Keller Breland, a student of B. F. Skinner's, was unable to get an academic position after receiving his Ph.D. from Harvard. This was not uncommon for Skinner's students in the 40's and 50's--students of Skinner's "rival," Clark Hull, owned most major graduate programs, and actively discriminated against "Skinnerians" (at least this is the story I heard in graduate school from my "Skinnerian" professors!). Be that as it may, Keller and his wife Marion took their skills out to California and became professional animal trainers.

I remember as a kid growing up in L.A. seeing a commercial from a local bank in which a pig picked up a coin in its mouth, carried it over to a piggy bank, and deposited it. I remember being pretty impressed with it, and wondered how they got the pig to do it. Years later, I found out that the Breland's had conditioned the pig, as well as many of the animals in Disney movies (this was before Disney started hiding phallic images in their movies).

So, the Brelands have talent, but how do you convince a CEO of a bank to hire you to make a commercial like this ? (Remember, this is 50 years ago, and the general public is largely unaware of how animals can be trained.) What Breland did was invite one of his potential clients to come to a demonstration. He placed one of his highly trained chickens on a platform, with a string in its mouth. The string was attached to the trigger of a gun. The gun was pointed at Breland's head while he talked about what he could train animals to do. At some point, he paused, stepped aside, and the chicken pulled the string, firing the gun into a target, just where Breland's head had been seconds before. He then explained that this chicken had been trained to pull the string when he saw a target, which had been hidden by Breland's head until he moved aside. Breland had trusted his life to his belief in the power of lawful relationships in behavior. Supposedly, he made the sale

One of my professors in graduate school said that Breland later admitted that the gun had blanks. Perhaps, but it's still a good story.

Tom