"What Shamu taught me about a Happy marriage!"

That's the essay written by Amy Sutherland that has been the number one post on 'most emailed articles' of New York Times for a long time. It is not obnoxious as I thought it was when I first started reading it. It's very well-written and has got good humor - gives a different prespective of human behavior.
It is about the ideas that the writer got while she was writing her book on animal training and used them on her husband. The good thing that I liked is that she does not use the usual nagging technique nor is she trying to alter his behaviour passively/aggressively which are probably the common and easier approach to do when someone does things that you dont like. The description of Scott is so much familiar that it would remind you of someone you know (Nagesh, maybe !!!) and sometimes yourself too.
And It is extensible to others as well - I have found the LRS technique (Least reinforcing syndrome) to be working well on Nikitha (read it as 'sometimes' and not always) :

"When a dolphin does something wrong, the trainer doesn't respond in any way. He stands still for a few beats, careful not to look at the dolphin, and then returns to work. The idea is that any response, positive or negative, fuels a behavior. If a behavior provokes no response, it typically dies away."

So when Nikitha does something wrong and we ignore her, she moves on from that activity to something new, unlike the typical approach of saying "no"s and timeouts that never work as well.

It is worth a read (no wonder it has been on top of NY times list) and if you cant find the article there (if and when NYTimes archive it), let me know and l can email it to you. :-)