Pryor - Reaching the animal mind: clicker training and what it teaches us about all animals

People and Their Animals

Im standing at the edge of a dusty road in a little town in South America. A barefoot, grimy boy walks past, a very little boy, maybe between three and four years old. Hes eating a bun. Behind him trails a skinny puppy, itself very young.

The boy turns around, sees the dog, and raises a threatening fist. The dog cowers dramatically, cringing to the ground. The boy looks up with a huge, triumphant grin: I scared the heck out of him, didnt I! He walks on down the road. The puppy gets up and slinks after himand guess what: the boy has forgotten about the bun. He lets it fall, and the puppy grabs it and runs away.

Thats how weve dealt with domestic animals ever since we and they evolved together. We treat them like subordinate, stupid human beings. We dominate them. We punish them. We make them do what we want. And they figure out how to get us to do what they want, anyway. Both sides get some benefit out of the system: in this case, food for the skinny puppy, and a rare moment of superiority for a small boy.

Traditionally the person who actually trains animals, beyond these ordinary practices of threatening them one minute and feeding them the next, has always been a special individual. Often its someone with a way with animals, a natural gift. Usually that gift consists of two things: a personal interest in some particular kind of animals (dog trainers train dogs; horse trainers train horses) and a better understanding than the rest of us of the subtle uses of fear and force.

Traditional animal training, the way its been practiced for millennia, relies largely on force, intimidation, and pain. While traditional trainers may also use praise and rewards, dominating the animal and obtaining control over its behavior are the main goals, and the main tools are fear and pain.

Traditional trainers are abundant among us. Nowadays of course they justify their practices with pseudoscientific explanations about pack leadership and the importance of dominance and of being the alpha animal; but the basic method, in spite of the overlay, is punishment; and people generally accept that approach. Most horse owners still keep whips and spurs in the barn. The walls in pet stores are plastered with choke chains and the aisles lined with shock collars, and people buy them. Maybe you use them yourself. I wont argue with you. Force and intimidation have been working for people since the first dogs hung around the first campfires (or, more likely, around the first garbage dumps).

But thats all obsolete now. Now we have a new way of dealing with animals. Out of real science weve developed a training technology. Like any good technology its a system that anyone can use. The basics are easy to learn. It works with all animals (and that includes people). Its fast. What used to take months, the traditional way, can now happen in minutes. Its completely benign; punishment and force are never part of the learning system. And it produces real communication between two species.

DArtagnan the Wolf

Erich Klinghammer, a professor at Purdue University, is a well-known ethologist. He is the founder of a research facility in Indiana called Wolf Park. Dr. Klinghammer came across my book Lads Before the Wind, which describes the years in which I worked as head dolphin trainer at a pioneering oceanarium, Sea Life Park, in Hawaii. Klinghammer saw that the technology we used for training dolphins would be useful for managing wolves. He invited me to Wolf Park to show his team how to do it.

We modern trainers love the chance to work with a new species. Not just one more dog or horse or dolphin, but something we have never trained before. We begin, always, with curiosity: Who are you? What can you do? Show me. I had never worked with wolves, so of course I said yes.

A few weeks later I fly to Indiana. At Wolf Park, Erich Klinghammer is eager to have me go into the pens and meet some wolves personally, to experience their boisterousness. This I am not willing to do. Klinghammer is six feet four with a big Germanic bass voice. He walks through the gate into the main packs enclosure and booms, Good morning, wolves! The wolves gather around him, waving their tails and jumping up to greet him: Good morning, Dr. Klinghammer! For me, I think it would be Good morning, breakfast.

Besides, I dont need to be close to a wolf to work the training magic; in fact, both of us are safer and will feel better with a fence between us. This wonderful technology does not depend on my being able to impress or dominate the wolf. Nor does it depend on making friends first, or on having a good relationship. Thats often a happy outcome, but its not a requirement: the laws of reinforcement will get the job done.

Klinghammer has selected a large male, DArtagnan, as my learner. Thats a typical wolf name; no one calls wolves Pete or Blackie or Pal. DArtagnan was raised by humans, so he does not know how to get along with other wolves and has to live alone in a pen on the far side of the park. Klinghammer and I jump into a truck with a couple of students and a large can of dry dog food and drive to DArtagnans pen. I get out my dolphin trainers whistle, pick up the can of kibble, and go over to the chain-link fence. Wolves look a lot like dogs in paintings and even in photographs, but in real life theyre quite different. For one thing they dont have pointed ears like a German shepherd, but small, round ears, like a bear; for another, they dont smell like dogs, they smell like fur rugs.

DArtagnan meets me with a spectacular threat display, snarling, snapping, and lunging at the chain-link fence between us. He is about the size of a St. Bernard but with much wider jaws and bigger teeth, especially the bone-crunching carnassials in back, at which I am getting a really good look.

Im sure this show of aggression is learned behavior. His hackles are not up, his eye whites are not showing; hes not really that upset. However, he has probably discovered he can sometimes make people flinch, or even run away, by being scary; and that must be fun to do.