Karen Pryor

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Karen Pryor


Born
in New York City, New York, The United States
May 14, 1932

Died
January 04, 2025


Karen Pryor was an American author who specialized in behavioral psychology and marine mammal biology. She was the founder and proponent of clicker training. She was formerly a Marine Mammal Commissioner to the U.S. government.

Karen Pryor isn't a Goodreads Author (yet), but they do have a blog, so here are some recent posts imported from their feed.

Can You Trust the Sound Bite Animal Training Advice You See Online?

If you follow animal training advice online, you’ve probably seen them: quick memes, short videos, and punchy rules that simplify complex training concepts. As attention spans on social media get shorter, the drive to share bite-sized tips or sound-bite solutions has grown. I applaud those efforts and don’t necessarily suggest that we stop, but I do think we need to talk about the confusion these

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Published on June 26, 2026 05:14
Average rating: 4.24 · 9,700 ratings · 794 reviews · 62 distinct worksSimilar authors
Don't Shoot the Dog!: The N...

4.24 avg rating — 6,855 ratings — published 1984 — 46 editions
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Reaching the Animal Mind: C...

4.39 avg rating — 1,349 ratings — published 2008 — 10 editions
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Getting Started: Clicker Tr...

3.97 avg rating — 591 ratings — published 1999 — 15 editions
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Clicker Training for Cats

3.92 avg rating — 231 ratings — published 1999 — 5 editions
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Lads Before the Wind: Diary...

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4.40 avg rating — 193 ratings — published 1975 — 12 editions
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Nursing Your Baby: Revised

4.22 avg rating — 132 ratings — published 1963 — 29 editions
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Don't Shoot the Dog: : The ...

4.31 avg rating — 102 ratings
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Getting Started: Clicker Tr...

4.08 avg rating — 39 ratings — published 2001
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On My Mind: Reflections on ...

4.18 avg rating — 38 ratings — published 2014 — 4 editions
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Karen Pryor on Behavior

4.32 avg rating — 31 ratings — published 1994 — 4 editions
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More books by Karen Pryor…
Quotes by Karen Pryor  (?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)

“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 were doing it on the bows of Greek triremes and prehistoric Tahitian canoes, as soon as those seacraft appeared. What did they do for fun before ships were invented?
Ken Norris made a field observation one day that suggests the answer. He saw a humpback whale hurrying along the coast of the island of Hawaii, unavoidably making a wave in front of itself; playing in that bow wave was a flock of bottlenose porpoises. The whale didn't seem to be enjoying it much: Ken said it looked like a horse being bothered by flies around its head; however, there was nothing much the whale could do about it, and the porpoises were having a fun time. ”
Karen Pryor, Lads Before the Wind: Diary of a Dolphin Trainer

“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, or if cars burst into flames when they were parked illegally, I expect stolen property and parking tickets would be nearly nonexistent.”
Karen Pryor, Don't Shoot the Dog!: The New Art of Teaching and Training

“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 a cybernetic feedback system; yet many psychologists treat their work as something they do to a subject, not with the subject.”
Karen Pryor, Don't Shoot the Dog!: The New Art of Teaching and Training

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