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An astonishing number of ppl who are 'professional dog-trainers' in the sense that they take money in exchange for services, have never heard of B F Skinner nor of the Brelands - who at one point, post-WW-2, enjoyed an astonishing global reputation for training nonhumans efficiently & humanely, using pos-R [& without the then-common use of aversives].
This was ground-breaking stuff, & here we are 3 generations later, & it is largely forgotten.
Here's one business that owes their very existence to the Brelands' work:
https://www.nytimes.com/video/nyregion/100000001595360/tick-tack-toe-playing-chicken.html
They supply trained hens, who play Tic-Tac-Toe against all comers in casinos, gaming arcades, & other fair-type venues; the birds "work" a few hours a day, pecking & eating, & then another look-alike hen takes her shift. // All 13 at this particular casino are called "Roxy" for continuity, but they each have individual names, & i'm sure the hens can tell one another apart, even if the handlers might have trouble sorting them all if the whole flock were mixed, & they were asked to put each bird in her own cage again.
Does anyone in the U-K talk about the Brelands & their astonishing success as a training business, or their contribution to the war effort?
They not only trained pigeons to find camouflaged gun emplacements in aerial photos for the Allied forces, but pigeons FOUND downed airmen in open ocean, from planes flying above the sea - saving many lives, as no other way to find a man's head in heaving waves was possible. // Clear into the 1960s, the Brelands continued to work for the U-S Armed Services, especially the Navy, training dolphins & other marine mammals as free-swimming operatives.
I think it is a great pity that the U-S training community has largely forgotten them, or never learned about them at all. Marion Breland's 2nd husband outlived her, & Bob Bailey only recently stopped running his popular "chicken workshops" where budding dog-trainers polished their skills by working with impatient, phenomenally-fast hens, who learn & react at light-speed when compared to even above-average dogs!
We owe the Brelands a great debt. They brought kind, science-based training to the fore, if only for a few decades before the Dark Forces once again swamped it as a mainstream concept.
- terry
This was ground-breaking stuff, & here we are 3 generations later, & it is largely forgotten.
Here's one business that owes their very existence to the Brelands' work:
https://www.nytimes.com/video/nyregion/100000001595360/tick-tack-toe-playing-chicken.html
They supply trained hens, who play Tic-Tac-Toe against all comers in casinos, gaming arcades, & other fair-type venues; the birds "work" a few hours a day, pecking & eating, & then another look-alike hen takes her shift. // All 13 at this particular casino are called "Roxy" for continuity, but they each have individual names, & i'm sure the hens can tell one another apart, even if the handlers might have trouble sorting them all if the whole flock were mixed, & they were asked to put each bird in her own cage again.
Does anyone in the U-K talk about the Brelands & their astonishing success as a training business, or their contribution to the war effort?
They not only trained pigeons to find camouflaged gun emplacements in aerial photos for the Allied forces, but pigeons FOUND downed airmen in open ocean, from planes flying above the sea - saving many lives, as no other way to find a man's head in heaving waves was possible. // Clear into the 1960s, the Brelands continued to work for the U-S Armed Services, especially the Navy, training dolphins & other marine mammals as free-swimming operatives.
I think it is a great pity that the U-S training community has largely forgotten them, or never learned about them at all.
Marion Breland's 2nd husband outlived her, & Bob Bailey only recently stopped running his popular "chicken workshops" where budding dog-trainers polished their skills by working with impatient, phenomenally-fast hens, who learn & react at light-speed when compared to even above-average dogs!We owe the Brelands a great debt. They brought kind, science-based training to the fore, if only for a few decades before the Dark Forces once again swamped it as a mainstream concept.
- terry
