Show Notes
In this episode of Precision Animal Training, Kirsten Kraljevic and Dr. Bob Bailey explore the rich history of animal training through the legacy of Keller and Marian Breland, two pioneering psychologists who worked alongside B.F. Skinner. Dr. Bob Bailey shares how the Brelands influenced his career, their revolutionary use of operant conditioning, and their role in training pigeons to guide bombs during WWII. The conversation highlights the Brelands' founding of Animal Behavior Enterprises, their pioneering animal shows, data-driven training methods, and the lasting impact of Skinner’s focus on observable, measurable behavior. Kirsten Kraljevic and Dr. Bob Bailey emphasize curiosity, innovation, and the universal application of behavioral principles across species, encouraging listeners to be both observers and innovators in their own right. Thanks so much for tuning in to Precision Animal Training! If you enjoyed hearing Kirsten Kraljevic and Dr. Bob Bailey share incredible stories and insights about animal training, make sure you follow and subscribe to the show so you never miss an episode. Want to dive deeper into precision animal training and learn more about Kirsten's legendary Chicken Workshops? Head over to kirstenschickenworkshops.com for workshop details, resources, and more ways to connect. Don’t miss the next episode: hit subscribe, and join us on the journey to becoming a better trainer, observer, and lifelong learner! 3 Key Takeaways
1. Training Principles are Universal: Dr. Bob Bailey emphasized that the core principles of training, rooted in operant conditioning, apply across species—from pigeons and dolphins to humans. Change the environment, and you can unlock new behaviors in almost any organism. 2. Data-Driven Pioneers: The work of Skinner, the Breelands, and Keller stood out because they collected detailed data and focused on observable, measurable change. Instead of theorizing about unseen motivations, they meticulously tracked progress and outcomes—an approach that’s highly relevant to today’s learning and development professionals. 3. Innovation Starts with Curiosity: Both Kirsten Kraljevic and Dr. Bob Bailey underscored the power of youthful curiosity and not boxing oneself in. The story of Skinner and his roommate brainstorming behavioral science in their dorm room is a reminder that big breakthroughs often come from asking "what if?" and challenging the status quo.
Quick Lessons From The Episode
Here are the wrap-up lessons that Kirsten wanted listeners to remember from this episode:
1. Youthful Curiosity Can Lead to Innovation Kirsten Kraljevic emphasized that pioneers like Skinner and the Breelands were young, curious, and willing to experiment—even if no one had done what they were doing before. She encourages young trainers not to box themselves in, but to stay curious and open to innovation. 2. The Power of Systematic Observation The importance of data collection and systematic observation was highlighted. Keeping records and measuring what can actually be observed (versus theorized) was foundational to Skinner’s approach, and is a key to scientific progress. 3. Principles over Theories Kirsten Kraljevic pointed out that the methods taught, especially through the chicken workshops, are about applying core principles—not just abstract theories—of behavior and learning. 4. Application Beyond Species The episode underscored that the principles of operant conditioning and behaviorism are not species-specific. With the right approach, these tools can teach very different organisms, from cephalopods to humans. 5. Measurement Matters Skinner’s insistence that if something can’t be observed and measured, it shouldn’t be speculated about, steered the field in a focused direction. Kirsten Kraljevic feels grateful for this scientific discipline, especially as technology continues to advance what we’re able to measure. 6. Resisting Misunderstandings The hosts discussed how Skinner was sometime
More from Precision Animal Training
Kirsten has a way of describing how modern dog training grew up, and it comes in three phases. First the scientific one, when the Brelands' and Baileys' work came through the chicken workshops and the field found out there was a science underneath it. Then the professional one, when it turned out that loving animals is not a business plan. And now the ethical one. Don Hanson has lived all three of them, and because he is a prolific writer, he wrote them down while they were happening. Thirty years of this field's history exists in his archive whether the field asked for it or not.
Mike Wood interviewed Shelley for a job in the Florida Keys on a glass bottom boat. They were both married to other people. Years later, both divorced, he hired her again to come to Mexico, and that is where it turned into a marriage. It is also where two trainers with one dolphin enclosure turned into close to thirty facilities in nine countries with more than two thousand employees.
Bob Bailey has been watching this field for sixty or seventy years, and I have been watching it with him, and his verdict is blunt. More dog businesses have failed on the business end than on the dog training end. Veronica Boutelle watched the same thing happen from the other side. She was Director of Behavior and Training at the San Francisco SPCA, where Jean Donaldson's Academy for Dog Trainers ran out of her department, and she would check in with graduates a year later and find them back in the careers they had tried to escape, or picking up part-time work to make rent. Not because they could not train. Because nobody had taught them how to run the thing. So she built it. Veronica and founding partner Gina Phairas launched dogbiz in late 2003 and are coming up on twenty-five years of teaching trainers the part that keeps the lights on. In this conversation Veronica tells Kirsten Kraljevic and Dr. Bob Bailey how the SF SPCA brought Chicken Camp to San Francisco by selling tickets to local trainers to cover it, how Bob flew out to headline her grand opening with a night of newly declassified government stories and the raven cameras, and how COVID turned a hastily built free six week program called Survive and Thrive into two thousand trainers from around the world and then into Thrive, the group coaching program still running today. She also says the thing most positive reinforcement trainers need to hear about their rates, and it is not comfortable. 3 Key Takeaways 1. You are running three businesses at once, whether you know it or not. Training animals is one skill set. Coaching the humans who live with the animal is a second, and if you do not change the person's behavior nothing you do with the dog sticks. Running the business is a third. Most trainers invest continuing education in the first one only.
After Marian Bailey died, Dr. Bob Bailey was ready to be done. He had promised her on her deathbed that he would keep teaching, and then he got discouraged enough to start looking at other things he could do with his time. Two women talked him out of it. Cheryl Trotter drove up from Houston and Carolyn Clark came down from Canada, and between them they told him they would help and they would not let him quit. Everything that came after, Sweden, Japan, China, and the workshops that built a generation of trainers, happened because those two would not let go of it.
Vicky Darnell did not want the puppy. The plan was to get herself trained up first and then bring another dog into the house, and that is not how it worked out. Tiz came home early. Three weeks later Vicky was sitting in her first Chicken Workshop. What she carried back to Chicagoland was not a chicken trick. It was timing, criteria, rate of reinforcement, and the nerve to stop a session that is going sideways instead of hoping it comes around. Tiz started trialing shortly after she turned six months old, the youngest age a dog can compete in UKC Nosework, and finished her Grand Champion at eleven months. Kirsten Kraljevic and Dr. Bob Bailey talk with Vicky about what actually transferred from the bird room to the trial floor. Vicky has run dog sporting events for thirteen years and has taken the discrimination class twice, and she still describes the workshop the way everyone does once they have been through it: you cannot comprehend it until you are standing there. Bob puts the principle plainly. You get what you reinforce, not what you want. Kirsten tells on Vicky for walking the hallway between the classroom and the bird room muttering seven seconds to herself, then watched her run that same clock at a nosework trial months later.