Carrots and Sticks

Principles of Animal Training

Paul McGreevy and Robert Boakes

Regular price $25.00 Sale

Format: hardback
Edition: First published in 2007 by Cambridge University Press
318 pages
ISBN: 9781921364150

Publication: 24 Nov 2011

Publisher: Sydney University Press

Have you ever wondered how a sheepdog, police horse, leopard or octopus is trained? Carrots and Sticks brings behavioural science to life, explaining animal training techniques in the language of learning theory. The first sections on instinct and intelligence, rewards and punishers are richly infused with examples from current training practice, and establish the principles that are explored later in the unique case studies.

Drawing on interviews with leading animal trainers, Carrots and Sticks offers 50 case studies that explore the step-by-step training of a wide variety of companion, working and exotic animals. It reviews the preparation of animals prior to training and common pitfalls encountered.

The book's accessible style will challenge your preconceptions and simplify your approach to all animal-training challenges. This exciting text will prove invaluable to anyone with an interest, amateur or professional, in the general basics of animal training, as well as to students of psychology, veterinary medicine, agriculture and animal science.

Paul McGreevy is a professor of animal behaviour and animal welfare science at the University of Sydney.

Robert Boakes is professor emeritus of behavioural science at the University of Sydney.

Preface
Acknowledgements

Part 1: general principles
1. Instincts and their modification
2. Learning theory and positive reinforcement
3. Fear, punishment and avoidance training
4. Animal intelligence

Part 2: case histories
5. Companion and performance animals
6. Exotic animals
7. True working animals

Conclusions
Glossary of terms
Further reading
Select bibliography
Index

'Carrots and sticks will be useful reference to all of us involved with animals. It serves as a great glossary of the technical terms in the behavioural and welfare literature ... It is richly illustrated with excellent diagrams and informative colour photographs.'
Michael Hayward Australian Veterinary Journal

'Upon reading the book Carrots and Sticks, Principles of Animal Training, I was beyond ecstatic to read a comprehensive undertaking that bridges the world of academia and layman. This book has been long overdue! ... The book is easy to read, has excellent coverage of the topic and appropriately uses terminology. The information is presented in a user-friendly fashion that is beneficial to the student of animal behavior as well as to the layperson interested in training animals.’
Lori Frear Integrative and Comparative Biology 49(4)

‘[Carrots and Sticks] is an accessible and shrewd account of animal training, providing a foundation of the need to understand instincts, biological constraints on learning, the role of early experience and individual differences in order for trainers to learn how to work effectively with predictable responses.’
Biologist 56(1)

'What’s refreshing about Carrots and Sticks: Principles of Animal Training is its firm basis in approved theory and academia, rather than an opinion on what’s worked for one person that may not work for you.'
Dogs NSW