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A Coercion-free New Year

Thursday, December 30th, 2010

First I wish a Happy and Prosperous New Year to you and your family. 2010 is almost behind us and a whole new year stretches in front of us. Traditionally this is a time for reflection so I would like to return to a subject that keeps surfacing as I travel around speaking to groups of other bird enthusiasts and also presenting our Free-flight shows. How poorly people treat … people.

As many of you know behavior science presents us with a chest full of tools and leaves the individual to choose the right tool for the job. I have written in the past about making the right ethical choice from the array of tools available to us and encouraged you to follow the principle encapsulated by Dr Susan Friedman … “Most Positive, Least Intrusive.”

The good news is that the number of people writing about and applying this principle with their animals is growing daily. I read articles across the spectrum of animal training and although their authors may not be using Dr Susan’s phrase in their writings the theme is there for all to see. This is encouraging and reinforcing to see.

However, while human-animal relationships appear to be gaining ground in the application of this principle it appears that human-human relationships make little or no progress. It never ceases to surprise me to see one of my respected professional animal training colleagues apply this principle almost seamlessly with their animal collections and then moments later coerce a co-worker. Let us make 2011 the year we all apply the same coercion-free techniques to our animals and our friends, family, colleagues, and yes … the young woman at the checkout desk with 20 people in line!

Soar into 2011 and make your life a coercion free zone.

Sid.

Posted in Articles, Coercion, Dr Susan Friedman, Ethics | No Comments »

The Misuse of Weight Management

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

I have written about Food and Weight Management before; they are valuable techniques when used correctly, carefully, and appropriately. In general, Weight Management is not something that a companion parrot owner even needs to consider. By careful management of the required daily diet of one’s birds an owner can usually achieve their training goals. So it was with great disappointment that I came across a blog article recently entitled “Are Pet Shop Birds Trainable?” It is a great example of what not to do.

The subject of the training was a Budgie or Parakeet. The concept of using Weight Management on such a tiny bird is just plain scary. What was even scarier was the extent to which this bird must have been deprived of food in order to achieve the writer’s goal. The writer noted that the bird had a “super stuffed full weight” of some 42grams. I have to assume that this weight was when the bird had free access to food with no rationing. There was also an “average” weight, I have no idea what that means since the weights and the number of samples were not published. However there were two more weights given; the first was the “training weight” and the second was a “too highly motivated” weight. Just the expression of a “training weight” shows how completely the writer misunderstands the proper use of weight management. If you refer back to my previous articles (links below) you will understand that there is no single training weight.

However that is not my biggest issue with this article. Let us examine the percentage weight reduction used to motivate this tiny bird (42 grams is about 1.4 ounces). If we consider the so-called training weight of 27grams we find that this represents a 35% drop in weight! Plus, the writer says that they learned the “proper” weight in a week. Can you imagine the extent of the food deprivation to reduce this bird’s weight by 35%? in a week The abuse does not end there because the writer notes a third weight, the “too highly motivated” weight; in this case the bird weighed 25grams, even less. As a percentage drop that is 40% below the highest weight reported, almost half its body weight in less than a week. Of course the bird was highly motivated … it was on the path to starvation. In my opinion this was clearly abuse of the bird.

These levels of weight reduction are simply not justified on so many grounds. The process described by the weights recorded by the writer of the article appears to take place over short time period, suggesting extreme food deprivation in order to motivate this bird.

Now who is the writer you may be asking? Well I am sure that you are all capable of using Google to track down the article, I do not propose to even mention their name I am so appalled that they did this and then had the complete lack of judgment to write about it as an achievement. I will note that the trail leads back to somewhere I think you will find enlightening, but perhaps not surprising.

I trust that everyone reading this will see the folly of what was described and tell everyone you know about the article.

See: Food and Weight Management and A follow Up

Sid.

Posted in Articles, Ethics, Food management, Sid Price, Weight management | No Comments »

Bird Tricks to Avoid

Friday, December 12th, 2008

In doing research online about bird training the visibility of several web sites seems to have rocketed over the last few weeks. Because I like to stay aware of who is doing, saying, and selling what into the companion bird community I often follow these links. What I found increasingly interesting was that many, in fact the majority, of search results led in one or two clicks to the same products, those sold by Bird Tricks. A company that promotes some of the poor training strategies that were the subject of my guest blog on the Best of Flock Parrot Blog last week. To be honest that wasn’t surprising to me, as I have said before I consider them company to be Internet marketing specialists and not bird trainers, so of course they should excel in their field of expertise. What did surprise me however was a more recent development in their marketing strategy.

As a part of my research on Bird Tricks marketing strategies I discovered that Womach Productions the owners of the Bird Tricks web site has in fact some 70+ Internet domain names (Internet locations) registered. This one fact alone explains in part how they have raised their Internet visibility. Now there is nothing wrong with this strategy; for anyone whose primary goal is a money making scheme using the Internet it is a great idea. The actual number of domain names registered to Womach Productions may well be even higher because as I researched various web sites I found a new trend, hiding access to the data records of who actually owns the site.

In the past this data has been openly available to anyone to access, one simply uses a free tool called “WhoIs”. Indeed if you go to Google and type “WhoIs AvianAmbassadors.com” you will find the full data record available. It is my philosophy that “transparency”, the openness that reveals who owns what, is the ethical way to do business. As I have written in the past, do not trust information from “ducklover488”, if they hide their true identity how can you trust what they say. Not only is our own domain name data openly and freely available but also those of you who receive email about this blog or our Safari newsletter will notice at the bottom of each email there is full contact information. This is a requirement of the mailing company we use (Vertical Response) and one of the reasons we chose to use them. Once again it is the ethical way of doing business as far as I am concerned. Now, I do not know for sure that the hidden domain name records are owned by Womach Productions, however I do know that clicking on almost any link on those anonymous sites leads to … Bird Tricks.

Now let me reveal the most disturbing and ethically questionable part of this whole development. Some of these web sites appear to be lists of links to valuable training resources and writings by some of the leading bird trainers and companion parrot advocates in the USA. Amongst them are Barbara Heidenreich, Steve Martin, Dr Susan Friedman, and many others including me. What is ironic is that my article critical of training stategies on the Best of Flock Parrot Blog was referenced! The articles themselves are not available on the web sites, nor are links back to the sources. However if you are searching for these valuable articles you will probably arrive at one of these valueless web sites, just a click away from … Bird Tricks! Now that really is a trick isn’t it?

From my perspective the use of my name, intellectual property, and reputation to drive traffic to these sites is completely unethical. I do not and will not support, recommend, or promote Bird Tricks or their products. In the past my approach has been to not mention them because that raises their Internet profile. However, from now on I will be actively mentioning them as I encourage each and every one of you to tell your friends to avoid Bird Tricks and their products. We can use the power of the Internet to protect the intellectual property of those professionals in the bird training world who are motivated to help you and your birds rather than line their own bank accounts using ethically questionable tactics.

This latest development once again highlights a subject that I have written about before, and that is separating the noise from the information on the Internet. Once again the golden rule of information validation is the one that should be applied … if the source of the claims made or the identity of the source is hidden then one should always question the information provided. Openness and transparency will always help in deciding what is worth pursuing and what is not.

Knowledge is power; so with your new knowledge of the strategies employed by Womach Productions and Bird Tricks you can decide for yourself if you wish to trust the valuable relationship between you and your birds to them and their products.

Finally, I encourage everyone to spread the word by sending a link to this blog to all of your friends and colleagues. Peer to peer, friend to friend, one link at a time we can keep the spotlight on these questionable tactics and hopefully reduce the reward that I am sure they get for their efforts. As people who understand the science of behavior we know that behaviors that are not reinforced will eventually go away … now wouldn’t that be an ironic turn of events, the science they obfuscate and ignore being their downfall!

Sid.

Posted in Articles, Dr Susan Friedman, Ethics, GoodBird Magazine, Sid Price, Steve Martin, Training | No Comments »

Finding gems in the sea of information

Saturday, September 13th, 2008

Each day I receive email notifications of activity on the Internet that relate to birds and bird training. It is quite surprising how much information there is out there and how much more is being written every day. Now, you might think that this is a great thing that must be raising the bar in terms of the health and well-being of companion birds. However the truth is that as the volume of information grows so does the problem of separating the good information from the not-so-good.
In the scientific community there is a process called peer-review that is designed to filter the information; it allows new ideas and hypotheses to be reviewed and commented on by other experts in the field. Unfortunately there is no similar process filtering the flow of information onto the Internet. This means that anyone who wants can create an account at blogger.com and start posting their care and training ideas for anyone to read.
So, how can someone searching for help with their companion bird select the most accurate information from this sea of articles and videos? There a few simple rules that one can apply that may help.
First I suggest that you check the profile or biography of the person writing a blog. Many blogs are written anonymously, if the only name given is a nickname like “birdlover32” or “admin” I am immediately suspicious. If the writer is being secretive about who they are can we really trust what they are writing?
Second, is there any third-party support for what they are writing? Does the writer acknowledge where they found the information they are presenting? Sometimes there is unique information that a writer may have gained from their own personal experience, however, it is highly unlikely that anyone writing about bird care or training is presenting information that 100% original and of their own creation. Be especially suspicious if the blog is anonymous and there are no references to third party support for the statements made. Even when sources are quoted search for the quoted material and read that too, many times a writer will “cherry-pick” just what supports their information from a much larger article, one that contains the full story.
Third, look for a second or even a third writer who is presenting the same or similar ideas. Apply the first two rules above to those writers as well. If you find the information being presented in multiple articles by writers who tell you who they are and what their experience is, plus they references their information sources then you are now getting close to finding good information.
The golden rule is to always have a healthy distrust of anything you read on the Internet until you have done your own research or at least asked a trusted source for their opinion on the material.
The Internet is a valuable resource; these days rather than ordering piles of books on various subjects I find myself staring at a Google page more and more often. Using Google and doing research are skills that each of us needs to develop if we are to find the gems of information that are being published for “free.” I placed the word free in quotation marks because this information is not truly free; it requires each of us to invest a large amount of time finding the good information.
Sid.

Posted in Articles, Sid Price, Training | No Comments »

Clear and Accurate Communication … Training Tenet

Monday, July 21st, 2008

I received an email from someone who had just read an article written by one of the people for whom I have great respect, Karen Pryor. The reason the person wrote to the bird training blog was to ask if they were correct in their reading of the article; stating that it was confusing in its use of some very important Operant Conditioning (OC) terminology. The article is available online at http://www.clickertraining.com/node/1469.

The article sets out to answer the question:

“Can you teach everything without punishment? By punishment I mean “correction” which I translated to “punishment” in my question …”

When I read this article I have to admit that I was very disappointed in what I read. Here was an article from someone, as I said earlier, that I really respect. Karen Pryor has brought so much to not only pet owners but also to zookeepers around the world with her writings about training and in particular Clicker Training. Her book “Don’t Shoot the Dog” is in my opinion required reading for anyone who works with or owns animals. This article however is so misleading in its use and definition of what is a well defined OC and Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) term that it does nothing to educate the reader and gives a wrong answer the original question posed.

Let’s be clear here, if this article were not written by a well respected trainer it probably wouldn’t matter too much, it would be just another online writer misunderstanding and misstating the science.

Here is the scientific definition of “punishment”:

Stimuli that serve to reduce the likelihood that the behavior immediately preceding it will be repeated in the future.

Now let’s take a look at the definition from the article:

On the other hand, a punishment is something aversive that you do on purpose.

As you can see this is absolutely not what punishment is at all.

The article goes on to say:

But, a punishment does NOT have a predictable effect on the future.

Once again this is completely wrong. From our definition of punishment we know that it has a very well defined effect upon future behavior. Further more, if the stimulus, i.e. the so-called punishment, does not reduce the likelihood a behavior will be repeated then by definition it is not a punisher. Punishers or reinforcers only get to be called those things if they have the defined effect upon the behavior preceding them. Plus, their effect is always judged by the behavior of the subject.

So, why is this so important and why does it disappoint me so much? It comes down to one of the tenets of good training and that is good communication. One of the biggest problems experienced by folks that are new to training is the rather arcane words that are used to describe the process. Several of the well defined terms of OC and ABA come to the science with a long history and emotive meanings. “Punishment” is a prime example; because of its long use in a social rather than scientific context it brings many assumptions to the mind of the reader. It is therefore important that whenever a trainer describes a training process or a technique that they take extreme care to not only define these terms but use them exactly and accurately, in this way the trainer clearly communicates the process and understanding to whoever is reading the article. Consistent and accurate communication is not only required of trainer to subject, it also required of trainer to trainer, and trainer to student. With careless and incorrect use of terms in an article that purports to be a training article comes just more confusion. This was demonstrated by the person who wrote to me asking about this mentioning that the article had been promoted in a discussion group as a “very good” article that would clarify what aversives and punishment are. In fact it does quite the opposite.

In order to be a good educator one really needs to follow the tenet of clear and accurate communication. The science of OC and ABA are still in their “formative” years in the context of the greater public. It is the responsibility of those of us to work to raise public awareness of this science to serve it well by being diligent and careful when we write or speak about it. Using and defining its terminology in a careless and inaccurate way will only serve to further confuse our audience and will certainly not serve our goals of raising awareness and use of these powerful training techniques.

Read this archived article for an overview of the terminolgy, also Dr. Susan Friedman made a similar appeal for clear communication in her Goodbird magazine (Vol 2-1) article “Terminology Tumult: Coming to Terms with Terms”.

Sid.

Posted in Articles, GoodBird Magazine, Questions, Sid Price, Training | No Comments »