Positive Reinforcement for Animals

I just got back from keynoting a unique conference on a unique venue.  (Yes, "on.")  ClickerExpo is all about positive reinforcement-based animal training, for animals of all sorts, but with a focus on dogs.  It was founded by Karen Pryor, whose wonderful books I refer to--let's see--a dozen times in The Science of Consequences.  This year, the West Coast edition of Expo took place on the Queen Mary, the historic ocean liner now permanently docked at Long Beach.  Zowee!  Clicks, by the way, are "marker" sounds, part of the communication system for learning a new behavior.

In honor of this event, I want to highlight one of the links on my website:  http://www.clickertraining.com/library.   This library offers lots of useful information about positive reinforcement for animals, and in an entertaining style.  My "Links" page also connects to several other resources for animal training and enrichment, and there are dozens more excellent ones out there.  Animal lovers, enjoy!

Good Reads

A new year brings a natural opportunity to pause for a moment, take stock, and catch up on that too-long to-do list.  One of my accomplishments over the holidays was to take a look at the author page I’d created on Goodreads.com before the book touring got crazy.  For those who haven't heard of it, Goodreads is the largest site in the world for readers to share book recommendations (and do other interesting things), and it has--get this--20 million members.  How very encouraging, even if many of them are like me, checking in only occasionally. 

Naturally, The Science of Consequences is featured on my Goodreads page, but I also had a chance to add over 100 of my favorite books.  (That’s the reason that their average rating is five stars.  I’m not going to add books I dislike, am I?!)  Eventually, I’ll get around to adding more, but this is a decent start.  So many great books out there . . .  And some books--fiction as well as nonfiction--do an excellent job illustrating how consequences work.  While that will eventually be the topic of another post, my Goodreads list can help get you started.  What are your own favorites?