SeaWorld employee killed by orca

[donnieo]

SeaWorld employee killed by orca - The Globe and Mail

I saw this article today and it made me think alot about Positive Reinforcement and how +R trainers refer to the work that Orca and Dolphin trainers do with marker training as an example of the success of operant conditioning and how "all animals learn the same way". Yet stories like this aren't uncommon, as the article mentions. I wonder how the rate of overload behaviours of orcas and dolphins trained with OP compare to overload behaviours of dogs trained with OP.

I wonder if the trainers at Sea World and other aquariums around the world ever think about the predatory nature of the animals they're working with. Considering that their main food reward is buckets of smelt, I wonder if the trainers forgot that before they were in the aquarium, those dolphins and orcas were hunting the Pacific Ocean for whales and sharks. This reminds me of a quote from The Jungle Book, which Jenya Chernoff used in her NDT blog Bad Dog Lazlo: "They fed me behind bars from an iron pan till one night I felt that I was Bagheera, the Panther, and no man's plaything, and I broke the silly lock with one blow of my paw, and came away."

[Lee Charles Kelley]

Here's Kevin Behan's take on this tragedy.

LCK

[donnieo]

I've been following this pretty closely, and I really think that this is the only article written that speaks to the heart of the matter. By treating the hunting behaviours of the orca as "entertainment, what is really surprising is that this sort of thing doesn't happen more often.

[Lee Charles Kelley]

"SeaWorld Is Giving Their Star Performers a Raw Deal"

The discussion at Dogtime.com.

LCK

[minkysmom]

Hello, I am wandering in here to this forum from my old roost at Smilin Pit Bull Rescue (out of Buffalo, NY) I own a 3 1/2 year old pit-cross named Minky who went to Kevin Behan's seminar 2 years back... and it was great. We are both so enjoying the ride. I worked with the SPBR rescue a bit, until the Ayatollahs of Clicker Training took over. And when they blew into town over at SPBR it was like Scorched Earth policy. Or the Taliban - hey! no kite flying, you frivilous heretics!! They seemed extraordinarily - and almost comically OBSESSED with Cesar Milan. When I started touting NDT on the SPBR forum I got swarmed and told I was doing it wrong! And that I was cruel and unusual - and unscientific. I tried to tell'em I had a BA in Cultural Anthropology from Yale, but i guess that wasn't good enough, lol. Maybe I should a told them I knew Jane Goodall?

These clicker folk are crack-a-lacking crazy. I can't imagine what sort of raging vibes they are sending to the rescue pit bulls. Holy batman and robin
Yeah, and then they talk about inhibit the BITE, and click, click, click, and marker words, and supress this and surpress that .... talk about creating the proverbial ticking time bomb!

I think Lee Charles Kelly and Neil are very brave to go over to Dogwise or Dogtown and try to talk with these people. Myself, I had to realize my limits. Also, I guess I'm tired of the hair-splitting debates. I think at the end of the day, these people way over intellectualize training and really don't even know how to be in the world themselves, let alone with a dog, a dolphin, a horse or another human being. Sad. (Speaking as an anthropologist, most scientifically, like Franz Boaz, of course)

[Alec]

Minky, you make me smile. I think I will enjoy reading your posts.

[rudy]

I have no dog training education -formal that is. My Rudy boy has taught me A Lot about dogs. Now Lou is teaching me even more. With that said, I don't know how anyone who has spent time observing dogs, especially dogs who bite "inappropriately" could ever think it was possible or healthy to teach No Biting!

It is glaringly obvious, and Lou even shouts it when he barks, that he NEEDS to BITE. When he is stressed, especially when I haven't been able to keep him from reaching overload, he has to bite. In that moment, he'll grab and bite anything he can get ahold of .

Anyone see the Serenity Now episode of Seinfeld: the characters under stress said to themselves "serenity now" supposedly as a way of self-calming. Really they were just stuffing the stress... in the end the punch line was "Serenity now... but Insanity Later". LOL THAT is what it would be like to try to teach Lou to never ever bite.

[minkysmom]

yes - click to calm.......... My Minky loves to play tug and WIN. Nice outlet. He is a calmer happier dog for it.

[BrownieNJoyce]

Originally Posted by rudy

....I don't know how anyone who has spent time observing dogs, especially dogs who bite "inappropriately" could ever think it was possible or healthy to teach No Biting!

Whoever owned my lab the first 6 years of his life obviously taught him not to bite on anything except food. He'll work on a marrow bone like there's no tomorrow, however, he doesn't bite (or attend to) any toys, not even a ball.

See my other posts about this before offering input since I've gotten lots of great input already about ways to encourage him to play and I'm gradually experimenting with the various suggestions. But primarily I'm trusting in the process of our practice of the pushing technique to help Brownie work through emotional blocks so that he'll feel more comfortable being a dog and doing the behaviors healthy dogs do which were apparently either discouraged or punished and resulted in him being an overly submissive dog.

Ya know what? I saw a dog food bowl at PetSmart that says "Submissive" on it like the way you might put the dog's name on the bowl or the words "Good Dog". But no, it says "Submissive". It's pretty telling that something like that sells.

My main point is that I have a dog that was dominated and taught to suppress natural urges to the point where he doesn't know how to play. Sad. However, I'm gonna keep on pushin' and we'll get there when we get there