Trainers Talking Training 1 , 7/18/2024 Join us - 2nd Thursday of month, 8:30pm E US time

Scott Thomas, Marcia Davey, Kayce Cover, first meeting
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"Now we are in the information age and we can record information, discussions, viewpoints, and even techniques, and we can share this information across borders and time. There's a lot to discuss. Let's get talking."
Knowledge, in the field of training has been handed down, trainer to trainer, for untold ages. When there is a break in the continuum, knowledge gets lost. Breaks occur when expert trainers die, when laws change our field (no more orca trainers in the water, for example), when activists change our field (no more circuses) and even due to trends and fads.
In recent years, animal based circuses have been ending in the US, and untold experience and knowledge about the training, care, breeding and management of circus animals has been lost. Even entire lines of animal genetics, carefully maintained by circus trainers, have been lost. Fads also result in the loss of important information. Targetting has been an incredibly rich way of communicating behaviors to animals, but are targetting skills being lost, replaced by other, less demanding practices?. Or are the other practices just as powerful. What about tools and how they can be used? How about laws that affect animal keeping and training.
Now we are in the information age and we can record information, discussions, viewpoints, and even techniques, and we can share this information across borders and time. There's a lot to discuss. Let's get talking.
LOST ENDING:
The ending thought (we get cut off) " diverse genetics... you have 4 streams of rarified genes (in the example given), so you will have a broader gene pool than if you had one or two of the parent's gene sets, but the gene pool will be very diminished. My doberman breeder produced wonderful dogs, but she was adamant about going outside the registries, to keep adding new genetic material. It is said that it takes 600 genetically diverse animals to constitute a healthy gene pool. In the cases of dobermans and cheetahs, it appears that at some point in their pasts, their populations were seriously diminished (to about 15 individuals, in the case of dobermans). Meanwhile, some wildlife biologists argue that all cheetahs are essentially monoclonal twins."
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