ABMA 2015
Special Presentations
Barbara Heidenreich,
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Conscientiously Creating and Evaluating Motivation Force free animal trainers pride themselves on empowering animal to participate, and providing desired con-sequences for this participation. This requires finding ways to make consequences desirable. Creating moti-vation can be as seemingly innocuous as withholding a preferred food item. However it can also go to the extreme of extended deprivation of food, enrichment, play, movement, social interactions, heat, cover, etc. to increase the value of access to these large items or experiences. Some methods for creating motivation lead to the question of whether the animal is seeking relief from a negative subjective state or anticipating a pleasant outcome for doing a behavior. This raises many questions about how motivation is created and what are best practices for the animal training industry. Are there optimal standard operating procedures trainers should use to create motivation? Is there a hierarchy of procedures to consider when creating moti-vation? How do we measure an animal’s interest in the potential reinforce, and how do we measure satia-tion? Are we considering the ethology of the species when creating motivation or area we asking the animal to conform to meet our needs beyond what is reasonable? Can reinforced behavior influence an animal’s demeanor in the presence of known reinforcers and is there a way to take that into consideration when measuring motivation? This paper will give structure, boundaries and recommendations on how to mindfully create and evaluate motivation in animal training in an effort to advance the industry and improve animal welfare.
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The Power of Relationship-Forming and Maintaining a Valuable Motivation Tool
Classical conditioning is the process by which something that previously had one value changes by repeated predicable association with something that has a different value. The relationship formed between the animal and the trainer (or the animal and the training system) is created through the process of classical condition-ing. The process of relationship development is a very complex one since it is not usually just the result of a single associative event, but the cumulative result of all of the meaningful associations between any two indi-viduals. The motivational value of the relationship as it is perceived by the animal is of great importance and potential value to the accomplished trainer since positive relationships can provide the marginally needed ex-tra motivation to accomplish especially difficult and challenging goals. A positive relationship can bend ‘no’ into ‘maybe’ and turn fear into acceptance. This talk will discuss in detail the process of classical conditioning and how the relationship is formed, as well as how to honestly evaluate every day choices of care and training to maximize this important motivational tool.
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