Behavior and Training
Regardless of if you've just added a pet to your home, you've recently become interested in training, or you're having a specific behavior problem, these links below can guide you in the right direction. First, we recommend learning to assess the "temperament" of your species or specific pet using body language. Are they naturally more fearful, more confident, more curious, more food motivated, more dominant, etc? This will help you decide what your pet needs moving forward.
Second, if you are at this page to create, deter, or alter any sort of behavior (dog jumping, bird biting, cat hiding, rabbit chewing furniture), you must understand what Operant Conditioning is. This is a model that can be applied to every single species for almost every single behavior modification. It is the most important concept in training behaviors.
Second, if you are at this page to create, deter, or alter any sort of behavior (dog jumping, bird biting, cat hiding, rabbit chewing furniture), you must understand what Operant Conditioning is. This is a model that can be applied to every single species for almost every single behavior modification. It is the most important concept in training behaviors.
Dogs |
Cats |
Exotics
It is especially important to consider the husbandry of an exotic animal when focusing on training or behavior modification. If your pet is not having it's basic needs met, and every species has slightly different needs... then it's willingness to interact or to expend energy will be affected.
Operant conditioning is the most effective way to "train" or to modify the behavior of any animal. It is a communication tool for us to better interact with our pets. Training with operant conditioning can desensitize animals to veterinary procedures and necessary routine handling, can strengthen the human/animal connection with a shared experience and the building of a trust bond, can enrich the pet's life emotionally and cognitively, and can be a fun party trick to show your friends how your dog or cat high-fives. Below are some video examples of operant conditioning.