Who is Dr. Bob Bailey?
Pictured Above: Bob Bailey, first Director of Training of the U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program, at the U.S. Navy Dolphin Facility, Pt. Mugu, California, circa 1964. Retrieving objects on command was a simple task taught all of the Navy’s dolphins. The ball retrieval exercise is an early stage of object retrieval under stimulus control.
Dr. Robert E. (Bob) Bailey calls himself a systems analyst/engineer. He has 68 years of experience studying and training animals. His academic background is in Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Engineering. Dr. Bailey designed and built specialized devices, he planned behavior training programs, he taught animal trainers, and he trained animals.
His primary mentors were Keller and Marian Breland (later, Marian Bailey), who were students of B. F. Skinner. The Brelands and Baileys demonstrated that animal training can be a technology if practitioners are willing to practice certain principles and procedures based on the science of how animals, and we, learn.
Bob’s resume is an impressive collection of state-of-the-art hardware development and construction and innovative behavioral programs. His many years observing wild animals in the field may have given him a unique perspective of what animals did, and why. This translated to more humane and more effective training programs. Perhaps it is Bailey’s depth of experience, and his caring for animals, people, and the technology, that guided him to develop a very effective “Socratic” teaching persona – he questions.
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Interview with Nick Benger
Bob Bailey is a key figure in the development of animal training as it is known today. He is well known for his work in training animals for the US military including dolphins and pigeons. He also ran Animal Behavior Enterprises alongside Marian Breland for 35 years where they trained animals for theme parks, zoos and aquariums. Bob famously ran ‘Chicken Camp’ where trainers came to improve their skills by training chickens under his guidance.
In this podcast, Bob and Nick Benger discuss the history of animal training and how Bob got involved in it and became one of the pioneers of modern training. Bob shares stories of training coyotes, collecting animals in his youth and befriending Walt Disney.
Click below to listen to the podcast.
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