In this visit with the Animal Care Staff at the San Diego Zoo, I worked with the team on what “genuine choice” and “assent” can look like in day-to-day training. We used Israel Goldiamond’s Degrees of Freedom model as a practical framework for evaluating whether an animal truly has workable options in the moment—or whether the environment, our criteria, or our reinforcement arrangement is quietly narrowing those options. I also spent time with the group doing concept analysis, because the words we use matter: if we’re not precise about what we mean by choice, assent, and participation, it’s easy to talk past each other. We also got into real training details—like letting an animal choose the reinforcer “for that time,” building strong reinforcement history around a location (“all the good things come up here”), and using larger pieces to slow sessions down so the animal can succeed and the audience can actually observe. In the workshop examples, we looked at how animals sample an environment first, how motivation shows up (like being highly food-motivated and attentive to keepers), and how problem-solving can change our original plan (for example, a digging puzzle that becomes a “pick it up with my mouth” solution). The big takeaway: assent isn’t a slogan—it’s something we design and protect through our training mechanics.