Hey guys, it's Hannah Branigan, back with another super nerdy episode of drinking from the toilet,

the podcast that wets your training appetite,

but can't be contained in a bowl. Do you see what I did there? This episode is sponsored by

Karen Pryor Academy for Animal Training and Behavior, offering awesome online dog training

classes and a gold standard professional doctor-trenner certification program at

Karen Pryor Academy.com. If you want to check it out, which you should, make sure to use the special link just for

podcast listeners, caronprireacademy.com slash toilet. They've got some special deals set up for you guys.

This week, we are exploring a major rabbit hole with returning special guest, Ken Ramirez.

We're talking about concept training and teaching modifier cues, some rabbit hole with returning special guest, Ken Ramirez.

We're talking about concept training and teaching modifier cues, some very nerdy subjects indeed.

It's pretty awesome. Now, I know you already know who Ken is, either because you remember him from episode

number 18, or maybe you recognize his name from some other conference or book or DVD

or television special, something like that. But just in case you don't remember, Ken is the

executive vice president and chief training officer at Karen Pryor Kleecker Training. He's been an

animal trainer and a behavior consultant for over 40 years.

And before going to work for KPCT, he was the executive vice president of animal care and training at Chicago's world famous Shed Aquarium.

He's an accomplished author, biologist, animal behaviorist, and is basically famous for training all kinds of animals to do

all kinds of impossible things, not just dogs and dolphins, but also elephants and butterflies.

I know. It's kind of crazy. And yes, I do want to be more like Ken when I grow up. So during our

conversation, we talked about what is concept training? What makes it a concept? Can dogs learn concepts?

How can we teach concepts? What does it look like? And how do we know it's actually working?

We talked about cues and modifier cues and how we can use concepts that we teach the dogs to create

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