Miniature horses are a special breed. According to horse owners, miniature horses are not descended from ponies, but developed from regular horses. Most of them are about the size of a large dog, and, like some large dogs, they make great guides for blind people.
Karen's Letters
Cues as Information
By Karen Pryor on 06/01/2006We think of cues as something you must deliberately attach to a behavior, with a reinforcer to follow. But you can also give cues that are purely information, not deliberately trained as antecedents to a particular response.
What Makes a Good Trainer? Sharing the Wealth
By Karen Pryor on 05/01/2006"The idea that lots of people, potentially everybody, can be involved in the process of innovation is utterly transforming. Two things make this possible, one obvious and one not. The obvious one is—say it with me—the Internet. The other one, the surprising one, is a curious phenomenon you could call intellectual altruism. It turns out that given the opportunity, people will donate their time and brainpower to make the world better."
Operant Conditioning and the Traditional Trainer
By Karen Pryor on 04/01/2006As traditional training filtered down to new generations of instructors, the conditioned punisher and the conditioned negative reinforcer seem to have vanished. Nowadays, in my observation, most people just wham the dog without warning, so the dog has to guess what, if anything, he was doing wrong.
Clicking Raptors in the Saguaro
By Karen Pryor on 03/01/2006We're standing on a gently sloping foothill with Tucson's jagged volcanic peaks behind us, looking across the vast, flat Avra valley far below. The hills beyond that valley are in Mexico. The desert sky is a brilliant, piercing blue, filling the eyes with light. The mild warmth of the winter sun is welcome. This is Saguaro National Park.
