Glossary and Keywords

Because Partnership Engineering provides a new breed of consulting and teaching service to New England, we have included this reference list to discriminate Partnership Engineering's Will-Skill Program from other teaching modes.

Client Animals are:

Equine, Horse: All ages, breeds, genders, handicaps, and disciplines

Rescue Horse: previously wild, abused, neglected, or injured

Canine, Dog: All ages, breeds, genders, handicaps, and disciplines

Shelter Dog: previously abused, neglected, or injured (no wild dogs)

Exotic Animal: Mammals, Reptiles, Amphibians, Fish, Invertebrates

Animal Training: Traditional applications of pressure release and negative reinforcement that serve the primary goal of obedience.

Facilitation: The teacher's role in student-directed goals.

Operant Conditioning: Arbitrary experiences under the control of (operated by) the learner. Purpose of the learning is often unclear to the animal student.

Operant Teaching: Arbitrary experiences that are presented by the teacher, but which are under the control of the learner. Purpose of the goal is clear to animal. This is the preferred teaching mode at PE. At PE, we are not "trainers". We are "teachers/facilitators." Partnership Engineering uses methods that explore animal capabilities to heal themselves, and to apply their untapped potential to performance.

Behavior Shaping: Operant Conditioning

Clicker Training: Rudimentary Operant Conditioning

Motivation: Something a person or an animal wants. Avoiding something that is unwanted does not act as a true motivation.

Conscious Behavior: manner of acting where choices are rationally derived

Unconscious Behavior: manner of acting where choices were rationally derived at some point in the past, and have self promoted.

Behaviorist: One who studies the causes for and solutions to behavioral anomaly and challenging personalities.

Animal Psychological Rehabilitation: Behavior assessment, diagnosis and treatment (via operant teaching) to achieve stable and rational behavior.

Horse Whisperer: Experts in the methods of pressure release to achieve calm acceptance of a dominant authority. About one fifth of the PE skills are based in horse whisperer teachings.

Natural Horsemanship: A catchall category for a multitude of methods of "kinder" methods of horse management. PE methods are not based on any of the popular natural horsemanship methods.