Ignorance Is Bliss: Real-World Use of Modifiers with a Search & Rescue Dog

A search-and-rescue start

Sometimes trainers venture into uncharted training territory without realizing how novel or new it might be.

I have been teaching a graduate course on animal training at Western Illinois University since 1995. One of the students in my very first class was a firefighter named Bill, who also trained search and rescue dogs. Throughout the semester, he would ask great questions about the use of positive reinforcement, because most of his experience was with more trad...