Karen Pryor: A Dog Training Legend
by Mary R. Burch, PhD, BCBA-D
Karen Pryor
A memorial from
Mary R. Burch, PhD, BCBA-D
Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist
Karen Pryor: A Dog Training Legend
May 14, 1932 – January 4, 2025
Karen Pryor, a leading pioneer and champion of the use of positive reinforcement techniques while working with both animals and people, died on January 4, 2025. For decades, she used her brilliant mind and behavioral procedures to train marine mammals, goldfish, ponies, hermit crabs, her mother, dog trainers, teachers, women with newborns, and more.
When Karen’s death due to dementia was announced, hundreds of dog trainers flocked to social media to tell about the time they met Karen at a dog training conference, about a conversation they had with her about how to use behavioral procedures in training, how they watched her use a clicker to train a dog she had never seen before in a matter of minutes, and perhaps best of all, they wrote about her kindness, positivity, and tendency to support and elevate all dog trainers.
Karen Pryor’s History
Karen started out as an English major who knew nothing about applied behavior analysis. Eventually known for her extraordinary writing, Karen was the daughter of Philip Wylie, who was a writer and screenwriter. It seems that writing was in Karen’s blood. In 1954, Karen married Tap Pryor, a marine biologist who founded Sea Life Park in Oahu, Hawaii. It was there that Karen began to work with marine mammals. She had an idea about training dolphins, but she was not yet a behaviorist and she wasn’t sure about where to start. Typical of Karen Pryor, she started at the top. She contacted B.F. Skinner, a leading authority on operant conditioning. Skinner sent manuals and training materials that taught Karen the basics of a field that was completely new to her. Before long, as a result of Skinner’s help and Karen’s extraordinary ambition, there were trained porpoises at Sea Life Park. Karen was eventually appointed to the U.S. Marine Mammal Commission by President Ronald Reagan.
In her lifetime, Karen used what she learned about behavior to write many books and articles on a variety of topics. Her 1963 book, “Nursing Your Baby,” changed the lives of millions of women with newborns and it is still an international best-seller. Written in 1984, Don’t Shoot the Dog remains a classic read for dog trainers and those interested in human and animal behavior. Don’t Shoot the Dog was one of Karen’s most popular books, and surprisingly, it has nothing to do with dogs. It is an easy-to-read book that explains how to use basic behavioral procedures to change behavior. Don’t Shoot the Dog addresses what to do with a grumpy gorilla, and how to handle a spouse who always comes home from work in a bad mood. In this landmark book, Karen described how she used extinction and differential reinforcement to shape on the behavior of her mother, who always complained on the phone. This simple example showed that Karen believed that reinforcement certainly isn’t just for dog training—it can be used with the people around us to improve relationships and make lives better.
Also included in Don’t Shoot the Dog are tips for dealing with a roommate who leaves dirty laundry all over the place, how to fix a faulty tennis swing, and more. As a classic, Don’t Shoot the Dog is a book worth reading and re-reading.
Connecting With Behavior Analysis
In the 1980s, nationally recognized behavior analyst and psychology professor Dr. Jon Bailey was fascinated with Carl Sagan. Sagan was an astronomer, planetary scientist, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, and author, but most of all, he was a science communicator who kept a television audience spellbound as he talked about the planets.
“We need a Carl Sagan for behavior analysis,” Bailey said, “someone who can take the science and explain it so that everyone understands it.” Within a few months of him saying that, an article appeared in Reader’s Digest. The article was an excerpt from the book “Don’t Shoot the Dog,” and it was by Karen Pryor. “We have our Carl Sagan and her name is Karen Pryor!!” Bailey exclaimed.
He found Karen and invited her to speak at the Florida Association for Behavior Analysis (FABA) conference, and amazingly, she was excited to do this. After her FABA presentation, the word got out, and she was invited to speak at the national Association for Behavior Analysis (now the Association for Behavior Analysis International – ABAI) in 1992.
Impact on Dog Training
Once she was equipped with a knowledge of behavior analysis, Karen began to have an impact on the world of dog training. She gave seminars and workshops and demonstrated how conditioned reinforcement works by using a clicker. She started Sunshine Books in 1992, and later founded Karen Pryor Clicker Training, Karen Pryor Academy, and the Clicker Expo. Along with the Clicker Expo, Karen Pryor Academy continues to offer certification and education for dog trainers.
Karen Pryor’s long-lasting impact will be the hundreds of thousands of people she influenced through her work. Before Karen Pryor, animal training was typically coercive and correction based. She was largely responsible (along with a few others) in the shift to using positive reinforcement (e.g., food rewards), conditioned reinforcement (e.g., clickers) and other systematic behavioral procedures in dog training.
Positive reinforcement and other basic behavioral procedures…. what Karen Pryor staunchly promoted and believed in was so simple, and yet so very profound.
Here is the link to Karen’s historic talk at the Association for Behavior Analysis conference in 1992:
Author’s Note: It is common when writing about a person to refer to them by their last name. In this case, I referred to “Karen” because she was a friend—a friend to me, and a friend to us all.
Mary R. Burch, PhD, BCBA-D
Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist
