Equiosity

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Episode 192: Clinic Posts Part 1: The Conversation Is Not A Burden Jun 29, 2022

Show notes

We are beginning a conversation that is centered around the on-line clinics. Even though the clinics are on-line and you go through them at your own pace, they are designed to be interactive. There are many places in them where people can respond to questions that I use to get a conversation going. And we’ve been having some wonderful exchanges that have created a rich resource for everyone in the courses to enjoy. Dominique has chosen a handful of these conversations to highlight. We begin with a comment from one of my posts: the conversation is not a burden. What does that mean? Then we look at the magnetic attraction of mats and how to keep that in balance with other behaviors you may want. Keeping behaviors in balance takes us to backing. And backing takes us to us to everything. To find out what that means listen to this week’s episode.

Episode 191: Michaela Hempen Part 2: Animal Welfare - Behavior Analysts Wanted! Jun 24, 2022

Show notes

Episode 191 Michaela Hempen Part 2: Animal Welfare: Behavior Analysts Wanted! In part 1 Dr Michaela Hempen introduced us to her day job. Michaela works for the European Food Safety Agency. This is a scientific agency provides risk assessments to give the European Commission or European member states the scientific basis for legislation. The EFSA looks at anything related to food safety, that includes animal health. The European Parliament has requested a scientific assessment of what the risks are for farm animals. These assessments will be the basis for legislation. The European Commission will be revising all farm animal welfare legislation, and part of this will be based on scientific assessments of their welfare. Michaela has become involved in this project which means she has been on a steep learning curve to familiarize herself with the field of animal welfare. In part 1 we talked about preference tests. How do you measure what animals want? Part 2 begins with a discussion of stress and then Michaela talks about an important call for tender which her agency has put out. They want welfare scientists to design the road map for future risk assessments of animal welfare. They are looking for new ways of assessing welfare. The teams must include a behavior analyst, so we’re hoping this podcast will help get this information out to people in that field. The links to all the references Michaela cited as well as the link to information about the call to tender are in the show notes at equiosity.com

Episode 190: Dr Michaela Hempen Pt 1: Assessing Animal Welfare Jun 17, 2022

Show notes

We are joined again by Dr. Michaela Hempen, but this time, Michaela is not talking about Blondie and the cribbing project, but about her day job. Michaela works for the European Food Safety Agency. The EFSA looks at anything related to food safety, including animal health. It provides risk assessments which give the European Commission or European member states the scientific basis for legislation. The European Commission will be revising all farm animal welfare legislation, and part of this will be based on scientific assessments of their welfare. Michaela has become involved in this project which means she has been on a steep learning curve to familiarize herself with the field of animal welfare. In this podcast we talk about preference tests. Whether it’s a laying hen or a horse how do you measure what animals want? For a list of the references Michaela refers to in the podcast go to the show notes at equiosity.com.

Episode 189 Mary Hunter Pt 3 What Are You Clicking - Your Behavior Or Your Animal's Behavior? Jun 10, 2022

Show notes

We begin Part 3 with a discussion my favorite of Mary Hunter’s recent StaleCheerios posts: “Are you clicking for your own behavior or your animal’s behavior?” To find out what that means listen to the podcast.

Episode 188 Mary Hunter Pt 2 Reinforcement Strategies Jun 04, 2022

Show notes

This is part 2 of our conversation with Mary Hunter. We are continuing to use Mary’s recent StaleCheerios blog posts as the launching point for a series of interesting discussions. Mary’s April post: “Assess your Reinforcement Delivery” gave us a lot to talk about. I especially liked this topic because it let us talk about how much we can influence our horse’s balance through the thoughtful use of food delivery. We’ve talked about this a lot for horses. In this episode we consider how the details that we focus on for horses might also be relevant to dog training.

Episode 187 Mary Hunter Pt 1 Desperation Clicks And More Problems With Punishment May 23, 2022

Show notes

We’re beginning a three part conversation with Mary Hunter. Mary has a masters degree in Behavior Analysis from the University of North Texas. She is the president of the Art and Science of Animal Training, the non-profit organization that puts on the Art and Science of Animal Training conference. Together with Dr. Jesus Rosales Ruiz she is the co-author of the PORTL manual. She is the presenter in our Listen and Learn audio course on Applied Behavior Analysis. And she is the author of the Stale Cheerios blog. The blog went into a temporary hiatus while Mary worked on other projects, including the PORTAL manual. At the start of the year she brought the blog back and her posts have been such gems, I wanted to spend an afternoon talking to her about them. We begin our conversation not with the blog posts but with her masters thesis which was on desperation clicks and the effect they may have on training.

Episode 186 Spring! Pt 2 Turning “No” Into “Yes” May 18, 2022

Show notes

What do you do when your horse or your dog gives you a “no” answer to a request but you really do need a “yes answer” response? That question begins our conversation. We also talk about piggy backing positive reinforcement training onto the skills and techniques a handler may know from other training methods.

Episode 185: Spring! Part 1 - Environmental Changes May 06, 2022

Show notes

Maple syrup buckets prompt the start of our conversation about environmental changes and the effect they can have on training. We talk about the way in which the a bad scare can begin to contract the conditions in which you feel safe working with your horse. We also describe how you can expand the conditions out again.

Episode 184 Picking Criteria Pt 3 From Training Rhythms To Core Beliefs Apr 25, 2022

Show notes

This is part 3 of a conversation that began with a question about picking your starting criteria. Once your training session is underway, how do you change criteria? What happens to the rhythm of your training during the transition? Is it a smooth flow, or is it more stop and go? Always the conversation prompts us to see new details in the training. Our conversation finishes with a discussion of core training beliefs. In the new on-line clinics I ask people to introduce themselves and their horses. One of the discussion threads asks about training goals. What do people want for their horses. The answers very much reflect a change in emphasis as people shift into cue-based training. Dominique reflects on her own journey through the horse world.

Episode 183: Picking Criteria Pt 2 - From Degrees Of Freedom To Finding Your Starting Point Apr 15, 2022

Show notes

We begin this week’s conversation with degrees of freedom. What does that mean and how does that help us to choose our starting criteria? In the course of our conversation, Dominique and I discover that we have very different ways of thinking about the start of a training session.

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