Emma shares her clicker training history.
Karen Pryor Academy (KPA) faculty member Emma Parsons will lead the KPA Dog Trainer Professional (DTP) programs in Franklin, Massachusetts. We met with Emma and asked her to share about her career as a trainer!
Q: How did you get started with clicker training?
A: I became a clicker trainer when my golden retriever, Ben, became aggressive with other dogs after a traumatic correction by a traditional trainer. Instead of barking and lunging when he saw another dog, he started to scream, lunge, froth at the mouth, and bare his teeth. The side effects from the punishment-based training were far worse than the original behavior itself. Ben would react not only to dogs on leash, but to dogs on TV and to anything else that had an image of a dog.
Through a dog training conference, I met Karen Pryor. She taught me to click and feed Ben at his quietest moments, when he was taking a breath, for example. Gradually Ben's severe aggression was eliminated when he went from seeing another dog as a threat to seeing another dog as the opportunity to earn a click and treat. I have been a clicker trainer ever since, with reactivity/aggression my specialty.
Q: What has been the most rewarding part of your KPA experience?
A: I love working with students who not only have the interest in animal training, but who also care about what the process of communication is. There are many trainers out there who train animals, but when asked why they do what they do, they are unable to answer. They merely "copy" what they have been shown to do. They are not familiar with learning theory and how behavior works. Not so with our KPA graduates…!
KPA students are able to train their animals intelligently and efficiently. They understand how learning works and why the timing of the clicker is so important in teaching an animal a new behavior. These students respect the animal's mind and are able to set up a safe learning environment for both themselves and the animals that they work with.
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