May 5, 2025 • 48 mins
Podcast Synopsis
In this insightful episode of the Animal Training Academy Podcast, Dr. Keira Moore returns for part two of our thought-provoking discussion on behavior analysis, radical behaviorism, and the intersection of science and practice in both human and animal training. With her extensive background as a Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA-D) and KPA-CTP certified dog trainer, Keira shares her expertise on how we can stay conceptually systematic, follow the science, and ask the right questions to refine our training approaches.
Throughout this episode, we dive into five key strategies for grounding training in behavioral science, including:
✅ Understanding radical behaviorism and why it’s a game-changer for ethical training
✅ The importance of following the science and identifying credible sources of knowledge
✅ Why being conceptually systematic can help trainers avoid unnecessary fluff in their methods
✅ Asking critical questions to distinguish evidence-based practices from trendy but unproven techniques
✅ The power of community and lifelong learning to enhance training effectiveness
Keira’s approach is both practical and thought-provoking, offering valuable takeaways for dog trainers, behavior consultants, and animal caregivers alike. Whether you’re new to behavior analysis or a seasoned professional, this conversation will challenge the way you think about training and empower you to make more informed, science-based decisions.
🔗 Want to connect with Keira? Check out the following links:
Pet Project Website: https://linktr.ee/petprojectdogtraining
Moore Behavior Consulting Website: https://moorebehaviorconsulting.com/
Pet Project Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/petprojectdogtraining
Pet Project Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCul0qh41LvTTroVZqqH-Qzw
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
Welcome to the Animal Training Academy podcast show.
I'm your host, Ryan Carledge, and I'm passionate
about helping you master your animal training skills
using the most positive and least intrusive approaches.
Here at ATA, we understand that navigating the
vast challenges you encounter in training requires a
(00:27):
comprehensive base of knowledge and experience.
It's common to face obstacles and rough patches
on your journey that can leave you feeling
overwhelmed and stressed.
Therefore, since 2015, we have been on a
mission to empower animal training geeks worldwide.
We've aided thousands in developing their skills, expanding
(00:51):
their knowledge, boosting their confidence, and maximizing their
positive impact on all the animal and human
learners they work with.
We are excited to do the same for
you.
Simply visit www.atamember.com, join our vibrant
(01:12):
community and geek out with us.
And of course, in the meantime, enjoy this
free podcast episode as we explore new ways
to help you supercharge your training skills, grow
your knowledge, and build your confidence so that
you can craft a life that positively impacts
(01:32):
every learner you encounter.
But we will start today's episode where I'm
thrilled to welcome back to the ATA podcast
show, the wonderful Dr. Kira Moore.
Now, if you haven't listened to the first
part of our conversation, you can find it
(01:53):
in the previous episode on whatever app you're
listening to the show on.
In that episode, we explore Dr. Moore's journey
in getting started with behavior analysis, psychology, dog
training, animal training, and what led her to
her current role working as a dog trainer
coming from a background working with human learners.
(02:18):
And we ended up talking about radical behaviorism
and looking at anxiety through a behavioral analytical
lens.
So it's definitely worth a listen.
However, if you haven't listened to it yet,
no worries, you're of course welcome to start
here with part two, where you're still going
to gain plenty of insights to help you
(02:38):
grow your skills, knowledge, and confidence in animal
training.
So let's dive in.
Kira, thanks so much for taking the time
to come and hang out with us again
at the Animal Training Academy.
Yeah, thank you for having me.
We jumped right in the deep end before
so.
I'm looking forward to this one.
And you, as we learned in part one,
(03:01):
of course, have such unique knowledge and experience
making you strong advocate and subject matter expert
on what we're going to talk about today.
As both a board certified behavior analyst and
a Karen Pryor certified dog trainer, among other
things, your perspective is invaluable in discussing the
science and its practical application, which is something
(03:23):
that we dove into in part one.
So I can't wait to hear your thoughts
more on this on how we can ground
our work in the science.
You'll put together a list of five ways
we can do this, how we can bring
our work back to the science.
Can you kick us off with idea number
one?
Yeah, so I wasn't sure exactly where we
(03:47):
would go in what we talked about today.
But I wrote down some my list of
five things and it turns out it tracks
really well with what we talked about in
the first episode.
So the first thing that I had written
down was learn about radical behaviorism, which, yay,
you all can can partially check that off
(04:10):
your list if you listened to the first
half.
I think it I think like we were
talking about before, it's really important for people
to be not just good practitioners, but also
to understand the science and the philosophy and
theory behind the science.
And, and like I was saying before, this
(04:32):
is, I don't want to discount at all,
all of the amazing practitioners that we have.
There are many, many people both in the
animal training world, and in the human behavior
analysis world who are fantastic practitioners, even without
necessarily understanding or being able to articulate the
(04:55):
science behind what they're doing.
One of one of the, in my opinion,
best dog trainers that I have ever had
experience with and who taught me a lot
of what I know, is a person by
the name of Sue Aylesby.
And she is up in some freezing cold
(05:17):
part of Canada.
And she, I always tell people, I think
she is perhaps one of the best practitioners
of behavior analysis that I know when it
comes to dog training.
But I don't know that she'd necessarily consider
herself a behavior analyst, or that she could
(05:38):
tell you anything about BF Skinner or the
science.
Maybe she maybe she can, I've never had
these discussions with her.
But you can be a wonderful practitioner, you
can be a great dog trainer, you can
be a great clinician without knowing the science.
But I think for people, especially if they
are early in their career, what is going
(05:59):
to really potentially set you apart in terms
of being able to pivot really well in
the field and be able to work with
different types of learners on different types of
problems, is if you really understand the science
behind what you're doing, and the philosophy behind
that science.
(06:20):
So understanding radical behaviorism, and understanding behavior analysis,
because you can always then come back to
that.
If you encounter a problem that you've never
worked with before, you'll be able to figure
it out.
Even if you've never done it before, even
if you don't know practically how to handle
it, you can go back to that science.
(06:40):
I also, I have this, man I feel
like sometimes I joke that that radical behaviorism
is a bit like a religion, where once
you once you buy in, and once you
again have those glasses on, it's hard to
see the world any other way.
(07:01):
And I think that's a good thing, because
I think if you have your behavior analyst
glasses on, you are automatically going to be
more compassionate, because you are going to think
about behavior in a different way.
You're not going to blame the person, or
blame the learner, or blame the animal.
You're going to think about what in the
(07:21):
environment has led this learner to the behavior
that they're engaging in.
And so, I think having an understanding of
radical behaviorism in that worldview is generally a
really good thing for everyone, because Skinner originally,
I don't think intended behavior analysis to just
(07:43):
be something that gets used with people with
autism, or with animals, or with whatever little
small group we applied it to.
He thought it was going to be something
that would change the world, and I think
it could be still, if we could get
more people thinking that way.
And so, that's I think my most important
thing, is that anybody who is working with
(08:06):
any learners, and trying to change behavior in
any way, with any species, understand radical behaviorism.
A really good intro to that, because I
know that it's a big scary topic, and
it is not easy to find a good
entry point.
There is a TED talk by Pat Freiman,
(08:30):
who is a behavior analyst, and it's called
No Such Thing as a Bad Boy.
So, if you look up Pat Freiman, F
-R-I-M-A-N, No Such Thing
as a Bad Boy, you'll find his TED
talk.
There's also a paper in the Journal of
Applied Behavior Analysis that goes along with that
TED talk.
So, if you want the written sciency version
(08:53):
of it, look at that paper by the
same, I think it's by the same name.
And that is a really great introduction to
the philosophy of radical behaviorism.
Pat refers to it as, he talks about
it as basically, I'm not going to try
(09:13):
and summarize how he talks about it, because
he does it so incredibly well that I
can't do it justice.
But that's a really great entry point.
And if you're feeling really brave, start reading
B.F. Skinner.
Start picking up those red and black books
that are all of Skinner's writings, and dive
in, because man, there is just a wealth
(09:34):
of information in there that is good stuff
to read.
I will admit it is very difficult to
read.
It's very difficult to dissect.
So, I think having people you can talk
to about it and work through that material
with can be really helpful.
I am 100% down to do B
(09:56):
.F. Skinner reading groups.
If anybody out there is interested in that,
contact me.
We'll make it happen.
But yeah, I think that's my first, most
important thing.
Learn about radical behaviorism.
I think Kiki, your blonde, who you know,
is doing B.F. Skinner reading groups via
(10:17):
behavior works.
Yeah, I think so too.
Yeah.
Kiki is great.
Kiki, we love you.
If, in a non-weird way, it's like,
that sounds weird.
Can I play devil's advocate?
Not because I disagree with that.
I'm the person who's always taught the science
(10:38):
first.
But I recently had experience with a fantastic
trainer, and we were talking about this, because
they kind of dive straight in and just
get really practical with a new learner and
don't really talk that way.
And I don't want to say who it
(10:59):
was or what the situation was, because I'm
really worried about, like, not understanding the situation
that I was in and the conversations that
I had.
But if I remember the conversations we had
correctly, there was a promotion for leaving the
science aside in this particular person.
And everyone's different, and I want to acknowledge
that.
(11:19):
So, there's no one size fits all, because
that can trip people up who are trying
to, like, think about the words and do
everything so analytical.
So, I am with you.
I'm like, let's teach the science first and
get the knowledge.
But then I'm also like, I saw a
different way of doing things, and I was
like, oh, that makes sense as well.
(11:41):
I can see where sometimes, like, the textbook
and systematic way that I teach can get
in the way of learners.
Yeah.
Yep.
I can see that.
Yeah.
Throwing it at you and seeing your thoughts.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think for a beginner practitioner, and whether
we're talking about dog trainer or an RBT,
(12:05):
which is essentially a human registered behavior technician,
that's where the entry level if you're doing
direct care with people in ABA, I think
at those levels, you need just a basic
understanding to be able to do it and
do it reasonably well to be a practitioner.
(12:27):
To be somebody who is going to write
programming to change behavior or to kind of
be the next level up of what would
be the equivalent of a BCBA in the
human world, or what would be a dog
trainer who is coming in and working on
specific behavior problems or problem solving when things
(12:50):
aren't going right.
I think you at some level have to
know the science, because when your typical protocols
or when your typical ways of doing things
aren't working, to be able to pivot and
do something that is going to be effective,
you're going to have the best chance of
(13:10):
doing that if you understand what you're doing,
if you understand the science behind what you're
doing.
Again, sure.
I know plenty of fantastic dog trainers that
I think have hit on the right things,
because that's how behavior works, right?
What's successful gets repeated.
If you've been a dog trainer for a
(13:32):
long time, likely you're doing a lot of
things that are best practice and that are
based in behavior analysis, because those end up
being the things that work.
I think having an understanding of the science
and the philosophy behind it can make you
more effective and efficient, right?
If I'm working with a dog with a
behavior problem, and I'm just trying things that
(13:55):
have worked in the past for other similar
dogs, and it happens to work, great.
If it doesn't happen to work, I might
throw some other things at it and hope
for the best, but wouldn't it be even
better if I understood how the science of
behavior is working to be able to just
effectively come up with a good treatment the
(14:16):
very first go-around and to kind of
get rid of all that noise?
I think one thing that I see a
lot, and this I hope doesn't rub anybody
the wrong way, but I see a lot
of practices in dog training that are becoming
kind of commonly accepted or mainstream, like everybody's
(14:37):
doing this thing now, or everyone's doing this
thing now, that in my opinion have a
lot of extra fluff in them.
There's a lot of extra things that maybe
don't need to be there, and if we
understand the science and we can boil down
what's really going to be effective, then we
can kind of get rid of all the
extras and the fluff and the extra noise
(14:59):
and just drill right down to that problem
and fix the problem.
I do think you can be a fantastic
dog trainer.
I think you can be a fantastic registered
behavior technician.
I think you can do plenty to change
behavior and be really effective without knowing the
science, without understanding radical behaviorism, but I think
(15:21):
if you're going to get to that next
level of being able to really solve any
problem that comes your way and pivot quickly
when something's not working and understand how to
cut out all the extra fluff and be
really efficient and effective, you have to know
the science at some point.
It's a bit like playing pool or playing
(15:42):
billiards.
Do you call it pool?
We call it pool and billiards.
They're different games.
But you could be really good at that
without understanding physics, right?
But if you're going to be like one
of the best pool players in the world,
you probably have to have some understanding of
physics and how the balls are going to
(16:02):
move and angles and what's going to be
effective and that's going to level up your
game.
I think it's the same in the world
of behavior analysis.
I hadn't thought about that before, but now
I want to learn physics just so I
can be friends with better.
You have some pretty intense pool competitions.
(16:23):
I agree with you and I think that
that all totally makes sense and then the
nuance of the devil advocacy part that I
was playing was, where do you, and I'm
not talking about, and I don't think I'm
talking about it, and if you have any
thoughts on this, let me know.
Teaching clients, like we go to someone's home
and we're teaching them, I'm not talking about
(16:44):
that, I'm talking about teaching people who are
learning about animal training and where to start.
So not like you should never learn about
science or you should learn about science because
I think in my personal opinion, everyone should.
It's like, how do you springboard learners off
as best we can when we start them?
(17:05):
Yeah, that's a good question.
Obviously, that's different for everyone, but there's pros
and cons, I think.
Yeah, it depends what the person's goals are,
I suppose.
If you're maybe taking a new animal trainer
under your wing and saying, what do you
want to do and where's your career headed?
Do you want to, I don't know, do
(17:27):
you want to just be working on teaching
puppies and running puppy classes?
And I think you could get by doing
those things or doing trick training or doing,
you know, like specializing in one particular thing
and learning the kind of protocols and procedures
and how to be a good practitioner and
(17:47):
be perfectly successful there.
So I think it really depends on your
goals, and when I'm working with clients, I'm
not being like, you've got to go read
B.F. Skinner, and have you ever heard
of radical behaviorism?
As much as I'd love to spend time
talking about those things, I don't.
I explain that I'm a behavior analyst, and
often I'll talk clients through like a very
(18:10):
basic understanding of that, but more so I'm
trying to sprinkle in understanding that your dog
isn't being bad.
Your dog is not doing things wrong.
Your dog is doing what works for them
in this situation, and it's our job to
(18:31):
figure out where that behavior came from and
what they're telling us with that behavior and
how we can get their needs met in
a better way.
And when I talk about it that way,
I think that kind of that kind of
summarizes radical behaviorism, is that we're trying to
(18:52):
figure out how the environment affects behavior, how
behavior was learned, and in cases where behavior
currently is not what we'd like it to
be, going, okay, that behavior is still important
to that learner, and they're still getting something
out of it, so how can we make
sure that that need is still met, but
(19:13):
teach them a better way to get that
need met?
And I think that's an eye-opening thing
for a lot of dog owners to think
about behavior that way, and I've had plenty
of dog owners comment on like, oh, my
kid also is having this problem, and I've
been thinking about it that same way of
like, oh, they're communicating something with their behavior,
(19:34):
or my husband's doing this thing, and I've
been thinking about how can I fix it
in a similar way to what I'm doing
in this dog training that I'm doing, and
that's what I want.
I want people to be open to that
kind of conceptualization of behavior, and that kind
of compassionate approach to going, oh, oh, that
behavior is happening for a reason.
(19:56):
It's not because my dog is being a
jerk, or because my husband's just trying to
annoy me.
There's a reason for behavior.
I am sometimes, you use the word sometimes,
very loosely reinforced for annoying my wife.
Oh, my significant other is absolutely very bigger
than he will tell you as much.
(20:17):
Right, and so to go back to the
examples, you know, you can be a great
practitioner at running puppy classes or being a
trick trainer, but to use your billiard or
pool example, if you want to be the
best trick trainer in the world, then you
should maybe understand more about the science.
Let's leave number one with this quote from
(20:38):
you.
It's our job to figure out where that
behavior came from and what they are telling
us, and how we can get their needs
met in a better way.
What's number two that you wrote down?
Follow the science.
This is going to sound similar, but what
I mean by that is pay attention to
the people who know the science well, or
(21:01):
to the actual science.
If you're somebody who likes to read science
and is able to access scientific journals and
is able to sift through data and read
things like that and make sense of it,
great.
If that's not you, which that's not most
of us, most of us are not willing
(21:23):
or able to review scientific journals and make
sense of them, follow the people who are
already doing that work for us, and the
people who do understand the science well and
can articulate accurately how that science applies to
what we're doing.
So some really good examples of that, Eileen
(21:44):
Anderson is phenomenal, and I'm betting a lot
of your listeners are already familiar with her
and her Eileen and Dogs blog.
That's exactly what she does.
She loves reading the science, and she's a
great person that if you have a question
about something related to dog training that you
don't understand or that you're wondering is this
(22:06):
scientifically accurate, you could ask Eileen, and Eileen
will gladly go do that research and comb
through all of the journals and come up
with a really concise, well-written article about
it.
I've even gone to her with questions about
things and said, I know that I have
access to all of these journals and I
(22:27):
could easily look this up myself, but I
bet you already know the answer to this.
So she's a great one to follow and
pay attention to.
Susan Friedman, Susan is so good at explaining
the science in such easy to understand ways.
I'm observing LLA this round.
(22:50):
I took LLA with her a couple years
ago.
I'm observing now and hoping to get more
involved in in TA-ing in the future,
but she's just so good at explaining the
science in a way that's understandable and knowing
the science inside and out.
Kiki Yvonne, who we already talked about, same
(23:10):
thing.
She's another one that has a really great
understanding of the science of behavior analysis and
how to apply that to dog training.
Stephanie Kesey Phelan of Dog Behavior Institute, another
one, she has a PhD in behavior analysis.
She's got a very similar background to me.
We actually came up through our clinical work
(23:33):
in the same area in Boston and have
a lot of those same mutual contacts.
So look for people like that, that have
a good handle on the science and are
good at translating that to the things people
are doing and being able to explain, are
these things rooted in science?
Are these things evidence-based procedures and how
(23:56):
do they tie back to our science?
Well, if you check out our sister podcast,
Making Ripples, hosted by the wonderful Shelley Wood.
Time of recording this, Aileen Anderson was our
latest guest.
Oh, really?
But by the time this comes out, she
won't be.
But if you go back a few episodes
in the Making Ripples, Animal Training Academy Making
Ripples podcast.
(24:17):
I love, and also by the time this
is released, will be a few episodes past
episode 250, where we had Dr. Susan Friedman
on, who joins us every 50th episode.
And what I love, Kara, about doing every
50 episodes of this, I asked her what
she wanted to talk about for, and she
kind of talks about what's on her, what's
kind of keeping her busy and keeping her
(24:38):
thoughts occupied.
Asked her what she wanted to talk about
for episode 250.
And she said negative reinforcement and non-linear
contingency analysis.
And when I asked her for episode number
200, what she wanted to talk about, so
50 episodes earlier, nearly two years earlier, she
(24:59):
said negative reinforcement and non-linear contingency analysis.
So following the science through this podcast show,
and I lean on Susan a lot to
go, cool, what have you learned over the
last two years about what we talked about
two years ago, which is a lot of
fun.
So if you're listening to this, then that
(25:19):
episode will already be out, both of those,
and you can listen to those.
Kiki Yblon, part of Animal Training Academy as
well.
And who was the last person you mentioned?
Stephanie Keesey-Thielen of the Dog Behavior Institute.
They do a lot of really great webinars.
She's also a human behavior analyst that is
(25:41):
now primarily working in the dog training realm.
And I'm sure there's plenty of other ones
that I've missed too, but those are off
the top of my head, my go-to
people.
So I've written her name down, so keep
your eyes out listeners for future episodes.
What's number three that you've written down for
us, Karim Lovins?
These are all of the same theme, but
(26:02):
number three is be conceptually systematic.
And what I mean by that is tie
your practices back to the science and call
them what they are.
I have big feelings about this.
In dog training in particular, there's a lot
(26:24):
of branding that happens where people come up
with a procedure that is working well, and
then they give it some name that usually
they made up or they, I don't know,
coined in using it.
Which I think is good in the sense
that those names of procedures are often very
(26:45):
descriptive of the procedure and help people understand
what's actually happening.
Like start buttons are a good example.
When we talk about start buttons, most people
understand exactly what's going on just by saying
start button.
You can already, if you've never heard of
it, you can probably guess what it might
be.
Or pattern games, things like that.
(27:06):
My thing that I think feels frustrating to
me as a behavior analyst who, I guess,
started in the science and then moved into
the practice, which I think is opposite of
what a lot of people do.
A lot of people start in the practice
and then go back and learn the science.
(27:28):
When we aren't conceptually systematic, meaning we're not
tying our practices back to the science and
calling them what they are using the scientific
terms, we might lose the plot a little
bit.
And we might, again, end up adding in
some extra fluff that we don't need if
(27:49):
we're not thinking about, well, wait a minute,
why would this procedure be working?
Or what is happening from a scientific perspective
based on what we know about behavior?
So that's something that I really want to
encourage more people to do is look at
your procedures and especially procedures that have been
(28:10):
sort of branded or given names that are
commonly accepted in the field now.
Try to tie those things back to the
science and understand what's going on.
And I think by keeping a common technical
vernacular and making sure that people understand a
lot of those protocols and procedures already have
(28:33):
names in behavior analysis, it helps us all
stay on the same page with what we're
doing.
And it helps us tie back our practice
to evidence-based procedures to make sure that
we are using evidence-based procedures and that
we're not wasting people's time or money doing
things that aren't going to work.
(28:53):
So I think that's an important thing.
And I think that's something people kind of
get feisty about sometimes and fight about a
little bit of like not wanting to use
technical terminology or not wanting to like, why
can't we just call it this?
And in my mind, it's because it makes
it much harder to sift out what is
(29:16):
good evidence-based practice that's based on what
we already know about the science and what
is floof that somebody made up that they
might be saying, yeah, this works and this
is what I do.
And how do we delineate between things that
people are making up and branding and selling
(29:36):
to make money off of procedures versus procedures
that are tied back to the science and
evidence-based.
So not talking negatively about any of those
things that I mentioned, like start buttons, I
use those all the time.
I think that's a lovely procedure.
I think it has plenty of evidence-based
(29:59):
and we can tie it back to behavior
analysis.
But I think it's important to do that,
to be conceptually systematic.
I know Susan talks about an LLA and
I was trying to quickly find the word
there, the fear of scientific terminology.
Oh, I have heard her say that before
and I can't, I feel like she just
(30:20):
said it recently and I don't remember what
the term is.
Yeah, I tried to ask Chet GPT there
when you were talking, but I'm not smart
enough.
Even little things like in dog training, we
talk about proofing.
I'm not quite sure where that word came
from, but the technical term for that is
generalization.
(30:41):
And I think that, again, the reason that
matters is let's say I'm a young dog
trainer that's like learning about the science as
much as I can.
And I want to know what's the best
way to proof something.
Well, if I go and look that up
and I go and I try to do
a scientific search of that, I'm not going
(31:02):
to find anything because all the research that's
been done on it is on generalization.
But if I go into the Journal of
Applied Behavior Analysis or the Journal of Experimental
Analysis of Behavior and I look up generalization,
oh, I'm going to be inundated with studies
on that and best practice on that.
And there's a ton of stuff out there
(31:23):
already.
And so I worry sometimes when we give
things new names or we call things by
something other than what they have been known
in the science as that we're going to
lose people or make it harder for people
to sift through what's good evidence-based practice
and what's not.
(31:44):
But Kara, I really like shiny things.
When I see a shiny thing, I really
want it.
And the thing that is, I think, a
little bit frustrating is there's not a whole
lot new and shiny in behavior analysis right
(32:06):
now.
We know all the main things that we
really need to know, I think, to solve
most problems that we're going to need to
solve.
And it is rare now in applied behavior
analysis that there's new terms popping up or
new like totally brand new procedures that no
one ever thought of.
It's always different twists on the same old
(32:27):
ideas and the same old tried and true
evidence-based procedures.
And so I think people should be, when
some shiny new procedure pops up, you should
be skeptical, not of the person or of
the procedure, but you should be at least
going, hmm, what is this?
(32:47):
What is this in behavior analytic terminology or
in how does this fit into our conceptualization
of how behavior works and does it?
And if it doesn't, then we shouldn't be
scratching our head and going, wait a minute,
should I follow this shiny new thing or
is this a waste of my time?
Because it might be.
(33:09):
That is a great reminder and that's why
I value Kiki Eblon's contributions to our membership
community so much.
She often comes in and does exactly that
to conversations and provides so much value in
that way.
I'm very grateful for that.
All right, we've got number one talking about
(33:32):
radical behaviorism, number two, follow the science, number
three, be conceptually systematic.
Hit us with number four.
Number four is a little bit of a
cheater one because it kind of stems off
of number three, but if you are a
practitioner, you're a dog trainer or even a
(33:54):
human practitioner or any kind of animal trainer,
ask a lot of questions and ask people
to explain the science behind their procedures.
So when I say be conceptually systematic, I
think that's aimed more towards the people who
are coming up with the procedure.
(34:14):
Number four, ask questions and ask people to
explain the science is aimed a little bit
more at the people who aren't necessarily the
ones coming up with the procedures but are
the ones following that shiny new thing.
When you see somebody selling a class or
a course or doing their thing on social
(34:37):
media and saying this is how I do
this thing and it's called this or this
is how you should do this thing, ask
a lot of questions and ask that person
if they can explain the science behind what
they're doing.
And if they can't and if you can't
or you can't, you can go to those
(35:00):
people that I mentioned before, those people who
know the science well and ask them to
help you figure that out.
But if they can't or you can't or
the person who made up the procedure can't,
consider whether it's worth following that thing and
doing that thing just because someone said that
you should or that that's how they do
it or just because that person has a
(35:20):
lot of followers or they're teaching a class
on this thing that they made up.
Look at where the science goes, look at
evidence-based best practice and see does this
make sense.
And again, these all tie together because this
goes back to you have to understand the
science first to know if a procedure is
worth doing.
(35:41):
So you're saying that we have to think
harder about things and be critical thinkers?
Yeah, imagine that in this day and age.
Not a lot of people are strong suit,
I think.
No, it's a couple years ago when we
were doing deep dives on topics and on
(36:02):
a monthly basis within our membership and I
asked Susan to do something with us one
month and I asked for her ideas on
what she would most like to talk to
our community about and our community is one
that she knows very well and she chose
critical thinking that that was the most important
(36:24):
thing for her to talk about.
So I love that we're talking about that
here today as well and I love that
this episode is going to follow the one
we recently recorded with Susan.
I think for you to listen it's going
to be a nice flow with a little
bit of Peggy Hogan sandwiched in the middle
there but we absolutely always value Peggy wherever
(36:45):
she shows up.
All right, number five, the last one.
You've left the best for last.
And this one is a little, goes in
a slightly different direction I think but I
guess sort of in the same vein.
Always keep learning and find communities of like
-minded trainers that you can bounce ideas off
(37:06):
of and this I guess is a long
-winded way of saying something that one of
my mentors in my doctoral program told me.
Greg Hanley who I bet some of your
listeners know because I think I've heard you
refer to him.
Did you have him on the podcast?
(37:27):
Yeah, I saw.
I thought so.
Yeah, Greg Hanley came to Auckland for ABA
week like a decade ago and he's been
on the podcast too.
So for anybody that doesn't know him he's
a human behavior analyst and he, I would
say right now he works primarily in the
(37:49):
area of challenging behavior a lot with people
on the autism spectrum and he was one
of my mentors in my graduate program.
He was actually the director of my doctoral
program and one thing that he said in
my program that has always stuck with me
(38:10):
was don't do behavior analysis in your garage
and what he meant by that was no
matter where you end up in your career
you should never be doing this alone.
When you are changing behavior regardless of who
your learner is that is a weighty responsibility
(38:32):
to have.
If you are going to be changing a
learner's behavior you need to be very thoughtful
about what you're doing and you should not
be working by yourself and making decisions by
yourself.
You should have a community of people that
you can bounce ideas off of and that
you can work through problems with and talk
(38:54):
to about the things that you're doing to
check yourself and make sure that you are
doing good ethical practice but also good evidence
-based practice.
I think in dog training especially that can
be hard because you're often doing it by
yourself.
There's at least where I am there are
(39:17):
I think two or three other APACTPs around.
I've connected with one of them but even
then I'm practicing largely on my own and
when I'm writing a behavior plan for a
dog I'm not working with a team of
people but I've tried to surround myself with
(39:41):
people who know more than I do.
That's always my goal is surround yourself with
people who are better than you are and
know more than you are and bounce ideas
off of them and learn from them.
People like Kiki has been I'm eternally grateful
to Kiki for when I shortly after I
(40:02):
got my dog who was having a lot
of behavior problems I went okay need to
find the experts.
I need to find the best behavior analysts
and dog trainers that I can find and
get their help because I'm a behavior analyst
and I don't even know where to start
with this dog and people like Kiki and
people like Sue Alesby were crucial for me
(40:26):
to figure that out and to start to
develop my own skills and learn and still
when I'm having when I have a difficult
case or when I'm working on a new
problem that I haven't worked on before I'll
bounce ideas off of other dog trainers.
Sometimes I'll go to people like Eileen Anderson
and say does this make sense from a
(40:48):
conceptually systematic standpoint?
Am I still doing behavior analysis here because
this is different than what I've done before
and a lot of times I'll go to
my human behavior analyst colleagues who don't work
with dogs at all and say hey I'm
coming up with this program for this dog
and I know you're not a dog trainer
but I want you to just look at
(41:09):
this as a behavior analyst and see if
this makes sense to you or if I'm
missing something and so I think it's really
important to always one keep learning and two
have a community of people that you can
bounce ideas off of and people that that
are of the same mindset as you that
are hopefully radical behaviorists.
I like to additionally think that at Animal
(41:33):
Training Academy all I've done is build the
academy by surrounding myself with people who are
way smarter than me and if you listen
to this podcast there's 253 episodes now so
you can very easily do that as well
(41:53):
and I love this because people join Animal
Training Academy because they want knowledge most of
the time.
Oh Susan Freeman's talking about this or someone
else is talking about this let me join
that webinar but people stay I mean we
have members who have been with us for
(42:15):
six seven years and they work across all
industries that care for learners mostly animals and
all species and so you can imagine the
amount of problems that these people face in
their work and the live sessions that we
do every month to have those super focused
(42:37):
on those individual members problems it's pretty hard
yeah so why do they stay with us
for five six years it's because of the
community and I've never and I've always found
it challenging to communicate their value to someone
who doesn't have it at the same time
I know that when we did a survey
(43:00):
a couple of years ago Kara we asked
people what their biggest problems were and one
of it not the most the biggest or
the most repeated problem was loneliness and it
was not like I'm lonely I like I'm
sad but like I'm geographically isolated or and
that there was a main one geographically or
(43:22):
I'm isolated in my organization so and I
love Greg Hanley so he's done an episode
with us and the one thing that members
in our community repeat from that episode to
this day is is your training televisible meaning
like would you allow others to view this
(43:42):
like yeah would it be non-intrusive from
that metric so I don't be in your
garage as well it kind of seems like
it's in a similar quote book no matter
yeah that's that's one one of the other
main things that I took away from from
working with him is is you should feel
(44:02):
comfortable doing what you do in front of
other people and if you don't you should
be questioning what you do and I exclusively
trained I do just private sessions so when
I'm working aside from the occasional puppy training
when I'm working the the dog guardian is
there watching and I I should feel comfortable
(44:24):
about what I'm doing all the time if
I don't we've got a problem but it's
the same with humans as well I'm gonna
update Greg's comment and say is is it
instagrammable or I can try to be yes
is it tiktokable but I don't have a
tiktok account although I feel like nothing nothing
is safe on social media you're right you
(44:46):
could be doing the best training ever and
someone's gonna have a problem with it probably
get elected um so yeah I've never thought
about those things before that it's such a
weighty responsibility um and so having that community
around you that's that's really valuable well that
brings us to the end of our two
conversations together this has been absolutely wonderful and
(45:07):
thanks so much for sharing everything with us
over these two episodes just before we do
officially wrap up I was hoping you could
remind everyone listening where they can go online
to find out more about you what you
do and get in touch it's your state
-of-the-art website sorry yeah I don't
(45:30):
have an official website because it just hasn't
been necessary it turns out um but if
you google pet project dog training that's my
dog training company and you will find my
link tree which is serving as my temporary
website uh and that will link you link
you to everything you need including uh primarily
(45:54):
I'm on instagram which is pet project dog
training on instagram and working on building my
following there I have a youtube as well
um which you can find via my link
tree or my instagram and my dog has
her own instagram as well that you can
also find if you go to my link
(46:15):
tree because gotta promote her she has more
followers than all of my other accounts combined
amazing amazing um and we will of course
link to all of this in the show
notes for you the listener from the listeners
and myself Kira thank you so much for
taking the time to come and geek out
(46:35):
with us at ATA yeah thank you for
having me and thank you so much for
listening as well this is your host Ryan
Cartlidge signing off from this episode of the
Animal Training Academy podcast show we hope today's
conversation inspired you and equipped you with new
(46:57):
tools for your trainer's toolbox remember every challenge
in training is an opportunity to learn and
sharpen your animal training geekery embrace the rough
patches learn from them and keep improving and
don't forget the path to growing your skills
and expanding your knowledge continues beyond this episode
(47:20):
visit www.atamember.com to join our supportive
membership where you will find a community of
trainers just like you together we're making a
huge positive difference in the lives of animal
and human learners worldwide until next time keep
(47:43):
honing your skills stay awesome and remember every
interaction with an animal human learner is your
opportunity to create ripples we're here cheering you
on every step of the way see you
at the next episode
Welcome to the Animal Training Academy podcast show.
I'm your host, Ryan Carledge, and I'm passionate
about helping you master your animal training skills
using the most positive and least intrusive approaches.
Here at ATA, we understand that navigating the
vast challenges you encounter in training requires a
(00:27):
comprehensive base of knowledge and experience.
It's common to face obstacles and rough patches
on your journey that can leave you feeling
overwhelmed and stressed.
Therefore, since 2015, we have been on a
mission to empower animal training geeks worldwide.
We've aided thousands in developing their skills, expanding
(00:51):
their knowledge, boosting their confidence, and maximizing their
positive impact on all the animal and human
learners they work with.
We are excited to do the same for
you.
Simply visit www.atamember.com, join our vibrant
(01:12):
community and geek out with us.
And of course, in the meantime, enjoy this
free podcast episode as we explore new ways
to help you supercharge your training skills, grow
your knowledge, and build your confidence so that
you can craft a life that positively impacts
(01:32):
every learner you encounter.
But we will start today's episode where I'm
thrilled to welcome back to the ATA podcast
show, the wonderful Dr. Kira Moore.
Now, if you haven't listened to the first
part of our conversation, you can find it
(01:53):
in the previous episode on whatever app you're
listening to the show on.
In that episode, we explore Dr. Moore's journey
in getting started with behavior analysis, psychology, dog
training, animal training, and what led her to
her current role working as a dog trainer
coming from a background working with human learners.
(02:18):
And we ended up talking about radical behaviorism
and looking at anxiety through a behavioral analytical
lens.
So it's definitely worth a listen.
However, if you haven't listened to it yet,
no worries, you're of course welcome to start
here with part two, where you're still going
to gain plenty of insights to help you
(02:38):
grow your skills, knowledge, and confidence in animal
training.
So let's dive in.
Kira, thanks so much for taking the time
to come and hang out with us again
at the Animal Training Academy.
Yeah, thank you for having me.
We jumped right in the deep end before
so.
I'm looking forward to this one.
And you, as we learned in part one,
(03:01):
of course, have such unique knowledge and experience
making you strong advocate and subject matter expert
on what we're going to talk about today.
As both a board certified behavior analyst and
a Karen Pryor certified dog trainer, among other
things, your perspective is invaluable in discussing the
science and its practical application, which is something
(03:23):
that we dove into in part one.
So I can't wait to hear your thoughts
more on this on how we can ground
our work in the science.
You'll put together a list of five ways
we can do this, how we can bring
our work back to the science.
Can you kick us off with idea number
one?
Yeah, so I wasn't sure exactly where we
(03:47):
would go in what we talked about today.
But I wrote down some my list of
five things and it turns out it tracks
really well with what we talked about in
the first episode.
So the first thing that I had written
down was learn about radical behaviorism, which, yay,
you all can can partially check that off
(04:10):
your list if you listened to the first
half.
I think it I think like we were
talking about before, it's really important for people
to be not just good practitioners, but also
to understand the science and the philosophy and
theory behind the science.
And, and like I was saying before, this
(04:32):
is, I don't want to discount at all,
all of the amazing practitioners that we have.
There are many, many people both in the
animal training world, and in the human behavior
analysis world who are fantastic practitioners, even without
necessarily understanding or being able to articulate the
(04:55):
science behind what they're doing.
One of one of the, in my opinion,
best dog trainers that I have ever had
experience with and who taught me a lot
of what I know, is a person by
the name of Sue Aylesby.
And she is up in some freezing cold
(05:17):
part of Canada.
And she, I always tell people, I think
she is perhaps one of the best practitioners
of behavior analysis that I know when it
comes to dog training.
But I don't know that she'd necessarily consider
herself a behavior analyst, or that she could
(05:38):
tell you anything about BF Skinner or the
science.
Maybe she maybe she can, I've never had
these discussions with her.
But you can be a wonderful practitioner, you
can be a great dog trainer, you can
be a great clinician without knowing the science.
But I think for people, especially if they
are early in their career, what is going
(05:59):
to really potentially set you apart in terms
of being able to pivot really well in
the field and be able to work with
different types of learners on different types of
problems, is if you really understand the science
behind what you're doing, and the philosophy behind
that science.
(06:20):
So understanding radical behaviorism, and understanding behavior analysis,
because you can always then come back to
that.
If you encounter a problem that you've never
worked with before, you'll be able to figure
it out.
Even if you've never done it before, even
if you don't know practically how to handle
it, you can go back to that science.
(06:40):
I also, I have this, man I feel
like sometimes I joke that that radical behaviorism
is a bit like a religion, where once
you once you buy in, and once you
again have those glasses on, it's hard to
see the world any other way.
(07:01):
And I think that's a good thing, because
I think if you have your behavior analyst
glasses on, you are automatically going to be
more compassionate, because you are going to think
about behavior in a different way.
You're not going to blame the person, or
blame the learner, or blame the animal.
You're going to think about what in the
(07:21):
environment has led this learner to the behavior
that they're engaging in.
And so, I think having an understanding of
radical behaviorism in that worldview is generally a
really good thing for everyone, because Skinner originally,
I don't think intended behavior analysis to just
(07:43):
be something that gets used with people with
autism, or with animals, or with whatever little
small group we applied it to.
He thought it was going to be something
that would change the world, and I think
it could be still, if we could get
more people thinking that way.
And so, that's I think my most important
thing, is that anybody who is working with
(08:06):
any learners, and trying to change behavior in
any way, with any species, understand radical behaviorism.
A really good intro to that, because I
know that it's a big scary topic, and
it is not easy to find a good
entry point.
There is a TED talk by Pat Freiman,
(08:30):
who is a behavior analyst, and it's called
No Such Thing as a Bad Boy.
So, if you look up Pat Freiman, F
-R-I-M-A-N, No Such Thing
as a Bad Boy, you'll find his TED
talk.
There's also a paper in the Journal of
Applied Behavior Analysis that goes along with that
TED talk.
So, if you want the written sciency version
(08:53):
of it, look at that paper by the
same, I think it's by the same name.
And that is a really great introduction to
the philosophy of radical behaviorism.
Pat refers to it as, he talks about
it as basically, I'm not going to try
(09:13):
and summarize how he talks about it, because
he does it so incredibly well that I
can't do it justice.
But that's a really great entry point.
And if you're feeling really brave, start reading
B.F. Skinner.
Start picking up those red and black books
that are all of Skinner's writings, and dive
in, because man, there is just a wealth
(09:34):
of information in there that is good stuff
to read.
I will admit it is very difficult to
read.
It's very difficult to dissect.
So, I think having people you can talk
to about it and work through that material
with can be really helpful.
I am 100% down to do B
(09:56):
.F. Skinner reading groups.
If anybody out there is interested in that,
contact me.
We'll make it happen.
But yeah, I think that's my first, most
important thing.
Learn about radical behaviorism.
I think Kiki, your blonde, who you know,
is doing B.F. Skinner reading groups via
(10:17):
behavior works.
Yeah, I think so too.
Yeah.
Kiki is great.
Kiki, we love you.
If, in a non-weird way, it's like,
that sounds weird.
Can I play devil's advocate?
Not because I disagree with that.
I'm the person who's always taught the science
(10:38):
first.
But I recently had experience with a fantastic
trainer, and we were talking about this, because
they kind of dive straight in and just
get really practical with a new learner and
don't really talk that way.
And I don't want to say who it
(10:59):
was or what the situation was, because I'm
really worried about, like, not understanding the situation
that I was in and the conversations that
I had.
But if I remember the conversations we had
correctly, there was a promotion for leaving the
science aside in this particular person.
And everyone's different, and I want to acknowledge
that.
(11:19):
So, there's no one size fits all, because
that can trip people up who are trying
to, like, think about the words and do
everything so analytical.
So, I am with you.
I'm like, let's teach the science first and
get the knowledge.
But then I'm also like, I saw a
different way of doing things, and I was
like, oh, that makes sense as well.
(11:41):
I can see where sometimes, like, the textbook
and systematic way that I teach can get
in the way of learners.
Yeah.
Yep.
I can see that.
Yeah.
Throwing it at you and seeing your thoughts.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think for a beginner practitioner, and whether
we're talking about dog trainer or an RBT,
(12:05):
which is essentially a human registered behavior technician,
that's where the entry level if you're doing
direct care with people in ABA, I think
at those levels, you need just a basic
understanding to be able to do it and
do it reasonably well to be a practitioner.
(12:27):
To be somebody who is going to write
programming to change behavior or to kind of
be the next level up of what would
be the equivalent of a BCBA in the
human world, or what would be a dog
trainer who is coming in and working on
specific behavior problems or problem solving when things
(12:50):
aren't going right.
I think you at some level have to
know the science, because when your typical protocols
or when your typical ways of doing things
aren't working, to be able to pivot and
do something that is going to be effective,
you're going to have the best chance of
(13:10):
doing that if you understand what you're doing,
if you understand the science behind what you're
doing.
Again, sure.
I know plenty of fantastic dog trainers that
I think have hit on the right things,
because that's how behavior works, right?
What's successful gets repeated.
If you've been a dog trainer for a
(13:32):
long time, likely you're doing a lot of
things that are best practice and that are
based in behavior analysis, because those end up
being the things that work.
I think having an understanding of the science
and the philosophy behind it can make you
more effective and efficient, right?
If I'm working with a dog with a
behavior problem, and I'm just trying things that
(13:55):
have worked in the past for other similar
dogs, and it happens to work, great.
If it doesn't happen to work, I might
throw some other things at it and hope
for the best, but wouldn't it be even
better if I understood how the science of
behavior is working to be able to just
effectively come up with a good treatment the
(14:16):
very first go-around and to kind of
get rid of all that noise?
I think one thing that I see a
lot, and this I hope doesn't rub anybody
the wrong way, but I see a lot
of practices in dog training that are becoming
kind of commonly accepted or mainstream, like everybody's
(14:37):
doing this thing now, or everyone's doing this
thing now, that in my opinion have a
lot of extra fluff in them.
There's a lot of extra things that maybe
don't need to be there, and if we
understand the science and we can boil down
what's really going to be effective, then we
can kind of get rid of all the
extras and the fluff and the extra noise
(14:59):
and just drill right down to that problem
and fix the problem.
I do think you can be a fantastic
dog trainer.
I think you can be a fantastic registered
behavior technician.
I think you can do plenty to change
behavior and be really effective without knowing the
science, without understanding radical behaviorism, but I think
(15:21):
if you're going to get to that next
level of being able to really solve any
problem that comes your way and pivot quickly
when something's not working and understand how to
cut out all the extra fluff and be
really efficient and effective, you have to know
the science at some point.
It's a bit like playing pool or playing
(15:42):
billiards.
Do you call it pool?
We call it pool and billiards.
They're different games.
But you could be really good at that
without understanding physics, right?
But if you're going to be like one
of the best pool players in the world,
you probably have to have some understanding of
physics and how the balls are going to
(16:02):
move and angles and what's going to be
effective and that's going to level up your
game.
I think it's the same in the world
of behavior analysis.
I hadn't thought about that before, but now
I want to learn physics just so I
can be friends with better.
You have some pretty intense pool competitions.
(16:23):
I agree with you and I think that
that all totally makes sense and then the
nuance of the devil advocacy part that I
was playing was, where do you, and I'm
not talking about, and I don't think I'm
talking about it, and if you have any
thoughts on this, let me know.
Teaching clients, like we go to someone's home
and we're teaching them, I'm not talking about
(16:44):
that, I'm talking about teaching people who are
learning about animal training and where to start.
So not like you should never learn about
science or you should learn about science because
I think in my personal opinion, everyone should.
It's like, how do you springboard learners off
as best we can when we start them?
(17:05):
Yeah, that's a good question.
Obviously, that's different for everyone, but there's pros
and cons, I think.
Yeah, it depends what the person's goals are,
I suppose.
If you're maybe taking a new animal trainer
under your wing and saying, what do you
want to do and where's your career headed?
Do you want to, I don't know, do
(17:27):
you want to just be working on teaching
puppies and running puppy classes?
And I think you could get by doing
those things or doing trick training or doing,
you know, like specializing in one particular thing
and learning the kind of protocols and procedures
and how to be a good practitioner and
(17:47):
be perfectly successful there.
So I think it really depends on your
goals, and when I'm working with clients, I'm
not being like, you've got to go read
B.F. Skinner, and have you ever heard
of radical behaviorism?
As much as I'd love to spend time
talking about those things, I don't.
I explain that I'm a behavior analyst, and
often I'll talk clients through like a very
(18:10):
basic understanding of that, but more so I'm
trying to sprinkle in understanding that your dog
isn't being bad.
Your dog is not doing things wrong.
Your dog is doing what works for them
in this situation, and it's our job to
(18:31):
figure out where that behavior came from and
what they're telling us with that behavior and
how we can get their needs met in
a better way.
And when I talk about it that way,
I think that kind of that kind of
summarizes radical behaviorism, is that we're trying to
(18:52):
figure out how the environment affects behavior, how
behavior was learned, and in cases where behavior
currently is not what we'd like it to
be, going, okay, that behavior is still important
to that learner, and they're still getting something
out of it, so how can we make
sure that that need is still met, but
(19:13):
teach them a better way to get that
need met?
And I think that's an eye-opening thing
for a lot of dog owners to think
about behavior that way, and I've had plenty
of dog owners comment on like, oh, my
kid also is having this problem, and I've
been thinking about it that same way of
like, oh, they're communicating something with their behavior,
(19:34):
or my husband's doing this thing, and I've
been thinking about how can I fix it
in a similar way to what I'm doing
in this dog training that I'm doing, and
that's what I want.
I want people to be open to that
kind of conceptualization of behavior, and that kind
of compassionate approach to going, oh, oh, that
behavior is happening for a reason.
(19:56):
It's not because my dog is being a
jerk, or because my husband's just trying to
annoy me.
There's a reason for behavior.
I am sometimes, you use the word sometimes,
very loosely reinforced for annoying my wife.
Oh, my significant other is absolutely very bigger
than he will tell you as much.
(20:17):
Right, and so to go back to the
examples, you know, you can be a great
practitioner at running puppy classes or being a
trick trainer, but to use your billiard or
pool example, if you want to be the
best trick trainer in the world, then you
should maybe understand more about the science.
Let's leave number one with this quote from
(20:38):
you.
It's our job to figure out where that
behavior came from and what they are telling
us, and how we can get their needs
met in a better way.
What's number two that you wrote down?
Follow the science.
This is going to sound similar, but what
I mean by that is pay attention to
the people who know the science well, or
(21:01):
to the actual science.
If you're somebody who likes to read science
and is able to access scientific journals and
is able to sift through data and read
things like that and make sense of it,
great.
If that's not you, which that's not most
of us, most of us are not willing
(21:23):
or able to review scientific journals and make
sense of them, follow the people who are
already doing that work for us, and the
people who do understand the science well and
can articulate accurately how that science applies to
what we're doing.
So some really good examples of that, Eileen
(21:44):
Anderson is phenomenal, and I'm betting a lot
of your listeners are already familiar with her
and her Eileen and Dogs blog.
That's exactly what she does.
She loves reading the science, and she's a
great person that if you have a question
about something related to dog training that you
don't understand or that you're wondering is this
(22:06):
scientifically accurate, you could ask Eileen, and Eileen
will gladly go do that research and comb
through all of the journals and come up
with a really concise, well-written article about
it.
I've even gone to her with questions about
things and said, I know that I have
access to all of these journals and I
(22:27):
could easily look this up myself, but I
bet you already know the answer to this.
So she's a great one to follow and
pay attention to.
Susan Friedman, Susan is so good at explaining
the science in such easy to understand ways.
I'm observing LLA this round.
(22:50):
I took LLA with her a couple years
ago.
I'm observing now and hoping to get more
involved in in TA-ing in the future,
but she's just so good at explaining the
science in a way that's understandable and knowing
the science inside and out.
Kiki Yvonne, who we already talked about, same
(23:10):
thing.
She's another one that has a really great
understanding of the science of behavior analysis and
how to apply that to dog training.
Stephanie Kesey Phelan of Dog Behavior Institute, another
one, she has a PhD in behavior analysis.
She's got a very similar background to me.
We actually came up through our clinical work
(23:33):
in the same area in Boston and have
a lot of those same mutual contacts.
So look for people like that, that have
a good handle on the science and are
good at translating that to the things people
are doing and being able to explain, are
these things rooted in science?
Are these things evidence-based procedures and how
(23:56):
do they tie back to our science?
Well, if you check out our sister podcast,
Making Ripples, hosted by the wonderful Shelley Wood.
Time of recording this, Aileen Anderson was our
latest guest.
Oh, really?
But by the time this comes out, she
won't be.
But if you go back a few episodes
in the Making Ripples, Animal Training Academy Making
Ripples podcast.
(24:17):
I love, and also by the time this
is released, will be a few episodes past
episode 250, where we had Dr. Susan Friedman
on, who joins us every 50th episode.
And what I love, Kara, about doing every
50 episodes of this, I asked her what
she wanted to talk about for, and she
kind of talks about what's on her, what's
kind of keeping her busy and keeping her
(24:38):
thoughts occupied.
Asked her what she wanted to talk about
for episode 250.
And she said negative reinforcement and non-linear
contingency analysis.
And when I asked her for episode number
200, what she wanted to talk about, so
50 episodes earlier, nearly two years earlier, she
(24:59):
said negative reinforcement and non-linear contingency analysis.
So following the science through this podcast show,
and I lean on Susan a lot to
go, cool, what have you learned over the
last two years about what we talked about
two years ago, which is a lot of
fun.
So if you're listening to this, then that
(25:19):
episode will already be out, both of those,
and you can listen to those.
Kiki Yblon, part of Animal Training Academy as
well.
And who was the last person you mentioned?
Stephanie Keesey-Thielen of the Dog Behavior Institute.
They do a lot of really great webinars.
She's also a human behavior analyst that is
(25:41):
now primarily working in the dog training realm.
And I'm sure there's plenty of other ones
that I've missed too, but those are off
the top of my head, my go-to
people.
So I've written her name down, so keep
your eyes out listeners for future episodes.
What's number three that you've written down for
us, Karim Lovins?
These are all of the same theme, but
(26:02):
number three is be conceptually systematic.
And what I mean by that is tie
your practices back to the science and call
them what they are.
I have big feelings about this.
In dog training in particular, there's a lot
(26:24):
of branding that happens where people come up
with a procedure that is working well, and
then they give it some name that usually
they made up or they, I don't know,
coined in using it.
Which I think is good in the sense
that those names of procedures are often very
(26:45):
descriptive of the procedure and help people understand
what's actually happening.
Like start buttons are a good example.
When we talk about start buttons, most people
understand exactly what's going on just by saying
start button.
You can already, if you've never heard of
it, you can probably guess what it might
be.
Or pattern games, things like that.
(27:06):
My thing that I think feels frustrating to
me as a behavior analyst who, I guess,
started in the science and then moved into
the practice, which I think is opposite of
what a lot of people do.
A lot of people start in the practice
and then go back and learn the science.
(27:28):
When we aren't conceptually systematic, meaning we're not
tying our practices back to the science and
calling them what they are using the scientific
terms, we might lose the plot a little
bit.
And we might, again, end up adding in
some extra fluff that we don't need if
(27:49):
we're not thinking about, well, wait a minute,
why would this procedure be working?
Or what is happening from a scientific perspective
based on what we know about behavior?
So that's something that I really want to
encourage more people to do is look at
your procedures and especially procedures that have been
(28:10):
sort of branded or given names that are
commonly accepted in the field now.
Try to tie those things back to the
science and understand what's going on.
And I think by keeping a common technical
vernacular and making sure that people understand a
lot of those protocols and procedures already have
(28:33):
names in behavior analysis, it helps us all
stay on the same page with what we're
doing.
And it helps us tie back our practice
to evidence-based procedures to make sure that
we are using evidence-based procedures and that
we're not wasting people's time or money doing
things that aren't going to work.
(28:53):
So I think that's an important thing.
And I think that's something people kind of
get feisty about sometimes and fight about a
little bit of like not wanting to use
technical terminology or not wanting to like, why
can't we just call it this?
And in my mind, it's because it makes
it much harder to sift out what is
(29:16):
good evidence-based practice that's based on what
we already know about the science and what
is floof that somebody made up that they
might be saying, yeah, this works and this
is what I do.
And how do we delineate between things that
people are making up and branding and selling
(29:36):
to make money off of procedures versus procedures
that are tied back to the science and
evidence-based.
So not talking negatively about any of those
things that I mentioned, like start buttons, I
use those all the time.
I think that's a lovely procedure.
I think it has plenty of evidence-based
(29:59):
and we can tie it back to behavior
analysis.
But I think it's important to do that,
to be conceptually systematic.
I know Susan talks about an LLA and
I was trying to quickly find the word
there, the fear of scientific terminology.
Oh, I have heard her say that before
and I can't, I feel like she just
(30:20):
said it recently and I don't remember what
the term is.
Yeah, I tried to ask Chet GPT there
when you were talking, but I'm not smart
enough.
Even little things like in dog training, we
talk about proofing.
I'm not quite sure where that word came
from, but the technical term for that is
generalization.
(30:41):
And I think that, again, the reason that
matters is let's say I'm a young dog
trainer that's like learning about the science as
much as I can.
And I want to know what's the best
way to proof something.
Well, if I go and look that up
and I go and I try to do
a scientific search of that, I'm not going
(31:02):
to find anything because all the research that's
been done on it is on generalization.
But if I go into the Journal of
Applied Behavior Analysis or the Journal of Experimental
Analysis of Behavior and I look up generalization,
oh, I'm going to be inundated with studies
on that and best practice on that.
And there's a ton of stuff out there
(31:23):
already.
And so I worry sometimes when we give
things new names or we call things by
something other than what they have been known
in the science as that we're going to
lose people or make it harder for people
to sift through what's good evidence-based practice
and what's not.
(31:44):
But Kara, I really like shiny things.
When I see a shiny thing, I really
want it.
And the thing that is, I think, a
little bit frustrating is there's not a whole
lot new and shiny in behavior analysis right
(32:06):
now.
We know all the main things that we
really need to know, I think, to solve
most problems that we're going to need to
solve.
And it is rare now in applied behavior
analysis that there's new terms popping up or
new like totally brand new procedures that no
one ever thought of.
It's always different twists on the same old
(32:27):
ideas and the same old tried and true
evidence-based procedures.
And so I think people should be, when
some shiny new procedure pops up, you should
be skeptical, not of the person or of
the procedure, but you should be at least
going, hmm, what is this?
(32:47):
What is this in behavior analytic terminology or
in how does this fit into our conceptualization
of how behavior works and does it?
And if it doesn't, then we shouldn't be
scratching our head and going, wait a minute,
should I follow this shiny new thing or
is this a waste of my time?
Because it might be.
(33:09):
That is a great reminder and that's why
I value Kiki Eblon's contributions to our membership
community so much.
She often comes in and does exactly that
to conversations and provides so much value in
that way.
I'm very grateful for that.
All right, we've got number one talking about
(33:32):
radical behaviorism, number two, follow the science, number
three, be conceptually systematic.
Hit us with number four.
Number four is a little bit of a
cheater one because it kind of stems off
of number three, but if you are a
practitioner, you're a dog trainer or even a
(33:54):
human practitioner or any kind of animal trainer,
ask a lot of questions and ask people
to explain the science behind their procedures.
So when I say be conceptually systematic, I
think that's aimed more towards the people who
are coming up with the procedure.
(34:14):
Number four, ask questions and ask people to
explain the science is aimed a little bit
more at the people who aren't necessarily the
ones coming up with the procedures but are
the ones following that shiny new thing.
When you see somebody selling a class or
a course or doing their thing on social
(34:37):
media and saying this is how I do
this thing and it's called this or this
is how you should do this thing, ask
a lot of questions and ask that person
if they can explain the science behind what
they're doing.
And if they can't and if you can't
or you can't, you can go to those
(35:00):
people that I mentioned before, those people who
know the science well and ask them to
help you figure that out.
But if they can't or you can't or
the person who made up the procedure can't,
consider whether it's worth following that thing and
doing that thing just because someone said that
you should or that that's how they do
it or just because that person has a
(35:20):
lot of followers or they're teaching a class
on this thing that they made up.
Look at where the science goes, look at
evidence-based best practice and see does this
make sense.
And again, these all tie together because this
goes back to you have to understand the
science first to know if a procedure is
worth doing.
(35:41):
So you're saying that we have to think
harder about things and be critical thinkers?
Yeah, imagine that in this day and age.
Not a lot of people are strong suit,
I think.
No, it's a couple years ago when we
were doing deep dives on topics and on
(36:02):
a monthly basis within our membership and I
asked Susan to do something with us one
month and I asked for her ideas on
what she would most like to talk to
our community about and our community is one
that she knows very well and she chose
critical thinking that that was the most important
(36:24):
thing for her to talk about.
So I love that we're talking about that
here today as well and I love that
this episode is going to follow the one
we recently recorded with Susan.
I think for you to listen it's going
to be a nice flow with a little
bit of Peggy Hogan sandwiched in the middle
there but we absolutely always value Peggy wherever
(36:45):
she shows up.
All right, number five, the last one.
You've left the best for last.
And this one is a little, goes in
a slightly different direction I think but I
guess sort of in the same vein.
Always keep learning and find communities of like
-minded trainers that you can bounce ideas off
(37:06):
of and this I guess is a long
-winded way of saying something that one of
my mentors in my doctoral program told me.
Greg Hanley who I bet some of your
listeners know because I think I've heard you
refer to him.
Did you have him on the podcast?
(37:27):
Yeah, I saw.
I thought so.
Yeah, Greg Hanley came to Auckland for ABA
week like a decade ago and he's been
on the podcast too.
So for anybody that doesn't know him he's
a human behavior analyst and he, I would
say right now he works primarily in the
(37:49):
area of challenging behavior a lot with people
on the autism spectrum and he was one
of my mentors in my graduate program.
He was actually the director of my doctoral
program and one thing that he said in
my program that has always stuck with me
(38:10):
was don't do behavior analysis in your garage
and what he meant by that was no
matter where you end up in your career
you should never be doing this alone.
When you are changing behavior regardless of who
your learner is that is a weighty responsibility
(38:32):
to have.
If you are going to be changing a
learner's behavior you need to be very thoughtful
about what you're doing and you should not
be working by yourself and making decisions by
yourself.
You should have a community of people that
you can bounce ideas off of and that
you can work through problems with and talk
(38:54):
to about the things that you're doing to
check yourself and make sure that you are
doing good ethical practice but also good evidence
-based practice.
I think in dog training especially that can
be hard because you're often doing it by
yourself.
There's at least where I am there are
(39:17):
I think two or three other APACTPs around.
I've connected with one of them but even
then I'm practicing largely on my own and
when I'm writing a behavior plan for a
dog I'm not working with a team of
people but I've tried to surround myself with
(39:41):
people who know more than I do.
That's always my goal is surround yourself with
people who are better than you are and
know more than you are and bounce ideas
off of them and learn from them.
People like Kiki has been I'm eternally grateful
to Kiki for when I shortly after I
(40:02):
got my dog who was having a lot
of behavior problems I went okay need to
find the experts.
I need to find the best behavior analysts
and dog trainers that I can find and
get their help because I'm a behavior analyst
and I don't even know where to start
with this dog and people like Kiki and
people like Sue Alesby were crucial for me
(40:26):
to figure that out and to start to
develop my own skills and learn and still
when I'm having when I have a difficult
case or when I'm working on a new
problem that I haven't worked on before I'll
bounce ideas off of other dog trainers.
Sometimes I'll go to people like Eileen Anderson
and say does this make sense from a
(40:48):
conceptually systematic standpoint?
Am I still doing behavior analysis here because
this is different than what I've done before
and a lot of times I'll go to
my human behavior analyst colleagues who don't work
with dogs at all and say hey I'm
coming up with this program for this dog
and I know you're not a dog trainer
but I want you to just look at
(41:09):
this as a behavior analyst and see if
this makes sense to you or if I'm
missing something and so I think it's really
important to always one keep learning and two
have a community of people that you can
bounce ideas off of and people that that
are of the same mindset as you that
are hopefully radical behaviorists.
I like to additionally think that at Animal
(41:33):
Training Academy all I've done is build the
academy by surrounding myself with people who are
way smarter than me and if you listen
to this podcast there's 253 episodes now so
you can very easily do that as well
(41:53):
and I love this because people join Animal
Training Academy because they want knowledge most of
the time.
Oh Susan Freeman's talking about this or someone
else is talking about this let me join
that webinar but people stay I mean we
have members who have been with us for
(42:15):
six seven years and they work across all
industries that care for learners mostly animals and
all species and so you can imagine the
amount of problems that these people face in
their work and the live sessions that we
do every month to have those super focused
(42:37):
on those individual members problems it's pretty hard
yeah so why do they stay with us
for five six years it's because of the
community and I've never and I've always found
it challenging to communicate their value to someone
who doesn't have it at the same time
I know that when we did a survey
(43:00):
a couple of years ago Kara we asked
people what their biggest problems were and one
of it not the most the biggest or
the most repeated problem was loneliness and it
was not like I'm lonely I like I'm
sad but like I'm geographically isolated or and
that there was a main one geographically or
(43:22):
I'm isolated in my organization so and I
love Greg Hanley so he's done an episode
with us and the one thing that members
in our community repeat from that episode to
this day is is your training televisible meaning
like would you allow others to view this
(43:42):
like yeah would it be non-intrusive from
that metric so I don't be in your
garage as well it kind of seems like
it's in a similar quote book no matter
yeah that's that's one one of the other
main things that I took away from from
working with him is is you should feel
(44:02):
comfortable doing what you do in front of
other people and if you don't you should
be questioning what you do and I exclusively
trained I do just private sessions so when
I'm working aside from the occasional puppy training
when I'm working the the dog guardian is
there watching and I I should feel comfortable
(44:24):
about what I'm doing all the time if
I don't we've got a problem but it's
the same with humans as well I'm gonna
update Greg's comment and say is is it
instagrammable or I can try to be yes
is it tiktokable but I don't have a
tiktok account although I feel like nothing nothing
is safe on social media you're right you
(44:46):
could be doing the best training ever and
someone's gonna have a problem with it probably
get elected um so yeah I've never thought
about those things before that it's such a
weighty responsibility um and so having that community
around you that's that's really valuable well that
brings us to the end of our two
conversations together this has been absolutely wonderful and
(45:07):
thanks so much for sharing everything with us
over these two episodes just before we do
officially wrap up I was hoping you could
remind everyone listening where they can go online
to find out more about you what you
do and get in touch it's your state
-of-the-art website sorry yeah I don't
(45:30):
have an official website because it just hasn't
been necessary it turns out um but if
you google pet project dog training that's my
dog training company and you will find my
link tree which is serving as my temporary
website uh and that will link you link
you to everything you need including uh primarily
(45:54):
I'm on instagram which is pet project dog
training on instagram and working on building my
following there I have a youtube as well
um which you can find via my link
tree or my instagram and my dog has
her own instagram as well that you can
also find if you go to my link
(46:15):
tree because gotta promote her she has more
followers than all of my other accounts combined
amazing amazing um and we will of course
link to all of this in the show
notes for you the listener from the listeners
and myself Kira thank you so much for
taking the time to come and geek out
(46:35):
with us at ATA yeah thank you for
having me and thank you so much for
listening as well this is your host Ryan
Cartlidge signing off from this episode of the
Animal Training Academy podcast show we hope today's
conversation inspired you and equipped you with new
(46:57):
tools for your trainer's toolbox remember every challenge
in training is an opportunity to learn and
sharpen your animal training geekery embrace the rough
patches learn from them and keep improving and
don't forget the path to growing your skills
and expanding your knowledge continues beyond this episode
(47:20):
visit www.atamember.com to join our supportive
membership where you will find a community of
trainers just like you together we're making a
huge positive difference in the lives of animal
and human learners worldwide until next time keep
(47:43):
honing your skills stay awesome and remember every
interaction with an animal human learner is your
opportunity to create ripples we're here cheering you
on every step of the way see you
at the next episode
Popular Podcasts
Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club
Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese’s Book Club — the podcast where great stories, bold women, and irresistible conversations collide! Hosted by award-winning journalist Danielle Robay, each week new episodes balance thoughtful literary insight with the fervor of buzzy book trends, pop culture and more. Bookmarked brings together celebrities, tastemakers, influencers and authors from Reese's Book Club and beyond to share stories that transcend the page. Pull up a chair. You’re not just listening — you’re part of the conversation.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com