Awe Inspiring Tales of Animal Behavior and Conservation Success with Ken Ramirez

Episode Transcript
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Michael Shikashio (00:02):
Welcome to Season 5 of the Bitey End of the
Dog.
I'm really excited to belaunching 15 episodes with so
many incredible conversationscentered around the topic of
aggression and all of the wayswe can help dogs and their
people.
This is going to be a fantasticseason, as I've brought in
quite a variety of guests whoshare their expertise about
everything from neuroscience,gut biomes, nose work, husbandry

(00:26):
and handling, veterinarybehavior, livestock guardian
dogs, service dogs, intentionalthinking and even puppies.
What I'm most excited about isthe continued growth in our
collective knowledge by hearingfrom these experts talk about
the latest and most modernconcepts and applications for
helping dogs.
My first guest this season isnone other than the legendary

(00:50):
Ken Ramirez.
When people say something likeyou can't train a dog without
using X, y or Z, ken is the guythat can say hold my beer.
I honestly can't think of manypeople on this entire planet
that have trained so manyspecies to do so many things.
If you don't know about Ken andhis achievements, you're really

(01:11):
going to be blown away by thisepisode, and if you are enjoying
the bitey end of the dog, youcan support the podcast by going
to aggressivedogcom, wherethere's a variety of resources
to learn more about helping dogswith aggression issues,
including the upcomingAggression and Dogs Conference
happening from October 11th to13th 2024 in Scottsdale, arizona
, with both in-person and onlineoptions.

(01:33):
You can also learn more aboutthe Aggression and Dogs Master
Course, which is the mostcomprehensive course available
anywhere in the world forlearning how to work with and
help dogs with aggression issues.
I also have a wide variety ofwebinars, upcoming courses,
videos and articles, all fromthe foremost experts from around
the world.
We are your one-stop shop forall things related to aggression

(01:57):
in dogs.
Hey, everyone, welcome to seasonfive of the Bitey End of the
Dog.
What a great way to kick offthis season, because I have none
other than Ken Ramirez, who Ilike to refer to as the man, the
myth, the legend, because Ithink Ken is one of the most
modest trainers in our community.

(02:17):
He's done so much and I've seenprobably a dozen or at least,
of his presentations over theyears and you wouldn't know
about what he actually doesbecause he's not bragging about
it often and I've had thepleasure of seeing him train
everything from butterflies toelephants, and I'm really
excited to be getting into this.
So welcome to the show, ken.

Ken Ramirez (02:38):
Thank you, michael, I'm happy to be here.

Yeah, so let's kind of talk about that.
I think most people in thetraining world know who you are.
Of course, let's talk moreabout what you've done and some
of the animals like.
You've taught butterflies andelephants to migrate in certain
patterns, and you've done somany things that people may not
be aware about.
So what's some of your favoritetakeaways or some of your

(03:01):
favorite stories about theanimals you've trained?

You know, I guess for me I was very fortunate
because I got into the fieldvery young.
I was still in high school whenI took my first job as a
volunteer at a guide dog schooland at the time I didn't know
where my career was going totake me.
But I really enjoyed beingaround the dogs and I did a lot
of food prep and cleaning and Ididn't really get to do anything

(03:26):
with the dogs.
My first year I was just akennel attendant.
But as time went on I got achance to work with dogs and I
think it was the work that wasbeing done with some intelligent
disobedience that sparked my17-year-old interest and said oh
my goodness, this is amazing.
You give a dog a cue and thedog has to look at the

(03:48):
environment and recognize.
I know you just told me to goforward, but there's a dangerous
drop-off or there's traffic orthere's a big barrier in front
of you and I can't go that way.
So I'm going to stop.
And I think the thing that wasfascinating to me about it was
when we got to working withoverhead hangs and you know

(04:11):
where a dog is taking a blindperson and there is a low
hanging sign or there's a treebranch or something that's five
foot above the ground and thedog can easily go forward, and
the dog would stop and the ownerwould say, go forward.
And the dog would refuse to goforward.
And it was fascinating to me,as a young non-trainer yet, that

(04:36):
these dogs would follow yourinstructions 95% of the time,
but when given an instructionthat was dangerous to the
handler or could get them introuble, the dog would
understand that it needed to notlisten to your instructions.
And something about thatconceptual learning fascinated

(04:59):
me and prompted me in many waysto actually become a trainer.
And at the time, as a kidyou're thinking, oh, I'm going
to train guide dogs.
I thought what better job couldthere be than playing with dogs
all day long and doing it forthis noble purpose?
But as I was in college, I hadan opportunity to work at a

(05:21):
marine life park in theeducation department helping
teach people, teach visitors,about animals, and I enjoyed
that as well.
But it turned out, as I waslearning a lot about dog
training, it turned out that thesame techniques that I had
learned about at the guide dogschool were the ways that the

(05:44):
tigers and lions were beingtrained, the way that the
dolphins and sea lions werebeing trained and that the birds
and the birds of prey that theywere working with were being
trained, and I was fascinated bythe fact that all of these
different species of animalscould learn the same way.
And before I knew it, thatbecame my area where I worked.

(06:05):
I ended up working in thezoological field, and that took
me all over the world.
I worked in Japan, I worked inFrench Polynesia, I worked in
Mexico and I lived in thosecountries for a long period of
time and got experiences withquite a variety of different
animals, and over the years Ibecame fascinated with
conservation work.

(06:26):
It's one of the things thatattracts a young person like
myself, when I was gettingstarted toward the zoological
world, is seeing some of thereally fascinating conservation
projects that could be applied.
And somewhere along the way Igot exposed to this idea of
remote training, where youimpacted animals' behavior but

(06:48):
the animal never knows thatyou're a part of the equation.
You're doing it sort ofremotely and I started seeing
the possibilities of being ableto work with animals
free-ranging animals in the wildand helping to shape and change
their behavior in ways thatwould help them for conservation
projects, and so one of themore recent projects that I'm

(07:10):
currently involved in is aproject with elephants in Zambia
, and the challenge with thisparticular elephant population
is, as they migrate to Tanzania,they cut through a southeast
corner of the DemocraticRepublic of Congo, and poacher
protection laws are not as goodin the Democratic Republic of

(07:32):
Congo, and so poachers waitthere, and when the elephants
cross the border, they slaughter60 to 70 elephants every single
year, and so, because of a lotof the conservation work I had
been known for and had done overthe years, I was asked if I
thought it was possible to teachan entire herd of elephants to

(07:52):
change their migration route andreroute them around the
Democratic Republic of Congo andallow them to continue on their
migration route, and we managedto do that.
We put together a program wherewe taught the entire herd of
elephants to go a new route toavoid the poachers, and this
year 2024, is going to be theseventh year of this project.

(08:16):
We've been doing the project nowfor six continuous years and
we've been very successful atteaching the elephants to go
this new route, and the bestpart about it is, when I started
the project in 2018, thepopulation of elephants was like
374 elephants, and this pastyear, in 2023, that population

(08:38):
of elephants that we werererouting was over 500 animals,
and so the population of thatparticular herd has been
declining for 30 years becauseof the poaching problem, but now
that we've managed tosuccessfully teach these animals
to go a new route, they're notpoached, and so the reproduction
keeps up with the populationand allows the population to

(09:00):
grow, and so this population isnow seeing growth for the first
time in over 30 years, and sothat's the kind of thing that
really makes me happy that I'mable to take these things that I
learned first as a dog trainerand then as a zoo trainer and
apply them to animals in thewild to help for this very
important purpose, thisconservation work that we're

(09:22):
doing, and so I've beenfortunate to be involved in lots
of different conservationprojects over the years.
That's just one of the morerecent ones that I'm still
actively involved in.

That must be just.
I can't think of anything moreincredibly rewarding and
satisfying.
I mean you must sleep reallywell at night thinking about
just the growth of your career.
But now I mean, what you'redoing is just really so amazing
and commendable too.

Well, thank you, mike.
It is very rewarding.
You know you get involved inprojects like this because you
care about the population.
You want to see the animalshelped and it's particularly
concerning when it's the declinein the population is due to
human activity, whether it'soverpopulation or destroying

(10:07):
forests or, in this particularcase, just outright hunting for
a species that's endangered andit's illegal to hunt.
But they're still doing itbecause of the kind of money
they can get for getting anelephant's tusk or for getting
various elephant body parts andbeing able to see the success.
You know when you start off witha question do you think you can

(10:29):
train 370, some elephants tochange their migration route?
At first it's an overwhelmingthought and you think, oh, my
goodness, I don't know how we'regoing to do that.
It's not like they all migratetogether.
They migrate over hundreds ofmiles and it takes many, many
hours for them to all migrate.
And thinking about how you'regoing to change that behavior

(10:50):
sort of can boggle your mind.
But looking back on it now andseeing that we're on the tail
end of the project and the realsuccess of the project comes in
a couple more years when we'resupposed to pull out and not do
any intervention at all and theelephants should, on their own,

(11:10):
travel the new route.
If that is successful and wehave every indication right now
that it should be that's when wewill be able to walk away and
say, okay, job well done, wehave accomplished our task.
This group of elephants has nowpermanently taken the new route
and will continue that route,hopefully.
Job well done, we haveaccomplished our task.
This group of elephants has nowpermanently taken the new route
and will continue that route,hopefully into the foreseeable
future.
That's when I can look back andkind of go okay, we got that

(11:35):
one done.
But yes, it is very satisfyingand it does feel really good
when we see that kind of success.

And you're presented with these kind of
challenges quite often.
I remember you were talkingabout the dogs.
You taught to find the turtleeggs and you had such a limited
time to do that.
Yeah, and you're oftenpresented with these challenges.
And can you talk more aboutwhen you're faced with that, for
instance, the elephants?
Talk us through a little bitmore about how that was trained,

(12:03):
if you can, without giving awayany secrets?
Sure.

You know what ends up happening is because I become
known for these kinds ofprojects.
I get calls from US Fish andWildlife Service or some
government agency or someuniversity project, or sometimes
from some zoo, and they'll sayhere's the problem that we're
finding that these animals arefacing, and the question is can

(12:27):
we change their behavior?
Can we do something with thisbehavior?
Whether it's a group ofendangered birds that are
nesting on a bridge and theirguano is causing the bridge to
decay and they would like thebirds to find another place to
nest.
To human interactions withpolar bears that are coming too
far, coming into town, villagesand killing dogs and causing

(12:50):
havoc and wanting to changetheir behavior.
Often what will happen ispeople will present us with the
challenge and they're not reallysure how to solve it, and we
have one of these brainstormingsessions where we just talk.
You know what would make theproblem go away?
Just for a moment.
Pretend that there are noobstacles in front of us and say

(13:13):
what would you like to seehappen?
And if what they present areobstacles that are in the form
of the animal's behavior iscausing this particular problem,
or the human behavior iscausing the animal's behavior to
change.
And you know, then we startsaying, well, how can we change
the human behavior?

(13:33):
How can we change the animal'sbehavior to help them succeed,
you know, so that the animalscan live their lives but they
don't put themselves in dangeror aren't putting people in
danger any longer.
And so those conversations willhappen and I'll spitball these
various, sometimes crazy andweird ideas and, saying so, it

(13:56):
sounds to me like thisparticular project could be
solved if we found a differentroute for the elephants to go.
Now, sometimes the governmentagencies or the people that are
involved and who've beenfollowing the problem for a long
time will actually have ideasand they'll come to me and say
do you think it would bepossible to change the route,

(14:17):
the centuries-old route of anelephant migration route?
And then a big part of that isreally talking with the local
people and finding out what doesthe terrain look like and what
would the pathway be and wherewould we be.
And so what we ended up doingwas for the elephant project is
we ended up putting artificialbarriers.
We got these large tree trunksthat we were able to construct a

(14:41):
two kilometer barrier thatwould prevent the elephants from
easily going their old route,and then we took man-made
watering holes and put themalong the new route.
They're migrating in search ofwater and so there is no water
usually along their old route.
We put water along the newroute temporarily to guide them

(15:05):
in that direction, and that hasbeen very successful in getting
the elephants to move in thisother direction.
Then ideally, at the end of the10-year permit we would get rid
of the wall and get rid of thewater, and we're doing that in
small approximations.
It looks like we've removed thewall.
We've moved the wall so faraway and around a mountain bend

(15:30):
that you can't see the wallanymore.
You wouldn't know the wall isthere unless you go down that
old route, and the elephantshaven't gone that way anymore,
even though there's no immediatebarrier there.
So they go down the new routewhere there are watering holes,
and then over the years I'm nowin a process of slowly
approximating the number ofwater holes down to none and

(15:52):
hopefully we'll be able to stillget them to go the new route.

So that's fascinating and it's just a
brilliant use of the environmentand a reinforcer that the
elephants are seeking out, andso, in a way, these government
agencies or the agencies thatyou're working with are kind of
like a dog trainer's client thatwants a specific outcome.
They have a challenge.
They present you with thisproblem.

(16:16):
Do you ever face, let's say, aparticular agency or team that
is advocating for the use ofpunishment?
Or let's say, we'll put up likea shock fence system for all
these elephants?
What if you were presented like, how do you navigate that
conversation?
I imagine it's very similar.

You know, first of all, I never say any idea is a
bad idea.
I put all ideas on the tableand our goal is to say, okay,
what's going to really motivatethe animals?
My goal is to use positivereinforcement.
But I'm not going to take awaya tool.
If the animals, if the peoplein that community have already

(16:51):
used a tool, already seem toknow how to use the tool, I
still am going to try to find away to minimize the use of that
tool if necessary.
A perfect example would be aproject that I was doing in
Alaska with polar bears thatwere coming too far south, and
the idea was they wanted to getthe polar bears to quit coming

(17:11):
into towns and villages, andafter really looking at the
problem, we took a three-prongedapproach.
The first one is just a goodeducation program to help the
local villagers understand howto secure their garbage and what
to do with hanging meat thatthey're drying out and stuff
like that that were attractingthe bears in.
And so a good education programto change their behavior was

(17:35):
first and foremost.
But the second part of theproject was they already had
town sentinels.
They had watch towers, townsentinels, they had watchtowers
constructed in the town wherethey would watch, and if they
saw polar bears approaching,they would use a shotgun not to
shoot the bears, because it'sillegal to shoot polar bears,

(17:55):
but they would use the shotgunsto scare the bears away from the
village.
And they had gotten really,really proficient at using the
shotguns but they were usingthem so often and the bears
would just leave and come intothe town a different direction.
They would just circle aroundand come in from another
direction.
And I thought I'm not going totake the shotguns away.

(18:18):
I can't do that anyway.
It's not my right, I don't haveany legal authority to do that.
But I realized maybe if I couldteach them how to use the
shotguns in a way that was goingto be more effective.
I said you're just arbitrarilyshooting at a polar bear as they
are approaching and there is noreal learning that's happening

(18:40):
because there's nothing that'sconnected to that shotgun.
They're just walking around intheir normal everyday life and
suddenly a shotgun goes off andit scares them away temporarily
and they come in anotherdirection.
So my suggestion was okay, I getthat you're using these things,
but you ought to at leastconnect the shotgun sound to the

(19:01):
moment that the polar bearsniffs a trash can, the moment
the polar bear sniffs a tire.
The moment the polar bearsniffs a trash can.
The moment the polar bearsniffs a tire.
The moment the polar bearsniffs something human, at that
moment that's the behavior youwant to not have them do, and so
let's make those shotgun soundshappen at that moment.
So I taught them how to timetheir aversive tool better,

(19:24):
because my feeling was if theycould understand how to do it
better, they would reduce theneed to use it.
And it did reduce the need touse it quite significantly.
And then meanwhile we used aform of positive reinforcement
to lure the bears to a locationwhere natural food was available
.
They didn't have to get thefood from the town.
So that was a situation where Ididn't particularly like the

(19:47):
use of the shotguns, but it wasalready in place.
But if I helped show them howto use it more effectively.
And it was amazing because,just as an example, in one of
the villages where we were doingthis project, the average
number of polar bear incidentsin a single year was about 321.
There were 321 incidents andthat meant that shotguns were

(20:11):
fired 321 times to try to scarethe bears away.
After implementation of thisproject.
The average number of polarbear incidents in a single year
was four.
So they used the shotgun fourtimes after we implemented the
training.
And so what I did was I worked.
I didn't tell them to get ridof their aversive tool, but I

(20:35):
helped them reduce the use ofthat aversive tool while
meanwhile using positivereinforcement to move the bears
in another direction.
And so when there is anaversive tool that's already
present, I don't just go in andsay get rid of it.
I say, well, let's see how wecan minimize the use and make
the use more effective and movethen toward this more positive

(20:56):
reinforcement effect.
But the point that you'remaking is a good one, because
when you're working it with manyof these communities, there are
so many different people whohave many, many, many different
ideas.
In the Elephant Project alone,the number of legal hearings
that I had to go through and thenumber of different opposing
ideas and conflicting ideas werehuge.

(21:20):
And a big part of being able tobe successful in these projects
is being willing and able tolisten to every single naysayer
and every single person who saysthat can't be done or you
shouldn't do this, or we want todo it this way is to be able to
give them hope, theiropportunity to speak, and not

(21:43):
have a knee-jerk reaction likeno, you can't use shotguns.
It's like, no, that's whatthey've been using.
So I understand why you'reusing those shotguns.
So let me take that note downand just keep listening and
saying how can I make adifference?
And they come to me, like oftenwhen a client comes to us with
a dog problem, they come to youbecause they can't find a

(22:04):
solution.
In other words, despite thefact that they might be using an
aversive tool or a positivetool, it doesn't really matter
something about their use ofthat tool isn't doing the job.
And so how can we help them doit better?
And for me, the hardest thingabout most of these wildlife
projects is the myriad of people, from universities to animal

(22:27):
rights groups, to variousbiologists and various
government agencies, parkrangers, you know, there's just
a huge number of people thathave a vested interest in the
outcome, all with very differentopinions.
And so one of the hardestthings that I always tell other
trainers about these kinds ofwork because once they hear
about them, many trainers go.

(22:47):
How can I help?
And my first question is do youhave the patience to see this
project through?
And do you have the peopleskills not to get upset, not to
get angry, not to you know, abig part of this elephant
project, for example, was we gotpermission finally to do the

(23:09):
project and government law saidthat because we had a permit, we
could reroute the elephantsthis direction.
But we were very aware thatthere were five tribal nations
whose land we were going to begoing through and despite the
fact that legally I could havecome in and said we're coming

(23:29):
through the land, governmenttold us we could.
We didn't do that.
We went to each group of triballeaders through the entire
route and said here's what weare hoping to do, but we would
like to be able to come throughyour native lands and we want to
make sure that you're okay withthat and that this route is

(23:50):
okay with you.
And by doing that we got thelocal buy-in in the project and
in some cases they said gosh, welove this project, but the
route that you've chosen is notthe best one, for the following
reasons If you could change theroute and move it a little
further west or a little furthereast, or not go this close to

(24:11):
this village, it will make lifefor our community better, and so
we would listen to that.
Sometimes it was difficultbecause it wasn't the most
convenient route, but at thesame time, by getting the local
people buying into it andhelping with the project, it
made it more possible for us tosucceed.
And so so much of these casesare people cases and you know,

(24:35):
it's just like dog training.
It's really about teachingpeople how to use certain tools
and being able to work with whatthey need, what they desire,
and finding a way to help themsucceed at that and help them
learn to use whatever toolsyou're going to put forward.
I'm sorry, I think I got off ona real big tangent.

It had me thinking it would be a
masterclass just to sit andwatch you talk to all these
people.
And the topic of conflictresolution and managing multiple
viewpoints I mean it's toughenough just for, like, one
family where, as a dog trainer,consultant, working with these
multiple, multiple ideas andeverybody wanting to have their
say, it must be incrediblydifficult to manage.

It is.
It's interesting At the end ofeach of the elephant seasons I
put together my diary.
I take a diary and then I kindof put it together with pictures
of the project and someone wasreading my diary and they said
the same thing.
They said, wow, you conflictmanaged that situation really,
really well.
But for me, at the time, I don'teven think of it as conflict

(25:35):
management.
I have an obstacle in my way.
Here's a group of people whoare furious about something and
I need to find a way to workwith them and still succeed.
And sure, at the end I can lookat it and say, oh, I see why
you think of it as conflictmanagement.
I just thought of it as, allright, here is an issue.

(25:56):
They're upset.
I need to find a way to getthem to see things my way, or at
least to allow me to have areasonable conversation with
them without yelling and fingerpointing and being upset.
And for me it's always aboutfinding common ground.
Inevitably, there's alwayscommon ground in almost anything

(26:20):
that you're approaching andyou're saying, okay, we both
want to see this happen, correct.
And then you sort of work fromthere toward finding a solution
that is going to be equitablefor everybody.

I see what you're doing there, ken.
You're going in there andsaying I've got to change the
behavior of the animals that I'mworking with, but I'm also
going to change the behavior ofthe humans that I'm talking to.
You're kind of like I jokinglyrefer to you as Yoda and you're
just going to say something topeople like see, you will do
like this is what you're goingto like.
That's that's just how Ienvision it, because it's so

(26:54):
interesting now, like you, justmake it a goal of like all right
, I'm going to change theanimals behavior as well as the
people's behavior and you don'tlet that get in your way.
It's an amazing way of thinkingabout it.

But you can't.
You can't If you want to besuccessful.
You can't allow the people toget in the way.
You can't, allow them to getunder your skin, you can't.
And if they're actively a partof the project, you're not going
to get very far if they'reangry or disagree with what
you're doing.
So you've got to sort of take astep back and let them see that

(27:26):
you're willing to listen tothem and really ready to hear
their point of view and figureout a compromise or an
alternative way.
Or, if you feel like the wayyou had in mind is the only way,
you then have to help bringthem around to seeing why that
it's the only way and help thembe the ones that go.
Well, I see now why you do itthis way, or this is probably

(27:47):
the best way to go, andsometimes they just say it in a
different way, and if that makesthem happy, then you're
absolutely right.
That's the way we should do itthen, and you guide them in the
direction that you need them togo, and so it's the same skills
we use as dog trainers, butunfortunately, in my experience,

(28:07):
frequently dog trainers don'talways have those skills because
they are different.
It's the use of reinforcers.
It's the use of consequences,but we're trying to deliver them
using language, and so itrequires communication skills.
That there's no question thatbeing a good dog trainer
requires communication skills,but you're learning to read

(28:30):
dog's body language, to makeyour decisions, instead of
figuring out how to describe itto the dog logically.
It's a different set of skillsthat, a lot of times, dog
trainers just don't have.

Yeah, you know, this is a perfect segue
too into the next topic I wantedto talk to you about, you know,
because you're giving thesepeople, your learners, in a
sense, the opportunity toexpress themselves, to give you
information and feedback thatyou need to know to change their
behavior, so the opportunity tomaybe say no.
It's funny I come up on asocial media post the other day
ask Ken about the beluga whalestory.

(29:04):
It come up on a social mediapost the other day, ask Ken
about the beluga whale story andone of the things was is that
you're teaching the animal tosay no or you're reinforcing the
animal's choice to say no?
So can you talk more about thatI mean what was happening there
and give us a little backgroundthere?

Yeah, let me give you some background.
So when I was working at theaquarium we had a large
population of beluga whales andour beluga whale population was
very successfully breeding.
So we had calves that were borninto our program and we had
this one young beluga whale whohad been born into our program.
I had known this beluga herentire life.

(29:37):
I had a great relationship withher.
I was one of her first trainers.
I helped raise her, spent a lotof time in the water with her
and she became what her firsttrainers.
I helped raise her, spent a lotof time in the water with her
and she became what a lot of thetrainers that worked with her
called.
She was our perfect littleprincess, you know, and she was
so good at taking all the cuesand doing every behavior

(29:57):
perfectly that we sort of got inwhat I would call a bad habit
of we would put our attention onthe whales or the animals that
needed attention, and the youngperfect whale.
We would always let the newesttrainers work with her, because
she was so perfect that we could.
You're brand new to us.
We'll teach you what you needto know and you work with her.

(30:19):
We're going to go work withthese more challenging animals
over here, and I think that whathappened in retrospect I didn't
know it at the time, but inretrospect I was able to look
back at records and see that shehad been with so many young
trainers that perhaps didn'talways know how to read her body
language.
They weren't always aware whenshe was trying to say I don't

(30:41):
want to do this now, while thoseof us like myself who knew her
well, if I could see she wasresistant to wanting to do
something, I would change theplan, I would go a different
direction, and she got very usedto the fact that the trainers
who knew her well would adaptand change and go with her,
while I think that the youngertrainers not only were they not

(31:02):
good at reading body language,that the younger trainers not
only were they not good atreading body language, they also
had the artificial pressure ofbeing youngest of the staff.
And so if you send aveterinarian to go take a blood
sample on that whale, if shedidn't want to give you her tail
for a blood sample, our policywas that you said okay, we won't

(31:24):
make you, that's okay.
But I think, as a young trainer, you're kind of going oh, my
goodness, the vet's right here.
Everybody will think I'm a badtrainer if I can't get the blood
sample.
So if she would give a signalthat she didn't want to do the
blood sample, I think whathappened is the young trainers
sort of, even though it wasagainst our policy, would ask
again and kind of insist on itand be a little bit more

(31:45):
forceful in the way they wouldask for it.
And so we ended up, over aperiod of several years, she
ended up becoming thisproblematic whale who would not
do medical behaviors.
She wouldn't cooperate formedical behaviors and she would
throw a little fit.
If you asked her for a medicalbehavior especially the younger
staff she would swim off andhuff and puff and then not come

(32:08):
back for two or three minutes.
But what was interesting isthat there were three of us on
staff, myself included, who, ifwe came out to do a blood sample
, she would give us her tail andgo sure, here you go.
And there was no resistance atall.
And so we began becoming awareof the fact that part of it had
to do with our relationship, butpart of it, as I realized what

(32:32):
was happening was for theexperienced staff.
She had a way to say no.
We could tell, based on herbehavior, that she was hesitant
or reluctant.
So we would change our plan.
We wouldn't even think of it assaying no.
We would say that there's ahesitancy for you to want to
give me your tail, let me takeyou to another location, let's

(32:52):
go somewhere else.
And so we could always put herin a position that made her
comfortable to do the behaviorsthat we were looking for, and we
never really thought of it asher saying no.
She just simply we could tellthat she didn't feel comfortable
here.
So we won't push the behaviorhere, we'll do it in a different
way.
Younger staff didn't have that,and so once we got to this

(33:15):
point where she was being soresistant to doing these
behaviors for these youngertrainers, I said you know what?
I don't think you're readingher body language very well.
We need to make it easy for herto say no.
And so we put a big red buoyright next to her bucket and she

(33:36):
was taught that she could touchthe red buoy anytime she wanted
.
And if she touched the red buoyshe would get a fish, no matter
what.
If we gave a cue and she didn'twant to do the cue she touched
the red buoy, she would get afish, no matter what.
If we gave a cue and she didn'twant to do the cue, she could
touch the buoy.
If she just wanted to touch thebuoy for fun, there was no bad
consequences for touching thebuoy.
In fact, touching the buoywould always receive

(33:58):
reinforcement.
At the time we didn't call itteaching her to say no.
We thought of it as analternative way to receive
reinforcement.
But what it meant was that ifthere's any cue that we give you
that you don't want to do, allyou have to do.
And the buoy was like rightnext to her head.
So all she had to do was moveher head two inches to the left,

(34:20):
touch the buoy.
We would blow our whistle andfeed her fish.
I remember when we started thisproject we had a lot of
experienced trainers who wouldsay well, if you do this, isn't
she just going to learn that allshe'll ever want to do is touch
the buoy?
And I said I don't believe so.
I think she enjoys training andworking with us and as long as

(34:43):
we make training fun, she'sgoing to want to participate.
She's only going to touch thebuoy.
That could be a very boringthing to do.
She's only going to touch thebuoy if there's really it's
something she doesn't want to do.
And so, as we taught this cueand I do several presentations
that I teach people about how wetaught this but over the period
of time, what ended uphappening is it got to the point

(35:05):
for young people.
She used to refuse a lot ofmedical behaviors and things
like that.
She got down to where herrefusal rate was under 2%, and
it was after we implemented thisproject and it was because, I
think, she had a way to say no.
But when we were first trainingit, you could tell that this was
this foreign concept.

(35:25):
You know, in the past she hadto wait for a cue to touch a
buoy, but now I can just touchthe buoy anytime I want.
And with some of the youngertrainers that she didn't have a
good relationship with, shewould literally touch the buoy,
get reinforced.
Touch the buoy, get reinforced.
She would touch the buoy 100times in a row, not do anything
else.
And our experienced staff thatwere skeptical of this idea said

(35:48):
see, I told you and I said justgive it some time, watch what
happens.
And sure enough, after a whileshe got tired of touching the
buoy.
But she would touch the buoy ifyou asked her for a difficult
behavior, if it was a medicalbehavior, if she wasn't feeling
well and, most notably, if shewent out and did a behavior that

(36:09):
didn't meet criteria and youdidn't click your clicker, you
didn't blow your whistle, shewould come right back and touch
the buoy because the buoy had tobe.
Our rule was it had to bereinforced.
And so in my mind she learnedthat it meant no, but she also
learned it meant you have toreinforce this.
And it ended up happening thatas time went on, she would only

(36:30):
touch the buoy when maybe it wasa behavior that she didn't
understand, a behavior that wasdifficult or a behavior that had
some discomfort, like a medicalbehavior tied to it.
And so we ended up after thefact calling it the no project
that we had taught this whalehow to say no.
And I don't know if sheunderstood it as a no.

(36:52):
She certainly understood it, asI can get reinforced in a
different way and I'll touchthis buoy and I'll get
reinforced, and it keeps me fromhaving to do this behavior I
don't want to do.
But you can't get into theanimal's mind.
But what we did is the dataended up showing us that her
refusal rate for behaviors wentway down and she became much,

(37:14):
much more reliable because wehad given her this option.
You have this option to earnreinforcement other than the
cued behavior.
You can do the cued behavior oryou can touch the buoy.
You'll get reinforced eitherway.

Ken, I will say that I am definitely
somebody that was very confusedby this concept when I first
started learning it.
Because, as trainers, when youthink about when you first start
training, you think about theerrors you make.
So we're teaching a dog tostation or set, stay or
something like that, the dogbreaks the stay and oh, now we
did something wrong as a trainer, we made an error in our

(37:47):
training plan, and so you don'tthink about, okay, we should
give this dog the opportunity tohave that choice, especially
when it comes to something likehusbandry or handling type of
care, where the dog has theoption to opt out, which then
you know.
You don't think about that,though when you're starting out,
you're like, oh no, they brokethe stain, now we're not going
to be able to trim the nail or,you know, clean their ear, and

(38:12):
where I finally figured it out,I'm like, yes, we actually want
to do that to reduce thefrustration, to give the learner
that choice and control, so wedon't see aggression issues pop
up later on.

And I think the way that we came up with this idea
of touching the buoy was as wewatched the whale who did
perfectly for me and for two ofthe other trainers on our staff.
We said why is she doing better?
And of course, the firstreaction is she likes you better
, you're her favorite whale.
Well, maybe that's true, butwhy?
There's got to be a reason thatshe's willing to do these

(38:42):
difficult behaviors for us.
And as we watched video andwatched the training, we
realized you know what it is iswhen she's feeling a little
hesitant and doesn't want toperform.
We see that, we recognize thatand we change our plan.
We do it a little different way.
We move to another location, webring up something, a different
prop, we get a differentveterinarian or person who's

(39:03):
playing the veterinarian to comeup and we adapt to what we saw.
And what we saw was that theyounger trainers weren't doing
that.
They were just being very no,you have to give me your tail.
And we realized that we knewhow.
So when people ask me because ofthis procedure, do I think
everybody should train a nobehavior, my answer is no, I

(39:29):
don't think it's necessary.
I think if you have a reallyexperienced staff person who
knows how to read the animal'sbody language.
You're already allowing youranimal to say no.
They're just saying no indifferent ways and you're
adapting to it and moving on,and so I don't think it's
necessary.
Where it becomes helpful iswhen you have young staff or
people who don't know how toread body language.
That gives you an avenue to go.

(39:50):
But I also suggest to peoplepeople often ask me all the time
about wanting to train it and Ialways tell people to be
cautious, because one of thefirst times that someone decided
to go train it without mytutelage, they just saw me do a
presentation.
They went back and they cameback to me and said you know, I
saw your presentation.
I thought this makes so muchsense and I taught it to my

(40:11):
horse.
And she says she came back andsaid all my horse will do is
touch the buoy all the time.
I can't get my horse to doanything else.
And so I started askingquestions.
I said do you remember I put awarning in that presentation
saying I wouldn't suggest thateverybody try this?
And I said I am willing to betthat, although I know you're a

(40:31):
very positive person that I betthere's a lot of aversives in
your horse's life, and she saidI don't think so.
But as we talked about it, Istarted pointing out well, the
horse probably perceives that asan aversive.
Is that as an aversive?
And so what's happening isyou're giving your animal choice
.
That's great, but what it'sshowing you is that most of the

(40:53):
other choices to performbehaviors that you want are
stuff that the horse feels isaversive, that they're not
enjoying that activity, and sofor them, they're perfectly
happy to touch the buoy and geta treat every single time,
because you didn't make the restof the things that they were
doing enjoyable to begin with,and so that was the problem.

That brings us to another good topic to talk
about is when aversives andpositive reinforcers are mixed
into a training plan.
But I want to take a shortbreak to hear a word from our
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(41:40):
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All right, we're back here withKen Ramirez and we've been
talking about a lot of differentspecies, a lot of different
training, and we were justtalking about a beluga whale.
That Project no, I guess we'llcall it was taught to make other

(44:15):
choices in certain scenarios.
But you know, we often hearthis argument that we really
can't get 100% reliability, andeven that's a debatable term,
right.
So 100% reliability of abehavior, or I'm putting up air
quotes proofing a behaviorwithout the use of reversives we
hear that argument quite often,so I'd love to get your take on
that.
Maybe you can even weave intotalking about some of the work

(44:37):
you do with predation or snakeavoidance, training and things
like that where reliabilityreally does matter.
Yes, absolutely.

I think it's a common belief.
I run into it all the time.
I do a lot of work withprofessional working dogs and
for a lot of organizations thatreally want to move to the use
of positive reinforcement, theystill hold on to the fact that
to maintain discipline, to keeptheir animals on task, that to

(45:05):
maintain discipline to keeptheir animals on task, to not
get their animals distracted byvarious distractions in life,
that those are places that theyhave to maintain the ability to
apply an aversive, to punish, tocorrect the unwanted behavior
of going off and chasing asquirrel or getting off task.
And I certainly understand thatdesire getting off task and I

(45:27):
certainly understand that desire.
You know, when you have a guidedog who is being guiding a
blind person, you do not wantthat animal to think that they
can just go chase a squirrel andpull the blind handler behind
them.
You need that dog to bereliable.
And what I will say is that forsome of the guide dog
organizations who transitionedto positive reinforcement, what
they did is they divided up allthe different tasks that they

(45:49):
had to do with their dogs andwere able to train most of them
using positive reinforcement,and they reserved these
correction situations for theone time that they would use
aversive tools until theyfigured out how to go about
doing it with good reliability,and the best way that I can

(46:09):
describe it is thinking about meas a human learner and my
desire to work.
If you have ever managedemployees or have ever had a job
yourself, you're always hopingthat your employees will perform
100% all the time, but thereare days that we get sick, there

(46:32):
are days that we can't work,there are days that we make
mistakes, and I look at variousbosses I have had in my career,
notable, highly aversive bosses,who their first reaction was to
yell, to criticize, to demeanyou, to tell you you were an

(46:54):
idiot, to tell you you were afool, to tell you that you
didn't know how to do your job,and I worked well under that
condition.
So I grew up with a mom who wasreally strict, so I understood
that kind of working environment, and I just accepted it as the
way that it was, and if you madea mistake, you're going to get
in trouble, and you're going toget punished, and you're going
to get criticized, and et cetera.
And I also, though and one ofmy favorite bosses was a boss

(47:21):
that I had, who I worked withfor over 20 years, who was a
very positive boss.
I remember the very firstChristmas that I worked with him
.
I was one of his direct reports.
He gave everybody on his team abook and it was called the
Power of yes.
And I thought to myself I'mgoing to like this guy because

(47:43):
he was very, very positive, hebelieved in his team and he
listened to his team and in my20 years of watching him lead
our organization as anexceptional leader and see us
achieve amazing things, I onlyrecall him being angry with

(48:04):
someone once.
One time in 20 years I saw himget angry and boy, did it make
an impression.
It did.
This is a guy who you never sawangry or never get upset.
But then I thought why is itthat his team and I was a member
of his team performed at suchan exceptionally high rate?

(48:25):
And I thought about well, I'llask myself.
I'll say why do I work so hardfor this guy?
And it isn't because I wasafraid of making a mistake,
because he'd never criticized,he'd never punished me.
Yet I realized that I workedhard for those other people
because I knew that if I didn't,I'd have my hand slapped, I'd
be called an idiot, I'd beridiculed and cajoled and made

(48:49):
to feel foolish.
It got to the point that Iactually had no fear of being
fired.
While he had the right to fireme, it never occurred to me that
I might get fired.
It never occurred to me that Imight get in trouble.
Then I thought, well then, whydo I work so hard?
And I thought, well, I workhard one because I'm paid.
But I always got paid in allthose other jobs.

(49:11):
What else was different?
I thought, well, I believe inthe mission of our organization.
I like my boss, I like mycoworkers, I like the animals.
And before I was done, I hadthis list of 20 or 30 things
that were all positivelyreinforcing things.
And when every single thing inyour world is approached

(49:31):
positively, you end up wantingto do a good job, you end up
working harder, you end upputting in extra hours, you end
up going above and beyond, andnever once was a punisher put in
there or used, because thepositive reinforcement was
coming at you from so manydirections that you wanted to do

(49:52):
the job well.
And that's an analogy that Ifelt like almost everybody can
understand.
Now some people may not be ableto understand because they may
never ever had a positive boss,but hopefully there are positive
bosses out there and you findthat there are still people
working hard and doing well.
But it's because thereinforcement is so palpable and

(50:12):
so good that it causes you toreally work hard.
And that actual analogy reallyhelped me in a lot of the work
that I've done in lawenforcement and when I've worked
with law enforcement.
Law enforcement has done a greatjob at trying to move the
needle to using positivereinforcement effectively and

(50:33):
more often, but they stillunderstandably felt the need to
maintain some aversive tools tomaintain certain amount of
control.
You know you have a dog, apotentially dangerous dog, in a
crowded situation.
You want to make sure that thatdog is not going to get out of
control, and so they stillcontinue to want to use some
aversive tools.
But one of the reasons that Iwas brought in is I wasn't there

(50:56):
to teach them how to bettertrain the tasks they needed.
They knew how to train thosetasks.
Well, I was brought in to sayshow us how we can switch to
positive reinforcement whenwe're dealing with distractions,
and so that became one of thebig things and that's you
mentioned snake avoidancetraining.
I do a lot of snake avoidancetraining and where people fall

(51:17):
short is when they're dealingwith a squirrel running by or
something and the argument isthere is nothing in this world
more reinforcing to my dog thanthat squirrel.
And I end up showing them thatthere can be.
And it isn't that you arereplacing the power of the

(51:37):
squirrel, you're making thepower of the reinforcement so
strong and so palpable thatthey'll worry about the squirrel
later.
It's not that there weren'tlots of temptations when I
worked with a positivereinforcement boss that might
cause me to oh, I'm going toskip work today because the
football game is on during aworkday and I want to go to see

(51:58):
the football game.
I'm going to skip work to go dothat to see the game another
time.
But the reality was that therewas so much reinforcement and so
many things happening withinthe workplace that that took
priority in my mind.
And you help a dog learn that,as much as you'd like to bark
and chase after that snake, youwant to teach them that.

(52:20):
No, you want to stay payingattention to what I've taught
you to do and I'll give you theopportunity to chase things at
other times I'll give you theopportunity to do those chasing
games and those opportunities tohave fun playing in the forest
at other times, but when yousmell a snake or see a snake,
your job is to run fast theother direction and come back to

(52:42):
me where I can keep you safe.
And what we really did was weworked with the use of those
positive reinforcement tools,but what we did was the.
We worked with the use of thosepositive reinforcement tools,
but what we did was the mistakethat I think a lot of people
make when dealing withdistractions is they put too
high a level of a distraction infront of the dog too quickly
and it hasn't learned to ignorea distraction.
So what I do is I start withvery, very low level

(53:04):
distractions and let the doglearn that distractions are
irrelevant.
I should pay attention to mytrainer because my trainer will
keep me safe.
My trainer has the bestreinforcers, my trainer knows
what's going on and we build upthose distractions to a point
that after a while, they learnto shut them out and focus on
the task at hand, and theybecome very, very good at it.

(53:28):
And focus on the task at handand they become very, very good
at it and we don't end up havingto apply a punisher or an
aversive tool at all if you takethe time to train it the right
way.
But I totally get it.
When I come in to work with lawenforcement or work with anybody
who's always used aversivetools, my first goal is not to
criticize or chastise them atall.

(53:48):
I would say I totally get it.
I understand exactly why you'reusing these tools, and let me
just see if I can show you atechnique that will replace
those tools with something elseand keep using those tools as
long as you need to, until youfind that these new techniques
that I'm showing you win overand you don't need to use them,
that these new techniques thatI'm showing you win over and you

(54:10):
don't need to use them.
And so, rather than ban thosetools, what I will do is let me
just keep showing you and if youfeel you need to use the tool,
you use it, and what you'll findis, as their dog becomes more
and more and more reliable,they're finding themselves using
those tools less and less andless until eventually they reach
a point where they go.
I haven't used that aversivetool in a whole week.

(54:32):
I haven't used it in a wholemonth and they still sometimes
have the tool at hand becauseit's kind of what they know.
But they realize that asthey've learned to use their
positive reinforcement moreeffectively, they have been
successful in real-worldenvironments at keeping their
dogs focused, and the tool, theaversive tools, have just become

(54:54):
less and less necessary untileventually they've been able to
fade them out.

That's such a great analogy to the one you're
talking about your boss andyour work experience, because
there's so many takeaways fromthat, if you're reading in
between the lines as well.
So, of course, your boss isgoing to have control of the
environment, much more so thananybody else.
So they're setting the stage,just like we are as trainers,
for the learner, but you alsohave the relationship, the
history, reinforcement.
It's just.

(55:19):
There's so many takeaways.
I really love that and it alsoreveals everything you've been
talking about.
Reveals such an important skillwe can have is the critical
thought process we put behindour training plans and really
thinking through problem solvingand thinking these things
through, because if anybody'sgoing to be like telling you you
know, no, you need aversives toget this behavior, you're the

(55:41):
guy that's like.
You know here, hold my beer,let me show you how it's done
because of that critical thoughtprocess, you know.
It brings me to another case youhad talked about.
It was a few years back.
I remember seeing you at aconference You're talking about.
Since we are an aggressionpodcast, we'll dive into that
case, but a history of dog-dogaggression or a pretty severe
case from what I recall, and thecritical thought process in

(56:02):
sense of we might have differentexpectations depending on who
wants certain outcomes for thedogs, and you've navigated.
We might have differentexpectations depending on who
wants certain outcomes for thedogs, right, and you've
navigated those conversationsbeautifully.

You've indicated that throughout this episode,
but tell us more about that caseand sort of what the outcome
was there, sure, so that was afascinating case and it was one
of those cases that I neverwould have expected to be
dealing with such a severeaggression situation dealing
with such a severe aggressionsituation.
But when I was at the aquariumI frequently through 30 years of

(56:35):
being there I often used petdogs as vehicles to help teach
lessons.
One, because so many of ourpublic had dogs.
Secondly, so many of theanimals that we had at the
aquarium were rescues.
We rescued our sea lions, werescued our otters.
And secondly, so many of theanimals that we had at the
aquarium were rescues.
We rescued our sea lions, werescued our otters.
Our animals were all rescueanimals that we were taking care

(56:56):
of and providing a home for.
And so we often used dogs as agreat example that we would
rescue dogs from our localshelters and we would show them
that these dogs that had beengiven away and thought of as
untrainable were highlytrainable and were really,
really good.
And so it helped us make abetter connection to training.
It helped us make a betterconnection to rescues.

(57:17):
And so over the years I hadfour different times when we
brought dogs to live at theaquarium.
We took care of them, we putthem in some kind of a
presentation or used them forcertain types of programming.
And word had gotten out into therescue community in Chicago
that we were getting ready toadopt a number of new dogs and

(57:41):
the head of Safe Humane Chicago,one of the organizations that
was working with some prettyaggressive dogs, was dealing
with a lot of political falloutfrom the fighting dog world.
Fighting dogs were beingrescued and there was a group of
people feeling that fightingdogs should all just be

(58:02):
euthanized Every single one ofthem doesn't matter what status
they are, just euthanize themall.
And on the other end of thespectrum were a lot of people
saying no, no dog should ever beeuthanized and these dogs can
be rehabilitated.
And the head at the time ofSafe Humane Chicago had been one
of my previous students For 20years in the Chicago area at

(58:24):
Western Illinois University,which was not in Chicago, but
they had a satellite campus inChicago.
I taught a graduate course onanimal training and the head of
Safe Humane had taken my course,like 15 years earlier, and she
remembered a protocol that Itaught people about the way we
took highly charged andaggressive animals.

(58:47):
Whether it's a tiger or a lionor a bear doesn't matter.
You bring them into your zoo andyou need to teach them how to
get along.
You don't want them to come inand kill each other.
They're really aggressiveanimals.
How do you introduce them toeach other and keep them safe
and not allow them to hurt eachother?
And so there was anintroduction protocol that we

(59:10):
used, where we used a barrierthe fence and the gate, and
animals would be on oppositesides of a gate, and that in
itself can lead to certain kindsof barrier, frustration and
things of that nature.
But there's no way for theanimals to hurt each other
because they have this barrierbetween them, and I would take

(59:30):
the idea of teaching them to getalong.
You're on one side of thebarrier, I'm on the other side
of the barrier, our trainercomes in and feeds us.
Together.
We get used to seeing eachother.
We're given a tool like atarget, and we both end up
touching the target.
But we're on opposite sides ofa fence and we basically teach
the animals how to accept theother animal in our area.

(59:54):
There's a barrier there thatprevents us from lashing out.
We can still growl or bark orposture, vocalize, we can do
lots of things, but there'sprotection and as the animals
learn that the protection issolid and safe and that we are
asking them to do behaviorstogether, you begin to realize

(01:00:15):
that the animals learn thatreinforcement is contingent on
allowing the other animal to bepresent.
Reinforcement is contingent onthe other animal being right
there.
Now those animals might wishthey could bark and bite and
hurt each other, but after awhile they learn that they can't
and they just learn to focus ontheir trainer and focus on the
task at hand.

(01:00:35):
And then, once that's good, weteach them to do things together
, to do cooperative behaviorstogether, while still being
protected, until eventually wemix the animals together and
with a lot of precautions and alot of important safety
techniques in place.
Should it not work, we wouldintroduce the animals gradually

(01:00:58):
over time.
And they asked us if we would bewilling to participate in this
project and my original responsewas no.
I have my pick of any shelterdog in the chicagoland area and
you want me to take a fightingdog, a highly aggressive,
assertive dog, a highly reactivedog, and you want me to bring

(01:01:20):
them all together.
Why would I do that?
I don't need to do that, I andso, and when they asked me to do
it.
I said said why?
They said well, we want you touse this aggression treatment
protocol that you taught us inyour course.
And I said I don't teach anaggression treatment protocol in
the course.
And she goes yes, yes, you did,you taught us this.
And I said what protocol?
And she explained how I wouldintroduce animals on other sides

(01:01:42):
of the fence and teach them tobe together.
And I said oh, that's not anaggression treatment protocol,
that's an animal introductionprotocol.
And she goes well, what's thedifference?
They were aggressive animalsand they learned to live
together.
I said, yes, but we weren'tdirectly treating the aggression
, we were simply teaching theanimals that they needed to
learn to live together.

(01:02:03):
It doesn't mean they may notstill want to kill each other,
they've just learned not to andlearned to redirect their
behavior in another way, andthat that will earn them
reinforcement.
And she says yes, but theaggression went away.
And I said it went away, but itisn't cured, it isn't gone from
their repertoire.
They've just been taught areplacement behavior that when

(01:02:24):
in these conditions, this is theway we behave.
And I said I refuse to call itan aggression treatment protocol
because that's not what it is.
It just gets the aggressionunder control so that we can
introduce them to each other.
And this project ended up beinga really beneficial project for
the area, for the Chicagolandarea, because it helped the two

(01:02:46):
sides that were on oppositesides of what to do with
fighting dogs come together,because the people that wanted
all dogs to no dog to ever beeuthanized were able to say see,
they were able to teach thesedogs to live together.
But they were also able torecognize that it took us a long
time, it took a lot of effort,and maybe not every dog can we

(01:03:09):
put those kind of resources into, and so it caused the two sides
to start working together.
But it was a really greatexample of working with
aggressive dogs and using atechnique that helps teach them
how to get along.
And I remember five months intothe project our dogs could all
these dogs that would havekilled each other at the

(01:03:30):
beginning could be allowed toplay together.
But we had a really goodexample of one of the really
highly reactive dogs and thefighting dog who, when they
would be in a play sessiontogether where they would play
the highly aggressive dog, thefighting dog would lick his lips
and move away from the reactivedog dog.
The fighting dog would lick hislips and move away from the

(01:03:51):
reactive dog and the reactivedog had learned to play and
would come over to theaggressive dog and the dog would
show me all sorts of signs thathe was uncomfortable, would
move away and didn't want to bewith the dog, and I use that as
an example of see, this is a dogthat's not liking the situation
he's in.
He's just learned not to beaggressive.

(01:04:11):
But with one of the otheraggressive dogs that we had, she
learned really to like beingwith the other dogs and they
learned to live together.
But it just took time.
But we had managed theaggression, taught them how to
live together and managed tohave results where we ended up
introducing lots of other dogsand all of these dogs that were

(01:04:32):
originally all had been destinedto be euthanized and after our
study was over, we were theoriginal plan.
They, the plan from the SafeHumane was that we were going to
bring them back and they wouldbe euthanized.
They didn't need to beeuthanized.
They were rehomed and havelived.
Two of them are two of the dogs.
Three of the dogs that were apart of the program are still

(01:04:54):
alive and doing really, reallywell in various homes around the
country, and so we were able tosuccessfully get there through
an animal introduction protocolthat really focused on
redirecting their aggression,teaching them alternative
behaviors, teaching them how tobehave in those situations, but
keeping them safe, and it's areally short explanation of what

(01:05:18):
was a very complex three-yearproject.

Michael Shikashio (01:05:23):
And positive reinforcement-based.

Ken Ramirez (01:05:25):
Positive reinforcement-based entirely yes
.

Yes, there's an example of Ken saying hold my
beer.
Because again you hear thesearguments that you have to use
aversives in this kind of case.
Only the most dangerous dogsare going to respond to
aversives and all thesearguments that are now sort of a
moot point.
We hear about all these amazingstories, which kind of leads me

(01:05:48):
to let's wrap up with one morefun question.
And is there a species that youhaven't trained yet?
I know you've trained manydozens, if not hundreds.
Now Is there one you haven'ttrained that you would like to
work with?

You know that's it's a great question because
people often will ask me thatquestion.
And you know, prior to 2015, in2015, I did this really
remarkable butterfly trainingproject.
But I want to use that as anexample that prior to 2015, if
someone had said what's aspecies of animal you'd like to

(01:06:20):
work with that you've neverworked with before, it would
have never occurred to me to saybutterflies.
I would have never thoughtabout butterflies as an animal
that I would ever think of, orme to say butterflies.
I would have never thoughtabout butterflies as an animal
that I would ever think of or beinvolved with training.
But I ended up becominginvolved in this project and
ended up training thousands andthousands of butterflies to fly
on cue.
And it was a fascinatingproject that we did for a

(01:06:43):
botanical garden to help for abig gala performance, and the
garden's theme that year wassymbiosis and the way different
animals and plants live togetherand help each other out.
But we ended up training thebutterflies on three separate
queues, three different groupsof butterflies, to fly across
this huge soccer stadium on cue.

(01:07:05):
I would have never in mywildest dreams ever thought to
say butterflies, but yet it wasan animal that was presented to
me and what I appreciate is Ithink back on that project is I
remember when they asked me if Iwas interested in doing this
project, I said, sure I'd loveto do the project.
And after hanging up the phoneI remember going oh my God, crap

(01:07:31):
, crap, crap.
I don't know anything aboutbutterflies.
I don't know the first thingabout training them, but the
reality was I am confident in mytraining skills and I knew that
if the botanical garden wasgoing to supply me with a couple
of butterfly biologists, that Icould ask those biologists
everything I needed to knowabout what they eat and the way

(01:07:51):
they perceive the world and wecould figure out a way to train
them.
And we did.
But it leads me to the factthat I don't know what I would
like to train until I have it infront of me, because sometimes
it would have never occurred tome to say butterflies.
I think about a lot of theanimals that I've worked with,
and I've worked with a widerange.
I've trained spiders, I'vetrained snakes, I've trained a

(01:08:15):
variety of reptiles, manyspecies of birds, certainly lots
of mammals.
I even did an invertebrateproject with some jellyfish in
which we were training them torespond to light cues, and most
of the most unique ones, likebutterflies or jellyfish, or
which are actually better calledsea jellies, they are not the

(01:08:38):
types of animals that I wouldhave ever said what's an animal
you'd like to train someday?
It would never have occurred tome to suggest them until that
it was put in front of me andsaid hey, this would be a really
helpful project.
Do you think we could train it?
So I am constantly learningfrom every species that I work
with, anything that I've reallyfelt like I really want to train

(01:08:59):
.
I've usually had theopportunity to train, but the
reality is there's probably lotsand lots of species that are
still on the horizon that Imight get to train in the future
.
I just don't know what thosewill be.

Ken, this has been amazing and I'm sure the
listeners will agree.
What a fascinating episode.
Where can people find you?
What do you have going on forthis year's project?

Well, I am the chief training officer for Karen
Pryor Clicker Training and sowe have lots of projects going
on.
I have a.
I'm right now I'm here inWashington State where I have a
place called the Ranch.
It's part of the Karen PryorNational Training Center and
during the nice weather times ofthe year, from April through
October, I conduct courses hereat the Ranch.

(01:09:43):
If people go to the Karen PryorClicker Training website that's
clickertrainingcom, you canclick on the little bar that
says the ranch and it'll tellyou all about our courses and
the various opportunities tocome out here, spend a week with
us, learn about training andwork with our animals.
We have donkeys and alpacas andgoats that give people an

(01:10:07):
opportunity to work with avariety of species and hone
their training skills.
I also encourage people thatare interested in learning about
training.
Karen Pryor Clicker Training hasa wide variety of courses that
we offer.
If you go tokarenpryoracademycom, we have a
variety of on-demand courses andlive courses that we train and
then, of course, every year atthe beginning of the year, we

(01:10:28):
have Clicker Expo.
We usually have a couple ofClicker Expos, which are a big
training conference.
You, of course, are a speaker,have been a speaker at Clicker
Expo the last couple of years.
I know in 2025, we'll haveClicker Expo opportunities
coming up and they're just funopportunities to train.
And then, personally, I'm stillgoing to be doing my elephant
training project.
I have a couple otherconservation projects that I'm

(01:10:49):
working on, but people can'tusually find me there.
I'm in secret in the wilds ofZambia as we do this project,
but you can find me, as I said,at Karen Pryor Clicker Training
and find out about all thedifferent things that I'm doing
there.
You can follow me online onInstagram.
I don't post every day, butwhen I have interesting things

(01:11:12):
going on, I usually post a lotabout where I am and the cool
things that I'm doing, so Iencourage people to do that as
well.
Wonderful.

Ken, thank you so much.
I really appreciate you takingthe time and I hope to see you
again in the future.

Well, thank you so much, Mike.
I appreciate being here and Iappreciate all the great work
you do in helping people learnabout training and about the
challenge of working withaggressive dogs.

It was an absolute pleasure chatting with
Ken and I hope to catch up withhim soon on his travels.
I think there's just so much wecan learn from work with other
species and the knowledge andexperience of someone who has
devoted his life and career tohelping animals and their people
.
And don't forget to head onover to AggressiveDogcom for
more information about helpingdogs with aggression, From the

(01:11:55):
Aggression and Dogs MasterCourse to webinars from
world-renowned experts and evenan annual conference.
We have options for both petpros and pet owners to learn
more about aggression and dogs.
We also have the Help for Dogswith Aggression bonus episodes
that you can subscribe to.
These are solo shows where Iwalk you through how to work
with a variety of types ofaggression, such as resource

(01:12:16):
guarding, dog-to-dog aggression,territorial aggression,
fear-based aggression and much,much more.
You can find a link tosubscribe in the show notes or
by hitting the subscribe buttonif you're listening in on Apple
Podcasts.
Thanks for listening and, asalways, stay well, my friends.

Oh my God, crap, crap, crap.
I don't know anything aboutbutterflies.

Speaker 5 (01:12:53):
Hey there, this is John LaSalla.
I'm the guy who edits thispodcast, and Mike is such a
swell guy that he said it'd beokay if I popped in at the end
here to share something with you.
See, I've been working on thisfour-episode podcast series with
CPDT dog trainer andanthrozoologist Marika Bell,
called Animals of the MauiWildfires.

(01:13:13):
Remember the fires out inHawaii last summer?
This is what it's about, but itfocuses on all the dogs and
cats and pigs and other animalsimpacted by those fires,
particularly on the strugglethat Maui Humane Society had
rescuing and retrieving them inthe wake of the disaster.
So have a listen to this littletrailer we produced and check

(01:13:33):
out the series.
I believe the first episodeshould be out by now.

Speaker 6 (01:13:40):
And she's not paying attention.
But I'm paying attention and Isee the rearview mirror.

Speaker 7 (01:13:46):
I see the black clouds of smoke and it's coming
their direction.
In that moment, fear struck me.

Speaker 6 (01:13:55):
In August 2023, high winds and dry conditions set the
stage for disaster on theHawaiian island of Maui, and on
August 7th, a wildfire suddenlyerupted and swept through
Lahaina, on Maui's western shore.
You could feel the heat off ofthe metal or the rock walls or

(01:14:16):
the road, everything around you.
You know, I thought my trucktires were going to melt and I
was going to be stuck there andI was going to be on foot.
I'm Marika Bell, cpdt, dogtrainer, anthrozoologist and an
animal myself.
The Deal with Animals is apodcast about the connection and

(01:14:37):
interaction between humans andother animals.
However, this series is goingto be something more.

Speaker 7 (01:14:45):
Like I honestly still have a lot of survivor's guilt
and I have remorse for seeingsome of the things that I saw
out there that I didn't intendto see.

Speaker 4 (01:14:55):
I should have just left the door open.
I could have.
I should have done this, butdisasters are very complicated.

Speaker 6 (01:15:02):
Two months after the island changing wildfires, my
family and I visited Maui, so ofcourse, I reached out to Maui
Humane Society and asked if wecould talk.
This podcast series is a resultof that conversation, which led
to four other conversationswith staff of Maui Humane
Society.

Speaker 3 (01:15:20):
I felt it was my job to listen.
I felt that if I was going tobe the person that was going to
be communicating the needs ofthe organization, that I needed
to be the person that was goingto be communicating the needs of
the organization, that I neededto communicate the hardship
that people were feeling insideof that.

Speaker 6 (01:15:33):
After that first conversation I knew this was a
bigger story than I could tellin one hour.
It needed more context, itneeded more voices and it needed
to have a purpose.

Speaker 7 (01:15:45):
And even though we are an organization, like really
each department is just made upof one or two people, or five
people at the most, like servingour whole island.

Speaker 4 (01:15:52):
Serendipity, intuition, everything just came
into play where the more I wasinvolved the more I felt called
to stay.

Speaker 6 (01:16:07):
We're releasing this trailer two months before the
first anniversary of those samewildfires in Lahaina and
surrounding areas, and over thenext two months, the Deal with
Animals will be running afundraiser to benefit Maui
Humane Society and all the workthey do and have done for the
animal community of Hawaii.
Our goal is to raise $10,000 byAugust 8th, exactly one year
after the wildfires.
By August 8th, exactly one yearafter the wildfires, To donate

(01:16:28):
to this fundraiser.
We have a special link on ourhomepage that will take you
straight to Maui HumaneSociety's donation page, set up
just for this fundraiser.
So, yes, all of your money willbe going straight to MHS.
Follow the Deal with Animalsnow wherever you listen to
podcasts so you don't miss asingle episode.
Join me as we ask the questionwhat's the deal with the animals

(01:16:52):
of the Maui wildfires?

Speaker 7 (01:16:56):
The fire burnt so hot that it even melted asphalt and
we could see paw prints allover the place.

Speaker 6 (01:17:02):
These animals went through hell.
Subscribe and donate atthedealwithanimalscom.

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