Episode 368 Catching Up With Dominique Part 1 Stimulus Control

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. We talked with Dr. Stephanie Jones, Sofia Abuin and Lucy Butler about control, coercion and empathy. After that, in the run-up to the Clicker Expo we did an interview with Chirag Patel.
And now finally here’s Part One of a three part conversation that Dominique and I had after Dominique listened to the interview with Dr Pilgrim and Dr St Peter. You might want to listen to those episodes first, but it is by no means necessary for you to have heard that conversation for you to be able to follow along here.
The conversation with Dr Pulgrim and Dr St Peter sparked lots of questions for Dominique.
We begin by comparing the standard instructions for teaching cues and stimulus control with 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.
Another expression that I refer to frequently when we talk about cues is cues evolve out of the teaching process. The standard instructions for teaching cues distorts the handlers ability to see cues as they are evolving. We need to be noticing what our horse is noticing and this old way of teaching cues is taking us in the opposite direction.
Several stories illustrate how the teaching behaviors in pairs works to generate well understood, reliable cues.