Virtually everyone who trains animals knows the name B.F. Skinner. Burrhus Frederic Skinner (1904–1980) is one of the best-known psychologists in history. His claim to fame is the Skinner Box—a more-refined version of Thorndike’s puzzle box. The box had a lever, a slot for food rewards, and water. The rat could explore and if it happened to press the bar a food pellet would drop into the tray. The cage was wired to automatically record behavior showing the cumulative number of presses per minute. Similar boxes were made for pigeons. Due to this efficient way for testing rats and pigeons

While animal behavior was struggling to become a science, researches, one by one, inched their way closer. One of the first was Ivan Pavlov. Ivan Pavlov (1849–1936) In the early 1900s, the Russian physiologist, Ivan Pavlov, was studying digestion in dogs. Pavlov designed and surgically implanted a fistula, which allowed him to measure and analyze gastric secretions after feeding his canine test subjects. His findings from this research eventually won him a Nobel Prize in medicine, which later attributed to his prestigious standing in Russia and among the Academy of Sciences. However, during the course of his research, Pavlov observed

From dog trainers on TV to professional sport trainers to the casual pet dog trainer, the range of skill and the types of techniques used, even within a given level field, varies as much as the faces of the people carrying the techniques out. What doesn’t change though is the fact that animal training and our study of behavior has changed dramatically from fanciful anecdotes into a mature science in the last 200 years. The following 5-part series journeys back to the beginning and highlights some of the most incredible and significant stages that have shaped the field today. Animal

Well, I’m in New Zealand prior to my set of lectures in Auckland, Massey University, and Dunedin. After a little over a day, here’s what I can say. 1. New Zealand Airlines is the best airline I’ve taken so far. The flight was over 13 hours but it didn’t seem long at all! 2. There are sheep in the middle of Auckland.       New Zealand      Ok. That’s a little misleading. They live in a big park. But they wander around wherever they want and people just drive slowly. The park is Cornwall Park.      New Zealand  

Question: My husband and I have a 10-week old yellow lab named Avery.  We brought her home 3 weeks ago, at the age of 7 weeks, and have been using the methods we learned from your book, Perfect Puppy in 7 Days, to teach her to say please and to sit for everything. It is going well, and Avery is becoming a good puppy…not perfect!  She likes to bite us A LOT. We try to give her something else and reward her for not biting, or for stopping, but she still likes to do it!  That will just take time, I