Nagging. We all hate it, but sometimes it seems that we’re stuck with it. Our women wants us to ‘improve’ while we’re happy being men. Hang in there, buddy. Look what a woman writer just learned: “So, like many wives before me, I ignored a library of advice books and set about improving him. By nagging, of course, which only made his behavior worse: he’d drive faster instead of slower; shave less frequently, not more; and leave his reeking bike garb on the bedroom floor longer than ever.”

Amy Sutherland says this in her article ‘What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage’ in the New York Times. Apparently she learned how to stop nagging from exotic animal trainers.

Then something magical happened. For a book I was writing about a school for exotic animal trainers (Kicked, Bitten and Scratched), I started commuting from Maine to California, where I spent my days watching students do the seemingly impossible: teaching hyenas to pirouette on command, cougars to offer their paws for a nail clipping, and baboons to skateboard.

I listened, rapt, as professional trainers explained how they taught dolphins to flip and elephants to paint. Eventually it hit me that the same techniques might work on that stubborn but lovable species, the American husband.

The central lesson I learned from exotic animal trainers is that I should reward behavior I like and ignore behavior I don’t. After all, you don’t get a sea lion to balance a ball on the end of its nose by nagging. The same goes for the American husband.

Back in Maine, I began thanking Scott if he threw one dirty shirt into the hamper. If he threw in two, I’d kiss him. Meanwhile, I would step over any soiled clothes on the floor without one sharp word, though I did sometimes kick them under the bed. But as he basked in my appreciation, the piles became smaller.