Episode 370 Catching Up Pt 3 Pre-performance Rituals, and 300 Peck Pigeons

About this episode

The episode discusses pre-performance rituals and the importance of environmental cues in training.

In 2025 Dominique needed to take some time off over the summer. I went ahead and did a series of interviews, including one with Dr Claire St Peter and Dr Carol Pilgrim, episodes 349 to 351. We were talking about stimulus control. Those episodes aired in the fall. The episode you’re about to listen to was supposed to air back in the fall as well, but somehow it fell between the cracks and we moved on with other interviews instead. Now we’re airing that conversation. In Part 1 we talked about the standard instructions for teaching cues and the way that I prefer to teach them. The standard instructions make use of extinction. I prefer to teach behaviors in pairs. I make use of a very powerful reminder: for every exercise there is an opposite exercise you must teach to keep things in balance. The result is strong stimulus control. In Part 2 Dominique asked about learning what to click. When you are first starting out and you’ve never taught a behavior before, how do you know what to click? How do you avoid making a total mess of your stimulus control because you are clicking so many different versions of the behavior you’re after. We talked about becoming a selective sifter. Even…

People in this episode

Guests: Dr Claire St Peter, Dr Carol Pilgrim

Topics covered

• pre-performance rituals
• stimulus control
• environmental cues

Keywords

• 300 Peck Pigeons
• behavior training
• clicker training

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Catching Up Pt 3 Pre-performance

More episodes of Equiosity

• Episode 378 The Very Best Behavior Part 2 Still, Calm, Relaxed - For Longer · June 12, 2026 · 45 min
• Episode 377 The Very Best Behavior! Grown-Ups Part 1 · June 4, 2026 · 52 min
• Episode 376 Michele Pouliot Pt 3- To Click or Not To Click · May 29, 2026 · 57 min
• Episode 375 Michele Pouliot Pt 2 Protecting Enthusiasm · May 21, 2026 · 52 min
• Episode 374 Michele Pouliot Pt 1 Clicker Training and Competition - Bringing the Two Together · May 15, 2026 · 48 min
• Episode 373 A Clicker Expo Wrap Up Part 3 - Training Traps and a Backstage Pass · May 8, 2026 · 48 min