Equiosity

This is Part 4 of a conversation with Lucy Butler of River Haven Animal Sanctuary, and Dr Stephanie Jones and her grad student, Sofia Abuin In Part 1 we talked about the common links between teaching people and working with animals. We talked about coercion, control, and most importantly about empathy. In part 2 Stephanie described a pilot study she and her colleagues set up at the River Haven Animal Sanctuary. Shaping can be incredibly challenging to teach well. Often people refer to the science and the art of training. What Stephanie and her colleague Michael Yencha wanted to investigate is what makes up the “art” part of training? Is there a way to tease this apart so it becomes less mystery and more approachable through science? In Part 3 Stephanie reminded us that the goal of this research project was to help new trainers shape well. That was the reason for the latency criterion. They were using it to judge when to shift criteria. They weren’t looking at any other aspects of shaping. They