More Chickens

(c) Copyright 2004, DogEars

Recently there have been some posts on the internet that address a long-standing question. But they have presented apocryphal caricatures of responses from completely irrelevant people, like Einstein and Machiavelli.

I figured that we need caricatures of those that really matter - people involved with dog training. Let me know if I got any of them right.

No disrespect is intended by any of these, and any resemblance to any persons living or dead is purely satirical.

In the event that any of those satirized here wish to refute or clarify, I guess that it would only be fair to include THEIR version of an EXTREMELY CONDENSED version of their style. Therefore, we now include a response from the Baileys!
To the rest of the great trainers mentioned here: DEFEND YOURSELF! Send me YOUR version!

This is an ongoing work in progress. Some of the entries do not yet adequately reflect their style. And there are many more that should be added, although I want to keep this specific to dog trainers and dog related e-mail lists. Therefore, no matter how funny, I probably won't include any about Bill Clinton, Bill Gates and money as a motivator, nor even Martha Stewart "It's a good thing.".

You are welcome to post or repost this freely, but it must include the copyright notice.

I am maintaining the master list at:

http://www.xenosoft.com/dogears/chicken.html
If you have suggestions for improvements, please send them to me at
chicken@xenosoft.com

Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?

Debi Davis:

No matter what adversity or road hazards the chicken has been through, the Chicken can find some positive methods to meet the goal of reaching the other side.

Pavlov:

Through conditioning to associate the action with a reward, road crossing became a conditioned reflex.

B.F. Skinner:

Because the R+ of road crossing exceeded the P- of NOT crossing.

Ingrid Newkirk (PETA)

I dream of the day when a ckicken can cross the road without having her motives questioned.

Bill Koehler:

Because he had been taught the consequences of NOT crossing the road.
or:
Because he had not been punished for crossing the road.

The Baileys:

Timing
Timing
YOU'RE LATE!
Timing
Timing
Timing
Repetition.

or:

Bob & Marian Bailey:
Because someone who was bigger, stronger, and smarter than the chicken trained it to cross the road.

But, in Marian Bailey's own words:

> "Because technicians at Animal Behavior Enterprises (our company)
> had set up a set of contingencies such that, in order to eat
> the grain offered on each side of the road, the chicken had to
> walk across the road, eat at a feeder, then walk back
> to the starting side, where it was again fed.
> OK?
> -- Marian Bailey"

Karen Pryor:

Any subject, even a chicken, properly reinforced can be trained to cross a road.

Terry Ryan:

To get a Bonus Bone.

Gary Wilkes:

Because that's where the target was.

Martha Hoffman:

It's 90% genetics. But a chicken with the right temperament can be readily trained to do it.

Jean Donaldson:

> The road, having signficant gravel, resembled the substrate that the ancestors of chickens,
> during their evolution, scratched at in order to obtain food. Cars, being large moving objects,
> resembled predators that the ancestors of chickens, during their evolution, fled from.
> Therefore, the chicken, finding himself on the road during foraging and then noticing
> a large object approaching, crossed the road.
> Chickens that do so, incidentally, produce more eggs, than the foraging chickens without the car-elicits-flight SSDR.

Border Collie list:

Because it was being herded.

Labrador-L List:

Perhaps it was actually being fetched across the road by a Lab?

Service-Dog list:

Every ADA compliant chicken has a legal right to cross the road!

HT-AIDE-Dog List:

How would you go about training that?

Internet e-mail list 1:

USE TRAINING COLLERS IS CRULE AND SHOULDN"T BE TOLRATED!!!

Internet e-mail list 2:

Me, too

Internet e-mail list 3:

Unscribe

Internet e-mail list 4:

I wish there wasn't so much flaming on this list. I just asked a simple question, and today I got half a dozen nasty posts that don't say anything but UNSUBSCRIBE!

Internet e-mail list 5:

On 12, October at 18:22, you wrote:
>> >>Pavlov:
>> >>Through conditioning to associate the action with a reward, road
> >>crossing
>> >>became a conditioned reflex.
> >>
>> >>B.F. Skinner:
>> >>Because the R+ of road crossing exceeded the P- of NOT crossing.
>> >>
>> >>Bill Koehler:
>> >>Because he had been taught the consequences of NOT crossing the road.
>> >>
>> >>On 12, October at 18:22, you wrote:
> >> >>Pavlov:
> >> >>Through conditioning to associate the action with a reward, road
> >> >>crossing
> >> >>became a conditioned reflex.
>Who are those people, and what makes them think that they know
anything about chickens?

Internet e-mail list 6:

I got this on another list:
>> > Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?
. . .

If you have suggestions for improvements, please send them to me at

chicken2@xenosoft.com

Copyright 2004, DogEars