Why Animal Training

I like reading about animal training for the same reason that I like reading about very ancient history: it's relevant to the material that more often concerns me, but there are fewer factors to keep track of.

Animal training is focused on how to create new habits and reinforce them and... not much else. No one is concerned with equipping dolphins with such lasting inspiration that in a moment of crisis they will be motivated to make self-sacrificing moral decisions -- as we are in educating humans.

On the other hand, educating people also involves establishing and reinforcing habits (say please). So it's interesting to me to see which techniques do and don't work for other creatures in this one specific area.

Questions.
1a. Maybe because humans are moral creatures, it's not right to draw comparisons after all.
1b. If the answer to 1a is that it isn't, what would the Kuzari say about Jewish education?
2a. Where is the line between training in good habits, and manipulation? -- in other words, if I fling fish at you every time you remember to say please, does that make me a cult leader?
3. If the answer to 2 is yes, is it because I have reduced what should be a moral decision to an animal instinct?

Equestrian Vaulting Horse Training

On that note, here's another curious publication on animal education.

Here's a very thorough explanation of how to train a horse for equestrian vaulting:

Pyramid of Training

Questions:
1.) Which of the methods of training a horse for equestrian vaulting are applicable in human education?

2.) Equestrian vaulting as a sport developed significantly in Germany. I'm curious how much of the philosophy behind the horse-training is recognizably Prussian/German.
There is an article on the German-ness of equestrian vaulting here.

Dolphin Training

Sea World very kindly publishes an entire manual with their methods for training animals.

Animal Training InfoBook

Q. Which methods used for training dolphins are applicable to educating humans?

Pouch Practice

Because why not start off a blog with baby kangaroos...?

חנך לנער על־פי דרכו גם כי־יזקין לא־יסור ממנה
Mishlei (Proverbs) 22:6 -- 'Educate a child according to his path; even when he ages he will not turn away from it.'

There are various ways to translate this. One is that you should educate a person with his future in mind. What is the path this child is going to walk? Educate him accordingly.

For instance, if one thing he is going to really need in life is the ability to jump into pouches, make sure you address that. --