After years of work with clicker training (and whistle training and "good pony" training and even "tap on the glass" training), she writes about it all--and finishes up with a trilogy of short training courses. Train your cat to high-five, teach your dog to hand target, and teach your coach to tag you. Although the technique she pioneered is called clicker-training, what it's really about is primary reinforcement, secondary reinforcement, and cues. Not commands, cues. It's a mindset. Commands imply do-or-else; cues imply do because you want to.
Read this book. You'll be converted, run out and buy a clicker, and start teaching your budgie to answer the telephone when a phone solicitor calls. Go for it.
The absolutely most fascinating chapter (that's saying a lot) is on creativity. Starting with a trained dolphin who already knew a bunch of tricks, they started reinforcing when she did something new and different--a wave of a fin; sticking her head up; making a funny jump. Repeating the new thing didn't get a reward--she had to come up with something new each time. When she eventually rans out of new things to offer, she sulked for a day, then,
"...circles around the tank once, building up speed. Then she rolls over on her back, sticks her big wide tail into the air, and coasts, without power, so to speak, about forty feet, from one side of the tank to the other."
None of them had ever seen a dolphin do that and it certainly wasn't trained into her. She invented it.The story doesn't end there but I'm not giving out any more spoilers.
I've started clicker training already, teaching Zack how to fetch my socks. As expected, the hardest part is training the trainer. Wonder if I could use her methods on eliminating some of my self-destructive behaviors?
No comments:
Post a Comment