Saturday Abstracts

​Watch Videos 
​(Login required)​​ 

Guest Speaker

​

Anna Oblasser-Mirtl

​​

Quality Medical Connections: Ready, Set, Train…Your Dog!

Even though there has been an increase in positive reinforcement training in the dog training world, almost all medical and most husbandry procedures are still done without giving the dog a choice. Very often they are forced into stressful and painful situations, which compromises the dog’s welfare and can severely harm the individual human-dog relationship.
We created a program utilizing a variety of easy-to-train cooperative behaviors that give dogs choices and control in scenarios where previously they had none. Our book (published in 2016) and our DVD (2018) have served as guides for many dog owners and trainers who want to improve their pet's welfare. The live training demo includes training of cooperation signals as well as the presentation of up to 20 husbandry or medical procedures, covering everything from nail clipping to voluntary blood draws on stage.

Guest Speakers

​Nicki Boyd and Peter Giljam 

​​​San Diego Zoo and Zoospensefull

Emergency recall

Emergency recall is an important tool in any zoo's training toolbox. Zoospensefull and San Diego Zoo have trained this behavior with a variety of species. Being able to recall an animal quickly during an emergency situation is critical for the health and well-being of our animals and possibly guests that visit our facilities. In this course you will learn techniques for successful training and maintenance of this behavior. This joint presentation from two organizations half way around the world from each other will demonstrate that the behavior is universal for all zoo's or aquariums. Focusing on the safety of animals and guests can prevent a tragedy and allow better management of our populations while ensuring the public feels secure in our management abilities of rare and dangerous species. Whether you work with carnivores, apes, hoofstock, birds of prey or other taxa this presentation will advise you on how to successfully train and emergency recall and improve the overall welfare and safety at your facility.

Saturday Papers

​Benefits Of Seesaw-Training​

Nina Steigerwald
​

Full Abstract

The wide range of training options when using seesaws to get animals in good physiological state leads to more and more interest for this method. Our four-legged training partners learn to master instable surfaces and to use their body in a defined way. The benefits to reap: Coordination ability improves through training of proprioception and slow, concient movements. The whole musculature is strengthened, especially the muscles in the deeper layers. All fasciae are strechted and relaxed by doing what we call “wipp-wapps“ and the body awareness gets better and better. Of course there are some special features and drawbacks in training. The presentation is about how to apply the knowlegde of positive reinforcement training in order to get correct and useful movements. We will also point out their vary effects on the locomotor system of horses.

Show Me How You Train My Goat And I Will Tell You Who You Are
​

František Šusta
​
trainingisdialogue.com

Full Abstract

One of the events I offer dog trainers in the Czech Republic is a "Goat Camp" (inspired by the Chicken Camp). Dog trainers have an opportunity to practise R+ training procedures with "pre-trained" goats and then they train again with their own dogs. Each goat is pretrained different way, one does only freeshaping, another one targeting, next one only luring. By contrast to dogs the goats do react to every methodical error in training immediately and so their training gives the trainer a valuable feedback. This practice showed, that trainers often realise during the work that mistakes they have done with goats, are also the cause of their problems with the dogs. We all have our own personal belief system and limits hidden in our subconscious mind, that impacts our attitude to the training and life itself without us realising it. And these subconscious belief systems aren't easily altered. As each animal is an individual, so is each trainer. If we learn our subconsciouss personal framework and we are aware of it during the training session, each of us can get to the goal more easily. I will talk about different types of trainers with different personal setting and how this influences their training with goats as well as dogs.

Guest Speaker

Annette Pedersen 

​​​

What Does Science have to do with Animal Training?

In our daily training, especially in the Zoo animal community, we often use concepts and terms like “Choice & Control”, “Time-out”, “Positive Reinforcement Trainer”, “Variable Ratio Schedules of Reinforcement” and “Luring”. Most of these concepts and principles stem from the scientific fields of ethology, behaviourism and analysis of behavior and then applied into the work with our animals. Even so, the welfare outcome of these concepts, and the way they are applied varies from trainer to trainer, and so does even the way trainers are defining the concepts and the perception of the “truth”. In this presentation, I will try to find my way back to the science behind these concepts we use and determine, if we are actually applying them according to the science; if they do promote better welfare for our animals, or if they are connected to other factors that also needs to be considered, before we can call ourselves “positive reinforcement trainers”.

Space Utilisation And Social Proxmity Pre- & Post Enclosure move in 3.2 Diana Monkeys (Cercopithecus diana)

Heather Thompson

Twycross Zoo

Full Abstract

In zoological collections it is important to establish and maintain natural behaviours as this can influence many factors of animal management. Within zoological collections, internal transfers of individual animals between enclosures may occur and have the potential to impact animal behaviour and social structures, either negatively or positively. In 2019 Twycross Zoo’s Diana Monkey group were crate trained and transferred between enclosures within the zoo. ‘X’ hours of enclosure usage and social behaviour were observed pre- and post-enclosure transfer for all individuals using camera traps to investigate any differences in these variables. There were no significant differences in canopy level usage, enclosure area preference or proximity to another individual between the two enclosures for all individuals. Results showed that the adult male spent significantly more time alone than other members of the group in both enclosures (p<0.001), which is consistent with wild-type social structure. Social proximity and enclosure use observed across both enclosures suggested that group structure and wild-type behaviour was maintained from the old to new enclosure.

What The Smell?​

Amy Owens, Becky Duenow,

Donata Lorenzo, Rebekah Lane


Birmingham Zoo

Full Abstract

Traditionally verbal or visual cues have been used in training to prompt a specific behavior, however, these two senses are not always the strongest in a species. In the Birmingham Zoo’s Ambassador Department we house several different species that fall under this circumstance. After a young Virginia opossum in our department was diagnosed with hip dysplasia and was prescribed physical therapy, we had to be creative in order to generate a behavioral management plan that best accounted for the species’ visual deficit. In order to accomplish the physical therapy prescribed, the opossum would have to walk to a station and remain on that surface while Animal Care Professional (ACP) could have him control his hips to sit up and lower himself back to the ground. ACPs attempted visual and auditory cues for him with no avail. However, because of the acute sense of smell opossums possess, we created an olfactory cue for him. Using a spice (cumin) and water mixture between two trays, ACPs were able to successfully train him to station and hold. To ensure he was being cued by the cumin smell, several experiments with different scents were placed between trays- each time the opossum would station only to the tray with cumin. This cue was so successful that we have started training a stage routine with our three banded armadillo in a similar fashion using an olfactory cue to move to different areas of the stage.

How to Keep Behavior Modification FUNctional​​

Sandy McPadden


​
Sandy McPadden
​Animal Behavior Consulting

Full Abstract

The fields of animal training and applied behavior analysis have been growing parallel to each other for decades. Studies showing that behavior is predictable and directly related to environmental events were being published just as SeaWorld trainers began training their first Bottle Nose Dolphins over 50 years ago. While operant conditioning is readily welcomed in animal husbandry now, the rest of the field of Applied Behavior Analysis has been slower to trickle in. One of the greater advancements in ABA has been the development and use of the Functional Behavioral Assessment to identify the functions of behavior. The functional behavioral assessment is a systematic process for understanding problem behavior and what environmental factors play a role in its occurrence. Training a new behavior is fun, decreasing or eliminating an unwanted behavior is FUNctional. Let’s break down how to create a Functional Behavioral Assessment for an animal in your care.

Guest Speaker

Steve Martin 

​​Natural Encounters, Inc.​

The Art of Training Animals

An artistic animal trainer goes beyond the basics of positive reinforcement training to fine tune antecedents and consequences and promote a level of learning that transcends basic animal training practices. The “Art” of animal training can be described as the intuitive application of scientific principles which have developed through practical experience working with animals and the people who care for them. The focus of this presentation is to describe animal training from this perspective, and provide video and live training demonstration.