Welcome to Kirsten’s Chicken Workshops

Kirsten Kraljevic:

So my name is Kirsten Kraljevic and I’ve been training animals for 35 years. I’ve mostly trained dogs, but I’ve worked with many species, horses, cats, pigs, chickens, all sorts of animals.

So what I do is I teach operant conditioning to animal trainers. People think operant conditioning is a method, but it really isn’t. It’s a natural phenomenon. That’s what happens when anybody learns an animal or a person. It happens without us.

If we’re not watching, that’s still how learning unfolds. A simple way to look at operant conditioning is that an organism is going to do more of what it finds rewarding and do less of what it finds punishing.

That’s an amoeba in a petri dish or that’s a person just going through life, right? So what we do in the course that I teach is we use chickens because chickens are what we call the perfect tabletop model to teach animal trainers operant conditioning.

Our courses are unique. They are developed to help the animal trainers with their mechanical skills, their timing, their criteria and the rate of reinforcement and all that can be incorporated into the development of their observational skills, right?

A lot of other courses you go to, you’re either watching other people train or you’re in a classroom learning theory. We put the principles in their hands. We put the technology in their hands and they prove it to themselves on the table.

Why chickens? Students don’t have a relationship with the chicken. The chicken is just out there trying to get you to give it some food. Chickens are opportunists, right? And we’re giving you a measuring cup with a clicker on the end to reward them.

They are working those students right and left and it is beautiful. You would think you would have to use a different batch of chickens every time. No, because each student is different and the chicken is figuring out how to get something out of that student.

The only reason I would say why with me is because I don’t know anyone who spent as much time as I have trying to get it right. That’s very honest.

I think there’s probably better trainers out there than me, more knowledgeable people, but I don’t think there’s anyone that wants it more than me or wants to stay as true to the technology.

So where are the workshops located? Our workshops are located in Mobile, Alabama. So Mobile does have very genuine southern hospitality, incredible seafood restaurants, Dauphin Island.

It’s just one of the last living gems of family beaches. People love it down there. We’re very close to the University of South Alabama.

I know a lot of people from Europe when they come here are looking for a place to walk. They walk way more than we do around here.

That’s a gorgeous campus to walk on. Like the South’s best kept secret, we actually started Mardi Gras, but don’t tell the people in New Orleans that.

And speaking of New Orleans, we have very similar cultures without that big city inconvenience.

If you want to go to New Orleans, it’s two hours away, but we prefer that you stay here and enjoy our hospitality.

People think they’ve gone to animal training workshops. They’ve sat in a classroom. They’ve listened to lectures. They’ve watched other people train.

I know of no other place where we put you right there. Mano a mano with that animal where you get to prove, you know, proof of concept of these principles that we give you.

You don’t need any experience to take this workshop.

And that’s the kicker right there, because sometimes it’s the people that haven’t had a lot of experience that do really well because they don’t have as much to let go of.

You have to remember, if you’ve been doing this a really long time, you have habits and beliefs that maybe you haven’t proven to yourself yet are not necessary.

I think the biggest thing that holds trainers back is ego. I really do.

It’s either the ego that tells you you can’t do this, you’re not good enough, or it’s the ego that tells you that you know everything and you’re not going to get a thing out of this class.

And the second your ego is in your way, you lose. Right. If you go in there just curious. Just be curious.

Just follow the exercises that we give you. And it’s loose. We don’t tell you how to train. We give you the principles.

Right. Because these principles are proven. Remember, this is happening.

This is a natural phenomenon of behavior change. It’s happening whether you think it is or not.

We just put language around it. You’re just figuring it out.

Right. And if you stay curious and you let yourself do that, you’re going to find a faster way, a faster way than you used to do, or a new way that you never knew possible.

You may want to change somebody’s behavior, you may really want to change something’s behavior, but the only behavior you really have the power to change is your own.

So in this class, we’re teaching you change your behavior fast, change your behavior fast. When you change your behavior, you can affect who you want to change.

Like your student or an animal, you can affect that. But you have to change first. Your behavior has to change first.

A lot of people don’t think about it like that. If someone’s on the fence about signing up for this course, I always tell them take the leap, take the leap and come to the course.

And I’ve never had anybody regret it. I’ve had people, I’ve had lots of people regret that they didn’t take them sooner.

Never to this day had anybody regret that they actually took the leap to take them.