It’s strange how inspiration works. For my book club selection next month, I chose an oldie but a goodie, Karen Pryor’s Don’t Shoot the Dog. I chose it for a variety of reasons. It is what animal trainers sometimes call “the Animal Training Bible”. This is a book I grew up reading in my career. It influenced me as an animal care specialist and zookeeper, and it is one of the inspirations for The Zookeeper’s Guide to Fitness (or whatever I’m calling it these days). I was curious how my friends in the book club would appreciate a self-help book over their normal selections of science-fiction, fantasy, and occasional memoir/autobiography. I am writing a self-help book. It’s kind of important for me to know how people will potential review my own book. Continue reading Reinforcement Versus Reward
Category: Books and articles
A Few Of My Favorite Books From 2017
Many of you know how much I love lists. So, to honor the end of 2017, here’s a list of all the fun books I read from the year.
Top Ten Favorite Books Continue reading A Few Of My Favorite Books From 2017
Big Magic
Once in a while a book comes along in my life and wraps me in a blanket of awesome revelations. Such it was with Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. Big Magic was a serendipitous choice from the library to keep me occupied while my books on hold arrived. 
Continue reading Big Magic
Complexity Involved in Saving Our Seas
If you are going to start a movement, like I am with ZooFit, Eating Green, Experience Nature, and Conservation Fitness, it’s important to get as much information as possible on the topics you are passionate about. When I started reading “Cartoon Introduction to Climate Change”, I also had another book I had borrowed from the library about the fishing issue, called “A World Without Fish”. This book was overwhelmingly helpful in understanding the complexity involved in saving our seas. Continue reading Complexity Involved in Saving Our Seas
Making Light of Climate Change
Whenever I discuss Conservation Fitness and turn the subject matter over to climate change, I often get feedback that I am too pessimistic and overshadow my program with doom and gloom. Frankly, climate change is a bit doom and gloom, but I understand people wanting a more light and positive approach to the problem. So when I came across a copy of “The Cartoon Introduction to Climate Change” at the library, I immediately thought it might be helpful. Continue reading Making Light of Climate Change
Positive Reinforcement for Punishing Situations
I’m reading an interesting book called Triggers: Creating Behaviors That Last, Becoming the Person You Want to Be by Marshall Goldsmith, and I just had the most interesting insight from reading the book. 
When discussing our most powerful triggers, they tend to be one of four specific types- Encouraging triggers (associated with what we want), discouraging triggers (what we don’t want), productive triggers (what we need), and counter-productive triggers (what we don’t need). 
Continue reading Positive Reinforcement for Punishing Situations
The Game is Afoot!
The past few weeks I have been engrossed in books with similar theme as A Zookeeper’s Guide to Fitness. I finished Level Up Your Life by Steve Kamb last week, and I’ve started on a new fitness/diet book called The Game On! Diet by Krista Vernoff and Az Ferguson. 
Vernoff is the executive producer (or is it Executive Producer, I’m asking for a friend) for Grey’s Anatomy, so she has a strong writing background, but I’m not digging her approach with the book. It was a little difficult to adjust to her style, although I understand her process. The book is about really having fun with your fitness, and taking things up a notch by not just turning our fitness into a game, but making it a team-oriented, competitive game as well. Continue reading The Game is Afoot!
Willpower- Part 2
Willpower is having the ability to do what you need to do, regardless if you feel like it or not. I concede, I falter on this virtue more often than I’d like to admit. It’s not even things I don’t want to do or don’t feel like doing. I’ll be super motivated to get something accomplished and the time comes for me to muster the willpower to finish, and I just collapse. Continue reading Willpower- Part 2
2017 To Read List
More lists to love!
If you ever need a book recommendation, I am your gal! This year, I have major plans to cut down on my To Read List in a major way. Continue reading 2017 To Read List
100 Ways of EarthFit- Day 94: What If We Poached Eggs Instead of Rhinos?
I’m reading a great and helpful book to get me revved up to write my cookbook. It’s called “The Joy of Writing a Great Cookbook” by Kimberly Yorio, who has been Jamie Oliver’s, Julia Child’s, and Emeril Lagasse’s publicist. She has seen thousands of cookbook proposals, and her book has helped me hone my craft a little, while taking some of the incredibly valuable lessons I learned in my Social Media workshop with Tom Trimbath. In a nutshell, I want to ask a poignant question to cooks, readers, food enthusiasts, and people who like to eat- “What if we poached eggs instead of rhinos?” Continue reading 100 Ways of EarthFit- Day 94: What If We Poached Eggs Instead of Rhinos?