E52: 라라 조셉(Lara Joseph) - "특수 동물 훈련 및 동물 행동 센터"

We just had a porcupine, an African crested porcupine in here. We had recently also a ring-tailed lemur, a Eurasian eagle owl, and several crows. And I'm probably, oh, ostriches. It's just whatever. Yeah. And I just like to show people, I mean, what we do here, Melissa, as your listeners probably know, we're always training. If that animal can see, hear, smell us, a lot of the work I do here is shifting and moving animals safely. When animals come in for training, we usually bring them in for a small period of time and we live stream our approaches. And I show a lot of different species of animals, just showing people, you know, the first thing I look for is I just sit back and observe behavior, identify reinforcers and punishers or aversives. And then I usually start with target training, stationing. We have 10 other people, volunteers here as well. So a lot of my time is spent coaching them and guiding them, training the animals. And my business is all via live stream. So if I see something happening where members can benefit from, boom, I go live immediately and show how we struggle and what approaches we take in training. That's really, really interesting. Just like the insane variety there. It is. It is. Yeah. There's usually always something running by your feet, sliding by your feet, climbing on branches overhead or flying by you. So you mentioned kind of that going live thing. And I know that you do regular public Facebook lives on the Animal Behavior Center's Facebook page on Sunday mornings. Do you want to go ahead and mention those or plug those? Sure. Sure. Sure. Yeah. Every Sunday morning at 9 a.m. Eastern, I go live for an hour and it's called Coffee with the Critters on the Animal Behavior Center's Facebook page. I started that in March. That'll be three years ago. And it's a weekly episode. I never miss one because if I do, I start getting emails, messages of people wanting to know if they've missed it. But Melissa, it's so important. It's been I make the use of applied behavior analysis, its application very easy to understand in everyday terms. And we have a large following and it's very engaging. People ask me questions. And as they ask me questions, I just stand up and turn around and start training one of the animals where I can best give a demonstration of how this is used. That's awesome. And guys, I will make sure I include a link for all those people listening to the Facebook page in the show notes so that if anybody wants to click through, they can go there and they can like the page so that they can catch the next one. So a little bit more about your background.

You started out in film, right? I did. I've always been interested in animals, in a wide variety of animals. My degree of a bachelor's in documentary filmmaking. The intention was to make wildlife documentaries. I was never going to be home. I was going to be out gallivanting somewhere filming something. So my history of my work, I've always been interested in communications. And it's kind of funny how all of this has come together because I have an interest in behavior science. I always have communication through film, public speaking, and how it all came together is I, this was several years ago, I was interacting with an animal that I had no idea, I had no former experience with. It could be dangerous when I started interacting with this animal. So that's when I went in search of, I became very intrigued with the species of animal. And I went in search of more information on the species. And it seemed most everything I found was not science-based. It was a lot of assumptions. And I was like, there's got to be something out there that can give me factual scientific research information. And it was hard to find. So that's when I stumbled on applied behavior analysis and was fascinated, jumped in with two feet, went back to school and started taking master's classes in it. That's awesome. And now that's what you do day in, day out. 14 hours a day, pretty much. But I love it. I can't, you know, I never stop working because I just, I love what I do. I certainly understand that perspective. Yeah, I'm sure you do. With that background, kind of starting from the science of it, does that mean you've always been an advocate for positive reinforcement? Or how did you, you know, kind of get there from the science? I've not always been an advocate because I didn't, I didn't know about it. I wish I would have, like most of us. I heard about it. I didn't know what it meant. And so I remember walking my Dalmatian several years ago thinking, you know, he kept pulling on the leash. And I was like, and I used to grab a tree branch every time I took him for a walk. And I would just lightly tap him on the butt to get him to stop pulling on the leash. But I noticed that I kept having to do it over and over. And I remember thinking, walking down the street one day, I wonder what this positive reinforcement stuff is all about. So I tried a little bit of it from, you know, the little education I had on it. And it worked. That was when I first heard about it. When I first started implementing it was with that species of animal that I was talking about, what happened to be a parrot, because they can bite very hard.

And that's how I got started in it. I want to stop for a second here. You kind of mentioned applied behavior analysis. And I think it's one of those terms where I'm pretty sure I know what it means. But without looking it up, I definitely couldn't like give someone a definition. Would you mind kind of just explaining what it is and sharing what that looks like? I used to hesitate in saying applied behavior analysis because you'd get that glazed look in people's eyes. Oh, this is going to be too scientific. I'm never going to understand it. So I quickly follow it up. I mean, it's important to say what it is because it's so effective. But when I give a broad general explanation of what it is, it's using environmental events to control behavior. And I also tell people it's also using observable and measurable behavior, data collecting. You know, is this behavior maintaining or increasing? So applied behavior analysis in a nutshell is using environmental events to control behavior, using observable and measurable. Data collecting. For example, I'm going to use the vulture we have here for training. Her name is Willie. And vultures, this is what they do. I mean, I can say she loves the sun. But what does that look like? When the sun hits her back, her wings will stretch out and she stays pretty much motionless. She'll watch what's going on around her. I mean, that's observable, measurable behavior. She is here because she has a long history of flying and attacking people. So we train her to do other behaviors instead. So here's a way of using applied behavior, observable and measurable behavior, environmental events. You know that sun. Once that sun hits her back, her five foot wingspan is going to stretch out. If you have a concern of her flying after somebody, you know that she's up in the sun or move her to the sun because she's going to station. When she's in the sun, move people through. That's using environmental events to control behavior. That's a very basic way, but it works. I mean, everybody's using it anyways. They probably just don't realize to what extent they're using it. And I also call it the science of common sense. Because once you start identifying reinforcers, potential aversives in the environment, I identify the animal's positive reinforcers and I just virtually stick all of those, everything the animal moves towards. I stick all of those in my pocket. They get the same amount of those environmental events, those reinforcers every day. Anyways, I'm just going to deliver them for behaviors I want to see maintain or increase. I'm going to observe potential aversives.

I will remove them from the event or from the environment. If there was aversives or things the animal needs to get used to for its future, then I slowly, through shaping, pair those once aversives, start pairing them with positive reinforcers, bringing them back into the environment and taking the stress out of the animal's life. And I mean, in the dog world, that might look something as simple as, okay, we know that our dog's going to go crazy when somebody new comes to the door. So you give them a Kong and they're creep, and we're going to answer the door. You manage their environment a little bit. Yep. And like, for example, like I'm working with a giraffe right now, those are huge animals that can do a lot of damage fairly quickly, especially if you're using force. This giraffe needs to have his hooves trimmed. There's, you know, there's a, there's a device that's commonly used to train, you know, to force them to stay still. If a giraffe breaks its leg, it has to be put down. Those are long legs. And so what I do instead is why don't you train the giraffe to accept a hoof trim? You know, come to me, come to you when called, stay still until requested to do otherwise, put your hoof up on a block, allow me to flip it over and file it. So this kind of goes really well into the next question I had, right? Which we talked a little bit via email, which is, you mentioned that one of the reasons you enjoy working with exotics is because what constitutes a positive reinforcer is often so different than for our dogs. So do you want to talk a little more about that? I mean, I know you mentioned the sun example, which is super interesting. Yeah. And here's, especially in the world of exotics, many of your exotics are prey animals too. So what could be seen as a positive reinforcer for a dog, such as pace, you know, how fast can you get that positive reinforcer to that dog could be easily seen as an aversive with an exotic. For example, I will use, let's say a parrot, the immediacy and when the positive reinforcer is delivered is very effective. But that pace in which you move to give a dog a treat, you move that fast towards a parrot, especially if it doesn't know you and you're trying to deliver a food reinforcer, bam, it can easily result in a bite. So, and I tell people like, you know, I really point out reinforcers, the pace at which you move, the pace at which you deliver a treat, the pace at which you walk by that food dish could easily be a positive reinforcer or an aversive. Pay attention, which one is it? The tone of your voice.

A lot of times, like I will use a little higher pitch tone of voice. A lot of the animals that I work with, rhythm can be an attraction and paying close attention to that body language. You can either pair that as an aversive if you don't understand that animal's body language, or it could easily, if you're able to identify calm body language and you slowly introduce rhythm. I do rhythm like clapping. I'll do it. I'm not going to do it here because people will think. I do a lot of tone of voice rhythm. A lot of animals respond to rhythms such as your elephants, your parrots. Those could easily be used as reinforcers, positive reinforcers to get the behavior you want. When you say they respond to it, what do you mean by that? They will turn their head and look at you or in that direction to better understand and identify what is happening in the environment. And you can easily use that as a antecedent to a behavior that you want. For example, like if I'm calling an animal to me and I'll start doing this really fast, repetitive tone with my voice and you can see like crest, head crest go up and the animal starts moving towards you. Identify the body language. You know, is it, is it, is the body language tight and stiff? Could be an aversive. Does it look accepting? If it does and it's running towards you, it's likely a positive reinforcer. Interesting. Those are small things we have to really pay attention to around here, Melissa, because the wide variety of exotics we work with, a lot of animals where we're working with are not domesticated. So using any type of anthropomorphism can put you in serious danger very fast. So I imagine that the way that reinforcers differ isn't the only thing that kind of stands out when you're talking about the difference between exotics and like training dogs, right? So what are some of the other differences that you've run into and are there similarities? Okay. Yeah, there's different things. I mean, there's a reason I like to work with exotics, Melissa, because like I mentioned earlier, I am friends with a lot of fabulous dog trainers. So, and they're getting that message out there that's very important. And a lot of time the community thinks, I mean, and dogs can be very resilient to using versus if people don't understand what they're doing. Whereas your exotics aren't so much. I mean, there's a message why I work with exotics is because, okay, you may be able to push your dog or force your dog into doing this, but how are you going to do this with that turkey vulture? You start pushing that turkey vulture or you start pushing that ape.

You're going to get consequences that you're probably not going to be very comfortable with. And a lot of times the message is there like these animals can really hurt you very fast. And I always, when I'm training an animal, if there are cage bars between us, I always train for an accident in case those cage bars aren't there between us. So if where someone may be using an aversive with their dog, you do that with an exotic, you're going to see those consequences so fast. And well, maybe not, but when they do happen, you're likely putting yourself in a very dangerous situation. So some of the animals that I work with, I was telling you about there, you know, some of these animals can weigh a ton. That's where my message comes in and shows, you know, you can be a great part of the team, you and that animal, and you can really work together. And when people see that teamwork here or through our live streams or at zoos, whatever, it really grabs the attention of everybody. They like to see that training. And then I'll stop training the animal and turn around to the people and say, this is how positive reinforcement works in your home. This is how it works with your child, your dog, your relationship with your family. And another thing is, is that I like to work with a lot of animals as well that people think are, you know, your average public thinks are dumb, gross, anything, you know, such as even a pest. Why is it a pest? It's because that animal is a pest because it's quickly outwitting your next step. That's why rats and crows live so close with human civilization because they function together. And many people will call that rat or that pigeon or that squirrel a pest. So it is my way to introduce the turkey vulture, the rat, the pig, the pigeon, the porcupine, something that may be easily overlooked. This is an amazing creature that serves, you know, a very important role in our ecosystem. Pay attention. Instead of hurting them, find out what their function is in everyday life. And it just brings awareness. You know, the pig is something that is very overlooked. It is one of the smartest animals I've ever trained. And pigs quickly train the people that they're with. We brought a lot of awareness to the turkey vulture. People are like, oh, that's such an ugly scavenger. And I'm like, look how amazing this creature is. And I usually do that through, I'll show different things, how she stations on the glove, you know, how she targets, how she flies to my glove when I ask her. And then I just inform them. And then they start having that appreciation for that animal.

I know in addition to the work you do with the exotics, you also do some work with deaf and blind deaf dogs. And imagine communication there is a bit different. How do you approach things with those dogs versus the exotics or versus a normal dog training, you know, session? Or how does that all roll up? Yep. Well, as you know, play with dogs can be a highly valued reinforcer. A lot of the other animals I have here, we play in different ways. But like with the deaf dogs, I mean, one of the first things that I do is reinforce eye contact. Always checking in, always checking in. And even I slowly shape that deaf dog in new environments of here's a new environment or here's a new something in your environment. Look at it and then look at me for information. And then I will communicate with you with a thumbs up or, you know, come closer and reinforce. That is probably one that is so misunderstood. I'm talking with somebody right now, shaping the animal in different environments, slowly shaping distractions and then slowly bringing in distraction. And then that animal, as soon as it turns and looks at you, bam, bridge, reinforce. And then slowly take it into different environments. With the deaf and blind, we have a deaf and blind dog here, Snow. I immediately started. All I did was just watch her. How does she explore her environment? How does she explore new environments? And she did that a lot by walking in circles, finding out where there's a wall here, there's a wall there. And then she'll make the circle bigger and bigger. There's an object here. There's a wall there. She goes back to where she started and then she starts getting, you know, exploring more and more. With her, my work is all via touch and smell. So different taps on her body. For example, one finger tap to her chest is a bridge. Yes, that's the behavior I'm looking for. And then you can see it in her body language. Her head starts going up, searching for where the treat is delivered. And a lot of times I will just touch her very lightly on the bottom of the chin. That means keep your head still. The treat is getting ready to be delivered because, Melissa, just in how you deliver that treat, if she turns her head in anticipation for is the treat over here? And she hits her head on the side of my hand. That is an aversive to her. You will see her cower and walk away. And you've quickly, you've just punished your training session. And in any cues that came along with it. One swipe down the right side of her body, starting from her front shoulder to her hind legs. A quick swipe means turn around and walk the other way.

A light swipe underneath the chin means move forward. Two taps on her butt means sit. One tap on her chest is a bridge. Moving my finger from her shoulder down to her paw in a quick motion. That means down. It's all contingencies. It's all pairing contingencies. When I squeeze her shoulders lightly, that means stay where you are. Something's getting ready to happen. Like, for example, I try to put potential danger on cue with her. So if the pig is let out at the same time she is let out, that is a bad encounter. I will put a light squeeze on her shoulder. It's just more pressure. That means danger is close. Stay still. I will give you more information when I return. There's a lot with her. And she's... I mean, that sounds like so many. Yeah. She is an amazing educator of mine. She has really opened my eyes. That's such a fascinating concept. That's such a fascinating concept, just that you've managed to teach all of these very different behaviors when she can't see you. She can't hear you. She can't... I mean, like for the down or the sit, do you still basically use a treat lure or did you shape them? Or I mean, how did you accomplish that with a dog that can't see or hear you? If I use a lure, I will... I try to quickly phase it out. With the down, that is one I did use a treat lure with. Yeah. I would hold the treat up by her shoulder and she would turn to smell it. And I just keep it in my hands and bring it down to the ground to where it's... Once she's down on the ground and then that bridge has to be there. So before I can release that treat, tap on the chest because she clearly knows what that is. Bam. Hand opens up. Tap on the chest. And I have to hurry up and get that treat to her as quick as possible. Just tap, deliver, tap, deliver, tap, deliver. And then I slowly start spacing. Tap. One, two, three, deliver. And that's how I shape duration with her. It's a very different thing, especially when you're used to training. I don't know, my dog, for example, who does not have those obstacles. She's hard to keep up with. She's a border collie. Not only is she a border collie now, she's deaf and she's blind. People will see her running at a fast pace through the center. And they're like, oh, she's having fun. She's playing. I was like, I don't think so. I think what I see is she's searching for information. She's wanting somebody to get... Because as soon as you start interacting with her, Melissa, boom. She calms right down. What are we doing next? And she's looking for body taps. Tell me where to go. Where are we going? What should I be searching for? What are you training me? And what information do I need?

She's always looking for information. Searching for information. So do you have any tips out there for folks who may have a dog that can't hear or maybe has vision problems to kind of help them with their training? Anything that you've kind of learned or recommend? Yeah. Don't wait. Don't wait. They're already learning. Pay close attention to what they're reacting to, what they're moving towards. Like with the deaf dogs, I cannot put enough emphasis on this. Reinforce eye contact. Because you always want that dog looking at you. Something's in front of me. I'm not exactly sure what's going on. You want them to quickly turn and look at you. And you say, thumbs up. Yep. This is cool. Let's keep moving forward. Or come with me. Let's walk the other direction. With a blind dog, especially as a lot of our senior dogs continue to age, their eyesight starts declining. Go ahead and start shaping those sounds. We use target sticks with bells. Shaping those sounds now before the vision is completely gone. When you say target sticks with bells, you mean so that the dog can orient to the target to find it? And we use target sticks with bells. And then we usually use something at the end of the target stick, such as... I can't tell you exactly. Maybe the tennis ball. Maybe. I don't know. A lot of times it's paper towels wadded up in a ball wrapped with rubber bands. Because it's the dog that's always going to identify if touching the end of that target stick is an aversive. It can't see. And it moves its head quick towards the target stick. And bam, now you just got poked in the nose with a hard pine dowel. That's quickly going to be aversive. The dogs might not do it again. So that's why at the end of the target stick, we have bells and something soft for them to touch their nose to. I kind of have three questions that I like to ask people their first time on this show to kind of finish things out. So I'm excited to have somebody who's new to the show so I can ask them again. What animal related accomplishment are you proudest of? I mean, having the Animal Behavior Center, what it is today. We just had our five-year anniversary yesterday and how fast and how strong we are in the message. That's probably one of the most proudest one. But as far as an individual animal, I would have to say it is a pigtailed macaque. It's in the primate family. It's like a large monkey. They can be very dangerous. They have very large teeth that can do damage really quick, especially if you're using force or coercion. This particular animal, a zoo had asked me to train. And I was like, I don't want to train that animal.

I am so afraid of that animal. I didn't know much about pigtailed macaques. And there's a lot of people that won't work with them because they have reputations. But it's usually due to people not understanding how to effectively interact with them. This particular macaque, major resource guarder, his arms are probably just as long as mine and just as strong. So if you would walk by the enclosure, the winter enclosure that he was in, he would grab you. He would try to grab you and pull you towards the cage. I've had very few encounters with him and none of them were pleasant experiences. I wasn't able to read his body language very well, but I could easily tell that, hey, when that mouth opens up and he's showing those big teeth, that's probably a form of communication that stay away. So I started training him, Melissa, and it was purely off contact. I would ask him to go to a station, deliver a reinforcer. That way, some of the first things I train any animal is a station, go to an area and don't move until requested to do otherwise, and a target. So that way, you're touching that target stick. What I'm doing is reading your body language. And I quickly pair that target stick with a positive reinforcer, which in his case was banana baby food delivered from a syringe. Now I can start understanding body language. What does your face look like when in anticipation of the banana baby food coming closer to you? And then, I mean, I was just like, wow, this is so cool. We are communicating. I am starting to understand you. You see me instead of being a cue for these other behaviors that were labeled as aggressive. Now when he sees me, that's a cue. He goes and runs to a station and sits and waits to be for information and waits for positive reinforcers. So now I trim his nails using positive reinforcement through the cage bars. He targets. He goes everywhere with me. Deb Jones has come here several times. I've seen some of the work I do in my work with him. I took her out there and I said, this is amazing for me in my head. I consider this animal amazing. Watch this. So he's a big resource guarder. You couldn't get anywhere near his enclosure. If you even picked up a stick within one foot of his enclosure, he was jumping on those cage bars, vocalizing, shaking the cage bars. And if he could get a hold of you, it wouldn't be positive. So what I did with him is I worked on his resource guarding and I taught him to clean his enclosure for me. Go pick up those sticks. Go pick up those rags. Hand them through the cage bars to me. And that was a lot of shaping because he's picking up things of high value.

Those are his in his enclosure and now offering them to me. That, Melissa, I would say is one of my most proud animal accomplishments. That's fantastic. Just the turnaround there is so impressive. Yeah. And it went from me not wanting anything to do with this animal to me now. I cannot wait to go see him. And, you know, how are you doing? You know, and I can tell by his body language. OK, let's get this training moving. That's so interesting. So the kind of second question on my list of three here is what is the best piece of training advice that you've ever heard? Right at the top of my head, because this sticks in my head every single time I'm interacting with an animal. And I don't know who said it, where it was said, but it is always stuck in my head. And it's something that I've always thought of anyways, but I never heard it in these terms. And that is just because you're using positive reinforcement does not mean it's a positive experience for the animal. And that is always in my head when I'm training because I'm like, are you still enjoying this? You know, the reinforcer behind why I may keep training you is because I'm getting the behavior that I want. But are you enjoying this as well? And that's when I need to if I'm not sure, that's when I end the training session and start over again. That's definitely an interesting one. I think that a lot of the times people feel like, you know, they're using positive methods that surely it's a positive experience. And that's I definitely agree. That's not always true. So, yeah. So last one here. Who is someone else in the animal behavior world that you look up to? Oh, gosh, there's so many. There are so many. But one that immediately comes to mind is Jesus Rosales Ruiz. He's a professor at the University of Northern Texas where I took a lot of some of the master's classes. Fascinating man. Fascinating man. And everything that comes out of his mouth, I am sitting there paying attention like a sponge. He does a lot of work with rats and mice and pigeons. Huh. Interesting. Yeah. He he follows a lot of Skinner's work very closely. Fascinating. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Lara. You are very welcome. It's an honor. Thanks. I had fun. Good. I had fun, too. This is interesting. And I mean, it's always interesting to learn more about kind of some of the exotics and some of the, you know, kind of beyond dog training applications of some of this stuff. So. Yeah. Anytime. Awesome. I may take you up on that. Okay. Thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week, this time with Debbie Taraka to talk canine conditioning.

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