46: From Trauma to Trust: Building Relationships using Operant Conditioning with Sarah van Herpt, Animals Asia - Vietnam

This episode Sarah van Herpt, Animals Asia - Vietnam, discusses relationship and trust building with animals who previously lived in adverse and traumatic environments. Animals Asia rescues bears from the bear bile industry so Sarah is able to give practical examples of how they help the rescued bears move from trauma to trust. Sarah educates about desensitization and different techniques used to build trust such as temporarily using negative reinforcement with animals where the best reinforcer is distance and space. Sarah also talks about how to build trust back quickly after a situation that may require some of that trust to be broken. l Stay tuned in for a "Training Tale" about giving the power of consent and control back to rescued bears! For questions or suggestions about the podcast email ⁠⁠abc@theabma.org⁠⁠ To reach Sarah email svanherpt@animalsasia.org and to learn more about Animals Asia visit their website at https://www.animalsasia.org Let's talk some training and banter about behavior!

3:00 Introduction to Sarah van Herpt and Animals Asia 

9:00 Starting to build a trusting relationship with an animal from a previously aversive situation 

16:00 Desensitization 

21:10 Negative Reinforcement as a temporary tool 

24:05 Relationship building outside of a “formal” training session 

28:40 Working with animals with low trust in the “trust account” 

31:55 Building relationships back up after doing something that takes away some trust (example: necessary medical procedure) 

36:05 Overcoming setbacks with animals that previously had traumatic experiences 

37:30 “Training Tale”