Karen Pryor's Letter

The click means one thing only: "Bingo. You win."

It's like when you're waiting for a special call and you hear the phone ring. It's not the reward itself; it's just the clear-cut, simple message: "You got it."

Last month I went out to Seattle to get to know Karen Pryor Academy's first class made up of international students exclusively: one from Hong Kong, two from Taiwan, two from Israel, one from Finland. Terry Ryan's Legacy school was a wonderful location for this class. Her building is beautiful and well designed, and it's located on the spectacular Olympic Peninsula, just about a two-hour drive from Seattle. The school has the sea on one side, lush farms and gardens in the middle, sun all day, every day, and snow-capped mountains all around. By the time I had arrived, the students had completed their online lessons and at-home exercises, and were ready for an intensive hands-on program under teacher Terry Ryan.

I have been devoting a whole month to revising a key chapter in Reaching the Animal Mind, the chapter on neuroscience and clicker training. That means five hours a day of intense concentration at the computer, usually between 6:00 a.m. and noon.