Amy SutherlandWhat Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love, and Marriage: Lessons for People from Animals and Their Trainers

Initially by reading the title i assumed the author would have been a trainer at somewhere say sea world, but i was pleasantly surprised to find that instead, she is a journalist who finds passion in all the subjects she writes about. The book was very well written and was never slow. Sutherland begins the book by explaining her marriage and how she went about discovering animal training, and how by following animal trainers, she was able to apply their methods to her life, and produce preferred outcomes from the people around her. The animal training taught the author how to "train" herself, and the people in her life. She notes that although most people recognize the term "training" as having negative connotation, it's more so taking responsibility for your own actions and how they influence others rather than forcing someone to do something. Training is more about communication than anything. How you react or dont react and how you may accidentally reinforce behaviors in other people/animals. I enjoyed how she compared and contrasted people to animals in the sense that we are constantly learning from little details such as body language but we view the world from a very one sided point of view. One of the more important aspects of training yourself is to follow the idea that you cannot assume things. In psychology there is a term called Morgan's Canon in which you cannot assume animals feelings/thoughts, the trainers that the author followed, applied this same rule to their training's.By not assuming emotions/thoughts of the other person the author was then able to take actions less personal and was able to have more patience. Sutherland then covers how teaching patience in yourself is most important. By recognizing why behaviors you dont like have been done, it will teach empathy and patience. Without patience, short outbursts can cause accidental reinforcement. Sutherland states that if you want a behavior done it need to be enforced not punished, and in a timely manner. At one point she quotes the discoveries of Skinner and his ideas of conditioning and how positive and immediate reinforcement is most effective. The trainers taught Sutherland to use variable schedules of reinforcement in which only sometimes a reinforcement is applied, to mix up the different types of reinforcement you use, and to variate how much reinforcement is given. If you constantly give the same reward, the animal loses interest, so to deter from that outcome, different forms of positive reinforcement are used along with different amounts/levels of reinforcement depending on how much reward is actually deserved. Towards the end of the book the author learns that instead of attempting to punish an unwanted behavior, it is better to provide herself with an incompatible behavior aka something else to do that distracts her. By focusing on another behavior she is able to resist starting fights with her husband. By learning to control her own behavior and how to communicate properly, the author is able to supply positive reinforcements in her marriage and with the other people in her life. The book is more about how to train yourself and how that self training effects the training of others. Most people would find this controversial in the sense that it is immoral to attempt to change people. In reality we are constantly changing the people around use regardless of whether we try or not. Page 18 states "Animal trainers argue, why not teach animals purposely? Why leave what they learn to chance?," which then leads Sutherland to ask herself the same about human. I agree with the author. If we are going to directly influence others regardless, why not at least alter our own behaviors so that if we're going to reinforce behaviors, we should at least reinforce positive ones.

I was recommended to read Amy Sutherland's novel, What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love, And Marriage by a professor as it directly related to our course of "Learning and Behavior". Not only did this book discuss topics we learned in this class in a simple and easy to understand fashion, but anecdotes and stories have helped me envision practical applications of concepts such as reinforcement, incompatible behaviors, and LRS. Even if you have not previously learned anything in the realm of psychology or animal training, I would highly recommend this book to anyone for a light, fun read. Amy uses her background as a journalist to highly utilize the information she is given at Moorpark's Exotic Animal Training program and transform it into daily practices. She uses techniques such as reinforcing wanted behaviors on her husband Scott, mother, dogs, and random people she comes into contact with. Animal training has left Amy with the tools to improve her social experiences with friends, family, and pets. A few of the concepts she discusses are "know your species", baby steps, the basics of positive reinforcement, and the least reinforcing scenario (LRS). Sutherland does not dive deep into these topics but merely provides you with the basic information that would make utilizing them in your life possible. According to the author, knowing your species is crucial to any form of training. She uses specific examples such as when training elephants, you would teach them things that are normal for them to do such as grasping an object with their trunk opposed to something they do not normally do like jumping. Similarly to animals, you must know what a human is capable of doing. If Scott was typically a messy person, he cannot be expected to become a neat freak over night, instead, baby steps should be rewarded with him. These "baby steps" Amy touches upon can be seen in her attempts to change Scott's messy habits. Instead of expecting her husband to pick up his pile clothes, remove its stain, and get rid of the smell, it's more realistic for Scott to improve his habits in small steps such as picking up his clothes. In the same sense, animals such as monkeys must use small steps when learning how to do things like ride a skateboard. Instead of throwing a monkey on a skateboard, the trainer must first get it used to sitting on the object, and when its successfully done that, then the trainer can begin to push the skateboard with the monkey on it. Another major part of animal training is positive reinforcement. Sutherland emphasizes timing and appropriate rewards as key to reinforcement. With animals, timing is important to perfect because if it is too late or early, the animal will not know which behavior is being reinforced. Appropriate rewards is also important for animal training as too small of rewards won't entice animals to perform a behavior while using too large of rewards for a behavior will make animals expect a large reward the next time. Sutherland also notes that "the least reinforcing scenario" is key to training. An LRS is the lack of reaction to an undesired behavior ensuring that the negative or positive response will not reinforce the behavior. She uses this technique on Scott's perpetual habit of losing his keys. When he's going on a rampage, Sutherland makes sure she does not react in the slightest, including her words or body language. She claims that this method decreased his temper when losing his keys and also decreased the habit. Although Sutherland does not go into great detail with the training techniques, I feel her book allows those unexposed to reinforcement training to potentially change the interactions in their own lives as Amy has. Overall, I enjoyed the novel's quick read and the anecdotes that make behavioral training terms and methods easier to understand.

A very witty informative and amusing book. The author has learned skills from animal trainers she met. She thenUses these methods to try to alter her sometimes frustrating husband and his annoying habits in order to save her relationship, after traditional methods of arguing and complaining did not work. The author rewards good behaviour and ignores the bad and surprisingly her methods work for her. Highly recommended

A very easy read, once started I had difficulty putting it down. It is a very entertaining book, mixing information with anecdote with humour. The cover does not do the book justice and, I feel, is misleading. Growing from a report about animal training, particularly around Shamu the killer whale, the reader gains insight into the whys and wherefores of animal training and how to use the strategies in our own lives (specifically on our family and friends), with entertaining examples taken from the authors own life.Recommended to me by a colleague from Finland I have subsequently bought copies for friends as presents.

I read this book because I had read a newspaper article about the writer's experience with animal training. But to be honest I found as much out from the article as I did from the book. After getting the main premise - animal training techniques can be used on humans - it seems to me rather repetitive.

An entertaining and informative read.

Amazing book and I recommend it to all women its the book you have been missing from your shelve.