Mary Hunter: Building duration when teaching a behavior

Webinar with Mary Hunter, May 11. at 7 pm GMT+2

Using cues and chains to build long-duration behaviors

Most of the behaviors that we teach to our animals involve some amount of duration. That is, for the behavior to be practical, the animal must do the behavior for a certain length of time. For example, an owner may want her dog to be able to walk on a loose leash for multiple minutes or a zoo trainer may want a sea lion to open his mouth for a prolonged period of time for a dental exam. 

However, teaching duration behaviors can be difficult. When the trainer tries to increase the amount of duration, the animal may offer other behaviors. It can be challenging to get the animal to continue doing exactly the same behavior. 

In this class, we will explore one strategy for building duration that involves cues and behavior chains. We’ll start with a little bit of theory about reinforcement and cues. This will help you understand why building duration can be difficult and why using chains to build duration can help. Then, we’ll look at several examples using both PORTL and animal training that will illustrate how to use a chain of two behaviors to build a long-duration behavior. 

About Mary:
Mary Hunter earned an undergraduate degree in biology from the University of Chicago and a master's degree in behavior analysis from the University of North Texas. She teaches people and their pets, working mainly with dogs and horses. In addition, Mary serves as president of the Art and Science of Animal Training.

In 2019, Mary and Dr. Jesús Rosales-Ruiz published their first book, PORTL: The Portable Operant Research and Teaching Lab. Mary’s research interests include studying the process of shaping and finding better ways to teach people to train animals. She is a full member of the Association for Behavior Analysis International and has presented research at the organization’s annual convention. 

You can find Mary online on her personal blog, Stale Cheerios (http://stalecheerios.com), and at Behavior Explorer (https://behaviorexplorer.com).

Mary will talk about a technique that she uses for building duration when teaching a behavior (She will talk about how to do it and show video examples from both animal training and PORTL).

The webinar will be recorded so that you can access the recording if you are prevented from participating live.

(If you are a member of Hund i Fokus' member portal, access to the webinar is included in the membership. Log in information will be added to the Facebook group.)

The webinar lasts for approx. one hour, including questions.

Information about the Members portal for the English speaking. Informasjon om Medlemsportalen for Skandinaver.