed to be a little distracting from the material.
This is a book I’ll be recommending for training enthusiasts. It’s definitely something I’m going to re-read a few more times and especially to be making notes about the record keeping procedures and training plan write ups used for the huge number of animals that the author works with. I struggle with some of this not just with my own dogs, but especially when I start monitoring all of my student dogs (10-20 group classes at once a year, depending on time of year and activities!) and shelter dogs (~20 at a time). Her comments and record sheets and processes for keeping track of the many animals in training by many trainers/learners at a time are very impressive.
Here is the website for the book, even in the last 2 weeks it’s had massive changes (and more information added). Take a look at some of the record forms and formats for training plans. I’m going to be playing around to see if I can modify some of my dog forms to be as easy to use and fit on one nice page like that information.