“Nancy taught two hens to help her sort flowers to make leis. She set them down by a basket of three colors of plastic flowers. One hen quickly pulled out all the red flowers, and another the white ones, leaving… — Karen Pryor Copy Share Image
“In due course I would learn how to cover up for this event, but on that awful day I knew of nothing to say but: 'Well, I guess they aren't going to do that either, heh, heh." FINALLY Hoku and Kiko stopped staring suspiciously through the glass long enough to go over the six bars, gracefully arcing in and out… — Karen Pryor Copy Share
“As he [Sir Malcolm Sargeant, conductor of the London Philharmonic] stood in waist deep in the shallows of Whaler's Cove, the littler spinners came drifting over, sleek and dainty, gazing at him curiously with their soft dark eyes. Malcolm was a tactful, graceful man in his movements, and so the spinners were not afraid of him. In moments, he had… — Karen Pryor Copy Share
“One reason punishment doesn't usually work is that it does not coincide with the undesirable behavior; it occurs afterward, and sometimes, as in courts of law, long afterward. The subject therefore may not connect the punishment to his or her previous deeds; animals never do, and people often fail to. If a finger fell off every time someone stole something,… — Karen Pryor Copy Share
“Nancy taught two hens to help her sort flowers to make leis. She set them down by a basket of three colors of plastic… — Karen Pryor Copy Share Image
“I couldn't help wondering where porpoises had learned this game of running on the bows of ships. Porpoises have been swimming in the oceans for seven to ten million years, but they've had human ships to play with for only the last few thousand. Yet nearly all porpoises, in every ocean, catch rides for fun from passing ships; and they… — Karen Pryor Copy Share
“Training is a loop, a two-way communication in which an event at one end of the loop changes events at the other, exactly like… — Karen Pryor Copy Share Image
“I griped about it at lunch one day to Bill Weist and Dr. Leslie Squier, our visiting psychologists from Reed College. I'd been trying to train one otter to stand on a box, I told them. No problem getting the behavior; as soon as I put the box in the enclosure, the otter rushed over and climbed on top of… — Karen Pryor Copy Share
“My idea of recreation in those busy years, was to leave the porpoise training for an hour or two, round up a bunch of… — Karen Pryor Copy Share Image
“The porpoises and whale themselves, in their quests for entertainment, often created problems. One summer a fashion developed in the training tanks (I think… — Karen Pryor Copy Share Image
“...that aversives stop behavior, they don’t start it; and that fear and pain produce completely unpredictable and usually highly undesirable side effects, including being… — Karen Pryor Copy Share Image
