Focus on what you want – Karolina Westlund
Podcast outline
- 0.00. Introductions
- 3.45. Why mixing perspectives is beneficial to your understanding of animal behaviour.
- 8.40. Understanding animal emotions makes for better training and higher welfare.
- 15.40. How to prevent and reduce fear in the veterinary clinic.
- 22.45. When to use negative reinforcement to improve welfare.
- 33.05. Using memes to spread the word about animal training and welfare.
Karolina Westlund
Karolina grew up pining for a kitten for several years, and pestering her parents until they gave up. The green-eyed black half siamese cat that she got for her seventh birthday became a true friend who lived to be 21 years old, but an easily startled cat who often went into hiding when there were visitors and a great teacher for the young Karolina.
Karolina had grand ideas about becoming a field biologist, but that never came about – the closest she got was working as a nature travel guide in France and Madeira. She studied primate conflict resolution behaviour for her phD, and with this background in primatology, combined with behaviour analysis, started working with primate behaviour management. She is now an Associate Professor of Ethology at the University of Stockholm, with a passion for teaching how behaviour management can be used to improve animal welfare. She started presenting her ideas online in late 2015, launching her blog. Nowadays she offers live workshops, online courses and free webinars as well as the occasional blog post. She lives in Stockholm, Sweden, with her husband, two kids, and an ongoing argument as to whether living with a cat is a good idea.
CLICK HERE to read Karolina’s blog post on “Why you should behave as if animals have feelings even if you don’t believe that they do”
CLICK HERE to read Karolina’s blog post on Meme’s
In the podcast Karolina said “what may be a problem to you could actually serve some purpose to the animal”. In this film (and accompanying blog post), she shows/discusses one way of addressing problem behaviour that’s fun, teaches the animal something and improves the human-animal relationship. Focus on what you want.