No Fooling

Anyone who has ever trained an animal with positive reinforcement will appreciate Amy Sutherland's book, What Shamu Taught Me about Life, Love and Marriage, reviewed in Sunday's New York Times Book Review. The book, which was based on Sutherland's article that originally appeared in the Modern Love column of the Times' Styles section in June 2006, details Sutherland's attempts at training her husband based on the techniques she had watched animal trainers use while she was researching her book, Kicked, Bitten and Scratched.

It was a hysterical column--I remember thinking that I should indeed try some of her techniques--and apparently I wasn't the only one who thought so. That column, according to Lori Leibovich who reviewed Sutherland's book, eventually became the "single most viewed and most e-mailed Times article of 2006." No wonder she got a book deal to expand the topic, not to mention a film offer for Kicked, Bitten and Scratched. Dare I say it should happen to me?

Back to the premise. Animal trainers rely on positive reinforcement, usually in the form of food, to mold their protegees. After watching trainers reward behaviors they liked and ignore those they didn't, Sutherland tried the same techniques at home, without nagging. "I noticed trainers did not get a sea lion to salute by nagging. Nor did they teach a baboon to flip by carping, nor an elephant to paint by pointing out everything the elephant did wrong," she writes.

It isn't long before her "cagemate" (her term) is picking up his laundry, not hovering near the stove while she cooks and "shaving more and tailgating less."

While I can't guarantee the techniques will work on all the animals in your life, the premise is fun and entertaining and maybe even worth a try. Please note, however, that not all behaviors are easily or permanently corrected. In fact, I don't remember reading anything about the perennial toilet seat issue....