Seal with a Kiss

I double dare you to watch this video with out letting an “awwww” or even a tiny tear escape. On so many levels I love this video. The first level, is the intent. Both participants appeared to want nothing other than to be in each others company. The other is the dynamics of the attraction-based communication. Individually, they were simply attracted into interacting with each other. No force, no tension just pure looking forward to what pleasant thing would happen next.

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Adorable Video

I dare you to watch this video without smiling. I’m not sure it can be done.

Cheryl

The Negatives of Negative Reinforcement

I stumbled upon a wonderful article written by Kellie Snider, editor of Animal Behavior Answers, and positive reinforcement dog trainer. In her two part article she discusses the unwanted teachings of negative reinforcement. She very clearly discusses and defines many issues surrounding the use of negative reinforcement as a teaching method, bringing to my mind a few similarities occurring in the horse world.

Pressure and the Click

I have an internal struggle. I’m seeing more and more articles about clicker training and horses, which is a good thing, right? Well, I’m not so sure. One article discussed how to train your horse to put its head down. It clearly demonstrated how to apply pressure to the poll and then once the horse lowers its head you click.

Herein lies my struggle. Why should the click be associated with pressure?