The Animal Behavior Center, LLC

The Animal Behavior Center, LLC We are an international educational center empowering animals and the people who care for them.
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Lara is the owner of The Animal Behavior Center, LLC, with a location in Ohio and in Michigan. She presents workshops at the Center and worldwide, travels, lectures, teleconferences, and consults, focusing on positive reinforcement interactions and modifying behavior through applications in behavior analysis. She is also the Director of Training for a wildlife rehabilitation center where she focus

es on taking stress out of animal environments. Lara is a professional member of The Animal Behavior Management Alliance, The International Association of Avian Trainers and Educators, and sits on the Advisory Board for All Species Consulting and The Indonesian Parrot Project. She is also a past board member of Nature’s Nursery, a wildlife rehabilitation center. She is a published author and writes regularly for several periodicals, including The Pet Professional Guild’s BARKS for professional dog trainers, and contributes to blogging for Deaf Dogs Rock. Lara has presented for a wide variety of animal care organizations such as The Philadelphia Zoo, The Ohio State Exotic Veterinary Club, The Association of Avian Veterinarians, Michigan State University's Veterinary Behavior Club, and The Wheaton College division of Applied Behavior Analysis. For more information,​ visit her website at TheAnimalBehaviorCenter.com.

I hope to see you there. Our room is booked! Yes, ours. Me and the animal educator coming with me to the workshop I'm gi...
08/28/2026

I hope to see you there. Our room is booked! Yes, ours. Me and the animal educator coming with me to the workshop I'm giving. ;)

My online consultations across species are really filling up.I’m not sure how I feel about that.It means a lot of people...
08/27/2026

My online consultations across species are really filling up.

I’m not sure how I feel about that.

It means a lot of people and animals are struggling with behavioral conflicts. Let me help reduce that struggle and give you a clear place to begin.

Behavior is information.

When we understand what is happening, what may be maintaining the behavior, and what needs to change first, life can become a lot easier for them and for us.

Concerned about a behavior and not sure where to start?

In a one-on-one online consultation, we’ll look at the behavior, the environment, the patterns, and the next steps.

You’ll receive clear guidance and a practical behavior-change plan you can begin implementing right away, grounded in the science of behavior and positive reinforcement.

Online consultations are available worldwide for a wide range of animals and behavior concerns.

If you’re ready for a clear plan of implementation, schedule an online consultation.

https://www.theanimalbehaviorcenter.com/consultations/

Referring to the animal community, I've been told more than once, “Employees are expendable. Everyone wants this job.”I ...
08/27/2026

Referring to the animal community, I've been told more than once, “Employees are expendable. Everyone wants this job.”

I was shocked by this comment and voiced my disagreement immediately. The questions I asked started flowing...

For how long will they want it? What is your turnover? How much time and money are you losing by constantly hiring, retraining, and starting over?

When people work in an environment that does not value their passion, experience, or education, you do not just lose employees.

You lose creativity. •. You lose continuity. •. You lose leadership.

You lose people who understand the position deeply enough to improve it. And eventually, that loss shows up in the work.

A strong team is not built by assuming people are replaceable. It is built by recognizing what good people bring to the table, giving them a reason to stay, and creating an environment where their knowledge and investment can grow.

•. Hiring fills a position. •. Valuing people builds a future.

🐊 An alligator’s face is astonishingly sensitive. And those of you who follow the work we do already know this.Fact: Cro...
08/25/2026

🐊 An alligator’s face is astonishingly sensitive. And those of you who follow the work we do already know this.

Fact: Crocodilians have thousands of tiny integumentary sensory organs around the jaws. Experiments found that their mechanical sensitivity can exceed that of primate fingertips. They detect touch and water movement with remarkable precision.

Why it matters: That armored-looking face is actually a sophisticated sensory surface.

If you've ever seen me working with my gators, I show this during training by gently touching a stick to the ground or in the water next to their snout. Bam! Snapping jaws clamping together.

Evolution is nothing short of amazing.

08/23/2026

I’ll be joined by Dr. Jason Crean, Dr. Tatiana Tatum, and Dr. Jamie Abete for a special Coffee with the Critters discussion connected with the Avian Nutrition Summit 2026.
We’ll be talking about nutrition, health, foraging, behavior, the microbiome, current evidence, and some of the questions we still need science to answer.
Have a question about avian nutrition or feeding? Bring it with you and add it to the comments during the livestream.

What we feed parrots matters.But how they obtain food, what they do with it, how it affects behavior, and what opportuni...
08/21/2026

What we feed parrots matters.

But how they obtain food, what they do with it, how it affects behavior, and what opportunities feeding creates matter too.

This weekend, the Avian Nutrition Summit 2026 is bringing together professionals from veterinary medicine, nutrition, research, behavior, zoo animal care, conservation, and aviculture in Orlando, Florida.

You can register here: https://biobirdblends.company.site/AVIAN-NUTRITION-SUMMIT-2026-p817735206

Sunday morning, I’ll be joined remotely by several of the summit speakers for a special Coffee with the Critters discussion.

We’ll talk about avian nutrition beyond the contents of the bowl.
And I want to hear where the experts agree, differ, and still have questions.

Sunday, August 23 at 9:30 AM ET
Coffee with the Critters
Free on Facebook and YouTube.

Registration for The Parrot Project is currently closed while we welcome a small group into the updated member experienc...
08/21/2026

Registration for The Parrot Project is currently closed while we welcome a small group into the updated member experience.

I’ve been carefully constructing and designing this next phase of The Parrot Project for months, and I’m beyond excited to finally see it coming together. This has taken a massive amount of dedicated work and more hours at my computer than I care to count.

I’m rolling this out carefully because I want every new member to receive the attention, support, and quality they deserve. We only take on what we can give our best to.

Doors will reopen soon.

I went to the North American Bear Center expecting to watch the bears.I found myself watching the people.I was intereste...
08/19/2026

I went to the North American Bear Center expecting to watch the bears.

I found myself watching the people.

I was interested in the bears, their environments, enrichment, and cooperative care training. But I also paid close attention to the staff, interns, and volunteers.

I notice what people understand, what they observe, how they explain information, and how they respond when someone asks a question.

What I saw was impressive.

The people I interacted with were knowledgeable, professional, engaged, and clearly understood the work they were doing.

That tells me something important about an organization.

Values are easy to put in a mission statement.

They are much harder to build into daily behavior.

In animal care, values show up in what people actually do: how they provide enrichment, respond to behavior, teach new skills, design environments, make welfare decisions, and communicate with others.

Training is not complete because information was delivered.

It is complete when the knowledge starts showing up in observable behavior.

Working with animals has taught me this repeatedly:

If you want to know what an organization truly values, look at what people are actually doing. Look at how the animals are interacting....or not.

What behaviors tell you the most about an organization’s culture?

08/16/2026

This Sunday on Coffee with the Critters, I will be joined by Dr. Lauryn Benedict, professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Northern Colorado and a researcher of animal communication and social behavior. Her work explores how individual birds use vocalizations in different environmental and social contexts, and how birds adjust their vocal signals through time. She is a leader of the Many Parrots project, which collaborates with parrot enthusiasts to explore what companion animals can teach us about the evolution of vocal learning and animal cognition. Learn about the ManyParrots project and how you can contribute!

Your parrot says someone’s name. Is the bird simply repeating a sound that has been reinforced over time, or does the bi...
08/15/2026

Your parrot says someone’s name. Is the bird simply repeating a sound that has been reinforced over time, or does the bird actually use that sound to refer to a particular individual?

This Sunday on Coffee with the Critters, I’m talking with Dr. Lauryn Benedict, Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Northern Colorado and a researcher of bird communication and social behavior. She is also part of the Many Parrots Project, which studies vocal learning and cognition using information contributed by companion parrots.

That is exactly the kind of question researchers are beginning to investigate.
This Sunday on Coffee with the Critters, I’m talking with Dr. Lauryn Benedict, Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Northern Colorado and a researcher of bird communication and social behavior. She is also part of the Many Parrots Project, which studies vocal learning and cognition using information contributed about companion parrots.

One of Dr. Benedict’s recent studies examined reports from hundreds of companion parrots and found evidence consistent with some parrots using names as individual vocal labels. Importantly, the study also leaves plenty of unanswered questions, which is exactly what makes this conversation interesting.

We’ll talk about what parrots can teach science about communication, what researchers can and cannot conclude from these observations, and why people living with parrots can be valuable contributors to research. Learn about the ManyParrots project, and how you can contribute!

Sunday, August 16 at 9:30 AM ET
Coffee with the Critters
Free on Facebook and YouTube.

Address

P. O. Box 105
Lambertville, MI
48144

Telephone

(419) 360-1234

Website

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