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Karen's Letters

The Power of Conditioned Stimuli: Bossed Around by My Teakettle

By Karen Pryor on 10/23/2013

Tea for two

Years ago Kay Laurence was visiting Boston and staying at my apartment. Kay and I both like a cup of tea in the morning. I boiled water in an old stainless steel Revere Ware kettle I inherited from my stepmother about a million years ago. Kay made me a present of an electric teakettle. The electric teakettle looked a lot like my old stainless steel teakettle and was the same size, but it had a built-in plastic base that plugged into the wall. It boiled much faster and was a whole lot easier to clean. I threw the ancient Revere Ware kettle away.

On My Mind: The Mean Boss

By Karen Pryor on 11/28/2012

Click the boss

One time at a conference I shared a breakfast table with a woman who was an executive in an oil company. Finding out what I do for a living, she expressed a firm belief in reinforcement, and told me the following story.

She had a mean boss. He was brutal: blaming, finding fault, belittling, angry. Everyone was alarmed to see him come into their office and glad to see him go, including the woman who was telling me the story.

On My Mind: Going to the Vet

By Karen Pryor on 10/16/2012

Better safe than sorry

Going to the vet—the topic came up on the Karen Pryor Academy (KPA) Alumni list recently. When do you know the dog or cat is sick enough to be taken to the vet?

Someone's puppy was throwing up quite a lot, and there was some kind of foreign material in the vomit. The puppy was playful and seemed normal in every way, but still. Then the owner remembered that the puppy had eaten part of a rubber slipper. The consensus from the list was to take the puppy to the vet.

On My Mind: A Dolphin Dream

By Karen Pryor on 09/18/2012

For some years now I've been following the work of Robin Baird, PhD, who with colleagues and students has been tracking, tagging, photographing, and counting whales and dolphins around Hawaii for decades. His group, the Cascadia Research Collective, has identified eighteen different species, many of them local residents, and hundreds of individuals. Wow! In my years as head trainer at Sea Life Park in Hawaii we had individuals of thirteen of those species in our tanks. What I wouldn't give to see these rare animals out in the ocean for myself.

On My Mind: Bird Talk

By Karen Pryor on 02/14/2012

Far, far away

It's cold. It's winter. It's boring.

Let's travel, at least in our minds. Let me introduce you to my long-time pen pal, Shanlung, probably one of the best bird clicker trainers on the planet.