Coffee with the Critters

Positive-reinforcement training can be more than a way to teach a behavior. It can create opportunities for animals to: • make choices • solve problems • move and explore • communicate • exercise • interact socially • learn new skills • engage successfully with their environment Lara will talk about why training can function as enrichment, with practical examples across species. She’ll also look a...

I’ll be talking about how positive reinforcement can support animal wellbeing. When I say wellbeing, I mean the animal’s quality of life. I’ll reference a newly published study that examined engagement with positive-reinforcement training as a potential indicator of positive welfare. I’ll use that research as a starting point to discuss something that sits at the center of much of my own work acro...

No set topic this week as Lara jumps on and answers questions.

Join Lara for another info packed Q&A about Parrot training, behavior, and enrichment. She’ll discuss what to observe, how to approach training challenges, and practical ways to encourage engagement with enrichment.

What happens when you combine dinosaurs, live reptiles, science, and hands-on wildlife education? You get Dino Buddies. I’m joined by Tiffany Johnson, founder and owner of Dino Buddies, a wildlife education company based in the Greater Cincinnati, Ohio, area. Tiffany and her team use live reptile ambassadors, animatronic dinosaurs, fossils, replicas, and interactive programs to make science approa...

We pay attention to what animals can see, touch, eat, climb on, move toward, and move away from. But what about sound? A newly published review examined research on human-generated noise and zoo animal welfare. The findings do not give us a simple rule that noise is always harmful. They do raise an important question: What changes in an animal's behavior when the acoustic environment changes? I'll...

For this special Coffee with the Critters, Lara is joined by: • Dr. Jason Crean, biologist and Principal Investigator with the Animal Nutrition Laboratory at Saint Xavier University • Dr. Tatiana Tatum, geneticist and Principal Investigator with the Animal Nutrition Laboratory at Saint Xavier University • Dr. Jamie Abete, avian veterinarian at Niles Animal Hospital They’ll talk about avian nutriti...

Lara is joined by Dr. Lauryn Benedict, Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Northern Colorado. Dr. Benedict studies animal communication and social behavior, including how birds use vocal signals in different social and environmental contexts. She is also part of the Many Parrots Project, an international research team studying parrot vocal learning and cognition. We’ll talk about...

In this episode, Lara discusses a recent study published on target training 48 rats. Target training may support welfare beyond what the food reinforcer alone can.

Join us for a conversation about helping animals participate more willingly in handling, grooming, veterinary care, and other necessary procedures. Deb will bring her extensive dog-training experience, while I’ll share examples involving parrots, pigs, deaf and deaf-blind dogs, zoo and shelter animals, and wildlife education animals. We’ll discuss: ​ What cooperative care actually looks like ​ How...

Training does not have to be long, complicated, or overwhelming to make a difference. In this episode, we’ll talk about how short, intentional training moments can help prevent behavior problems, modify unwanted behavior, build trust, and give animals clearer ways to get what they need. Whether you work with animals professionally or share your home with them, the animals under our care are learni...

We are discussing animal stress in relation to quality care. This could include veterinary care, grooming, socialization and more.

We are continuing our conversation on empowering animals. We’ll look at how purposeful enrichment can help animals that find people, proximity, or touch stressful and how confidence can keep growing between training sessions. Join me to learn what hesitation looks like and how to design enrichment that encourages exploration, choice, and success.

Confidence is not something we demand from animals. It is something we teach. We’ll look at how fear can show up in different ways, why labels can limit what we see, and how training can help animals move from avoidance to participation through clarity, predictability, choice, and reinforcement.

Before we label an animal as aggressive, stubborn, anxious, hormonal, difficult, or “just being bad,” we need to understand what the behavior is doing for the animal and what the animal may be learning from us. In this live-stream, we will take a powerful look at the definition of a label, and explain why using them hinders changing behavior concerns.

Behavior problems do not happen for no reason. Before we label an animal as aggressive, stubborn, anxious, hormonal, difficult, or “just being bad,” we need to understand what the behavior is doing for the animal and what the animal may be learning from us. In this live-stream, we will take a powerful look at why behavior matters, how animals learn from their environment, and why we may accidental...

Lara answers followers questions about behavior, training, and enrichment!

In this live episode of Coffee with the Critters, we’re breaking down what it actually means to build calm behavior, not suppress it. We’ll explore: • Why many behavior concerns are actually regulation problems • The difference between suppressing behavior and teaching calm • How to identify and reinforce observable calm behavior • What to measure if you want calm to become reliable If you’ve ever...

After 20 years working with animals across species, one issue shows up again and again: Motivation is misunderstood. When behavior doesn’t happen, people assume: • the animal is stubborn • the animal isn’t interested • the animal “knows it but won’t do it” But behavior doesn’t happen because we want it to. It happens because, in that moment, it is worth it to the animal.

In continuation of celebrating 13 years in business, our next episode of Coffee with the Critters will be discussing Reinforcement History. • Every behavior an animal exhibits carries a history. • Behavior continues because it has worked before. • Reinforcement leaves a history. • That history shapes what animals do next.

In continuation of celebrating 13 years in business, our next episode of Coffee with the Critters, we'll be discussing Data Collection. People believe they understand behavior. But very few people are measuring it. If you’re not measuring behavior, you’re guessing. When you evaluate behavior, are you collecting data?

Part Two to Lara’s throwback episode from 2023! Listen as Lara delves deeper into Positive Reinforcement.

When you evaluate enrichment, what variables are you actually measuring? After working with wolves, birds, primates, reptiles, and numerous species for the past two decades, one lesson continues to surface: Not all enrichment improves welfare. In this episode, Lara talks about when enrichment increases arousal instead of meaningful engagement. Busy does not equal beneficial. Intensity does not equ...

In this two part throwback episode from 2023, Lara breaks down Positive Reinforcement.

This week, I am joined by Chrissy Pratt, President of Elephation, a non-profit focusing on compassionate, sustainable solutions to the multiple issues that affect captive elephants, the people who care for them, and the communities in which they live.