Reaching the Animal Mind: Clicker Training and What It Teaches Us about All Animals

When I was around 11 years old, I browsed the stacks in my local library for a book about dolphins. Among the books I took home that day was Karen Pryor's  Lads Before the Wind : Diary of a Dolphin Trainer , her account of her instant transition from the boss' wife to the head trainer: a few weeks before the grand opening of Sea Life Park in Hawaii, the original hired trainers were gone, and there were no new ones to be had. Pryor, the only person in the group with animal training experience (she'd had dogs and ponies) was given a thick binder of instructions, some porpoises, and a whistle, and an impossible deadline. Through persistence and trial and error, they pulled it off.At first her memoir frustrated the young perfectionist me, because I wanted to read about the atlantic bottlenoses I'd seen, not these strange pacific porpoises... but not only did I read it cover to cover, I checked it out again and again. That she told not only of successes but of failures was deeply informative. It made a profound impact on how I related to animals, even if I didn't exactly use what would later be called "clicker training" myself. When I found a copy in a used bookstore as an adult, I marveled at my good fortune, jumping up and down at my find, and I've been able to reread it many more times. I was surprised and pleased to discover that in fact it was still in print, and bought copies for friends. I have been recommending it to other horsemen for years as one of the best animal training books anywhere.When I found this new book, I could hardly wait to read it.The opening chapters of this latest work retell some of the same anecdotes from Sea Life Park, and at first I worried that this would just end up being a rework of that earlier memoir, perhaps with some new anecdotes blended in. To see Pryor's work making life better for zoo animals and their keepers is a true pleasure; indeed, I've seen this for myself in zoos without realizing that this was becoming an organized conventional wisdom for working with animals deriving from her work - training them to present a wing, to walk from one location to another, to follow a target, and perhaps most importantly, to communicate back with their keepers. The training gives both animals and keepers more control and more fun in their environment. How many people know you can train a fish to jump through a hoop, or that a fish will sulk if it doesn't get the reward it deserved?By the second half of the book, Pryor (who has many scientific papers to her credit) is relentlessly looking for the science. She knows that it works, and in a wide range of species. But why does it work? They do experiments comparing the use of the clicker to the use of a voice marker for training dogs, and to my surprise, the clicker is hugely more successful. (We humans do babble on.) She seeks answers from neuroscientists, finds dead end after dead end until finally she finds the group who knows exactly what is going on, and is surprised that everyone didn't know that a clicker event marker goes straight to the amygdalia - what I personally think of as the "lizard brain", where all our instinctive reactions are stored. The same instant and permanent learning that occurs that keeps you from putting your finger in the fire a second time is occurring with clicker training. A click is information, and all brains are wired to crave information.She finishes up with applications of the clicker technique - truly a new training technology - to humans. Human gymnasts can be told that handstands must be vertical, but when they're upside down, they don't know where vertical is at first. A clicker - with the term changed to audible tag - can be pressed exactly at the vertical point with more precision and in less time than the coach can say, "there!" And human brains, hearing a click rather than trying to do the sensory processing to follow the words, can take a snapshot of exactly what that felt like right then and repeat it. Tagging can be used to help highly tuned and motivated athletes by both breaking down a skill into very small pieces and by giving very precise nonverbal information. And, of course, this means it can have value in other situations, where people speak different languages or who have no language.In the appendix, there are a multitude of references, including pointers to online videos of some of the training incidents reported, and some simple shaping recipes to teach a cat to give a high-five, and a dog to touch a target. I appreciated how they were broken down into very small details, down to practicing your hand coordination beforehand to know that you can click the clicker when you mean to, and present food tidbits without fumbling.This is an outstanding work that is certain to become a classic. I'm looking forward to buying copies of this book for my friends, too.

I feel the need to stress, up front, that while this book would appear to be a book about training animals, it has fundamental applications for anyone wishing to change or shape behaviour.You may have heard of Karen Pryor because of her now famous book, Don't Shoot the Dog!: The New Art of Teaching and Training. It was purchased by many dog lovers who then discovered it wasn't necessarily about training dogs!Reaching The Animal MindKaren Pryor's book is based on BF Skinner's research with operant conditioning. The clicker is basically a metal tongue in a plastic housing that makes a click sound when pressed and is used to `mark' quite specifically the desired behaviour. There is hard scientific evidence to back up her work. Pryor, however, avoids the usual boring academic style of writing in favour of a lighthearted approach that makes it fun and humorous to read.Pryor began training dolphins at Sea Life Park in Hawaii in 1961. Remember that very little was known about dolphins in 1961. Her main qualification for getting the job was that she was married to the Director of the park.The other trainers were having only limited success with training the wild caught dolphins. This book follows Pryor's journey as she trains creatures as diverse as wolves, dolphins, horses, elephants, fish and dogs. She even trained a hermit crab to ring a bell.Have an open mindThis book should be read with an open mind and the many step-by-step examples make it easy to understand why clicker training can be used to train ANY animal (including the human animal). There are many short videos on her web site showing how clickers are used with animals and people to achieve amazingly quick and often stunning results.When used with humans, clicker training is renamed TAG training (Teaching with Acoustical Guidance). Although it's exactly the same, some objected to the term `clicker training' being used with people because it's become associated with animal training.Improve sports performanceGolfers, gymnasts and other sports people have all improved their performance with TAG training and children are able to TAG each other as peers. Autistic or disabled children have been taught ways to improve their behaviour. A group of fishermen were also trained to improve their performance despite language barriers. There's a description of how a group of young girls were taught to do a Fosbury Flop over a high jump in just 15 minutes of TAG training. You can watch the excellent video that goes with it on the Reaching the Animal Mind web site.The impact on the brainKaren proves that you can train any animal to do anything that it's physically and mentally capable of doing. The thing that I've found the most fun is exploring just how far those mental and physical capabilities extend.One of the most fascinating things about this book is that the `click' sound the clicker makes has a direct impact on the amygdala, the reptilian part of the brain. It registers the click as `new information' and all brains are wired to search out new information.Absolutely fascinating reading and recommended for those who have an interest in how people and animals learn and how behaviour can be shaped using only positive reinforcement.

A lot of interesting anecdotal stories of how clicker training has worked for all different species from humans to wolves to crabs. The main bit for me was the section at the end where Pryor tells you how to perform clicker training on your dog (or other pet). Still a little tricky in our household where there are two other older dogs who are less in need of training but interfere when trying to do clicker training with our naughty puppy. This book taught me to appreciate the potential value of clicker training and I hope to be able to put it to full use in due course.

Highly recommended read for anyone, especially those who live or work with animals, or children. As a dog trainer, I have amassed quite a collection of books on training & communication, and this is by far the best in my opinion. To date, this is the only book I've read that actually explains 'why' clicker training is so effective, and it has even inspired me to start training my cats!!

Having read Karen Pryor's other books - Don't Shoot the Dog and Clicker Training for Dogs, this book does go over similar ground from time to time. However, in conjuction with the linked website and video clips, it provides some thought provoking insights for anyone interested in why clicker training works and why animals (and people) can learn so well and so quickly and have so much fun into the bargain.

This is a great book with some interesting illustrations of how the writer and originator of 'clicker' training has used the method. For me, finally I understood the principle and that even if you get it wrong, you can correct your errors. A good book to give a clear understanding of how the principle works and applied not only to animals but also to other forms of training

I have recommended this book to a number of people having difficulties with their dogs. Clicker training (reward based training) is the best way to train a dog and is fun for both dog and owner. Karen Pryor is the queen of this method and writes clearly and helpfully making it easy to start using a clicker.