Media release

The Australian Veterinary Association (AVA) will bring together veterinarians, veterinarian nurses, animal trainers and pet industry professionals from around the nation for two days with world renowned animal behaviourist Bob Bailey, who will share his unique insights into the fundamentals of animal training this weekend.

This is Bob’s first visit to Australia. He is well known for his method of teaching animal training techniques through training chickens. He has provided chicken training seminars where trainers teach poultry to discriminate between shapes, to navigate an obstacle course and to link behaviours together.

Bob’s philosophy on animal training is “simple but not easy” and he has been applying this in the training of animals and teaching of animal trainers for more than half a century.

AVA President Dr Barry Smyth said the conference provided an exciting opportunity for animal behaviour professionals in Australia to hear first-hand from such a prominent expert in the field.

“I’m sure all who attend the conference will leave with invaluable knowledge to further enrich their interactions with animals.”

During the conference he will present and demonstrate methods of operant training, where behaviour is modified from the association with a stimulus. He will use a variety of unusual tools and props including clickers, duct tape, empty toilet rolls, a timer, bowls, a police whistle and 500g of dry beans!

The conference is being held in Sydney at the Novotel Brighton Beach on 11 and 12 February.

During the conference, the AVA will be launching a month-long Polite Pets campaign to promote a comprehensive dog bite prevention approach which is based on a combination of scientifically proven reward-based training, socialisation, pet selection and children and parent education.

For more information on training techniques for pets visit the AVA website www.ava.com.au/polite-pets-month.

For interviews with Bob Bailey contact Andrew O’Shea on 0448 889 910.