This week we are hanging out with Chirag Patel who runs Domesticated Manners in London, UK. He consults on the ethical and science-based practice of behavior management and training for animals housed in domestic, zoo, and laboratory environments.
Chirag also conducts workshops for professionals internationally and was a behavior consultant on the BBC 1 television show Nightmare Pets SOS. His YouTube channel that has accumulated more than half a million hits and provides free resources for pet owners and professionals.
Giving animals choice in their training sounds like such a wonderful thing. But what exactly does that mean? And in real life, it doesn’t feel good when your dog makes a choice to opt out of a training session by ignoring you, sniffing the ground, leaving the ring, etc… That’s not very reinforcing. So how should we handle that while still maintaining our positive reinforcement framework?
This is one of the main topics that Chirag Patel and I discussed in our recent conversation. We covered:
- What is contrafreeloading?
- How does it apply to dog training?
- Can we use this phenomenon to our advantage for practical purposes?
- What are the ethical considerations we should keep in mind?
…..and more!
Links Mentioned:
- Domesticated Manners
- Chirag’s YouTube
- Chirag’s Facebook
- Chirag’s Instagram
- Pet Tutor Affiliate Link (tip: to get the discount mentioned in the podcast, follow this link and type in the discount code in all caps at checkout)
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