Maureen will
be offering a new trick class (clicker training only) in the summer of 2008. To join the class,
dog must have done a group class somewhere. Shot records will be
checked.
Recently Maureen worked with a world famous dog trainer
(Nancy Gyes) who has been to "Chicken Camp". Clicker training as Dog
Works used to teach has changed. Brian Ferrand is planning to spend
three weeks with Bob Bailey attending two chicken camps. Bob Bailey's
philosophy on teaching animal training is that training is a mechanical
skill and the understanding and skillful practicing of a few simple
behavioral principles are keys to trainer success. Maureen is training
a chicken, applying new skills in shaping animal behavior that Nancy
showed her. "Brainyack" will make her debut during the Clicker class.
We are happy to rent a bird if you would like to sharpen your operant
conditioning mechanical skills. Chicken shaping is not a class
requirement. The class will focus on training tricks to your dog! If
you want to learn more, check out the links listed at the bottom of
this note.
To further entice and educate Dog Works
students, the first "trick class" will view the 45 minute story of the
first trainers that made Operant Conditioning known to animal trainers.
Anyone who has attended any Dog Works Class in the past is welcome to
come to the house to see "Patient Like The Chipmunks". PLTC is a true
video story of Animal Behavior Enterprises. ABE began as a dream on a
small farm in 1943. It was the first commercial application of
Skinner's then new operant conditioning. ABE revolutionized animal
training. PLTC chronicles Keller and Marian Breland's first lessons
training pigeons to guide bombs during WW2, and Bob and Marian
Bailey's pioneering work with free-flying birds and free-swimming
dolphins more than three decades ago. Together, the Brelands and the
Baileys trained over 140 species and thousands of individual animals
and people too. PLTC tells how the science of behavior became a
powerful, practical, and useful behavioral technology.PLTC is a story
about science and technology, about successes and failures. It is also
about business, and putting bread on the table for a staff of 43 rural
Arkansans, most without college degrees.
