#animal training

[nightmare-from-heaven]

If you want your creature to do super cute thing!

Start responding to one specific action of theirs. Choose an action that you think is really cute. Give them Thing They Want (scritches, picked up, walk, toy play, etc) when they do Cute Action. Real consistently at first; it's inconvenient but shows them it wasn't a fluke. And omg it's worth it.

It takes paying attention to them, but that is literally the entire training process. They do Cute Behavior. You give Thing They Want.

The biggest challenges are 1) paying attention to them in the background, and 2) being clear and consistent with tonality/words/body. Say your same praise words in the same tone each time, and move your body the same way - doesn't have to be big or loud - remember that they speak body language unbelievably fluently! I've trained horses, dogs, cats, cows, pigs, goats, domestic birds, wild birds, snakes, lizards, insects, fish, and other animals I'm not thinking of. It all works on this same premise.

They do Cute Behavior, they get Thing They Want. They will pick it up, real quick.

Smart baby

[orcinus-veterinarius]

Learning anything about marine mammal training will make you re-evaluate so much of your relationship with your own pets. There is so much force involved in the way we handle domestic animals. Most of it isn’t even intentional, it just stems from impatience. I’m guilty of it myself!

But with the exception of certain veterinary settings where the animal’s health is the immediate priority, why is it so important to us that animals do exactly what we want exactly when we want it? Why do we have to invent all these tools and contraptions to force them to behave?

When a whale swam away from a session, that was that. The trainer just waited for them to decide to come back. If they flat out refused to participate in behaviors, they still got their allotment of fish. Nothing bad happened. Not even when 20-30 people were assembled for a procedure, and the whale chose not to enter the medical pool. No big deal. Their choice and comfort were prioritized over human convenience.

It’s almost shocking to return to domestic animal medicine afterwards and watch owners use shock collars and chokers and whips to control their animals. It’s no wonder that positive reinforcement was pioneered by marine mammal trainers. When you literally can’t force an animal to do what you want, it changes your entire perspective.

I want to see that mindset extended to our domestic animals.

[prokopetz]

Some of y'all are clearly not teaching your cats what an appropriate level of bite force is.

[flameraven]

Something I've been doing with my cats, that I think could be helpful for other owners, is training them with physical signals as well as possible verbal cues.

For me I do three light taps on the belly before I pick them up, and light taps on their back if I need to get up.

I started doing this because I had one cat who hates being picked up and gets REALLY wiggly when she is. She was a stray for several years and so we assume she reads it as a predator attack. And you know, honestly I would *also* appreciate a heads up before a giant creature lifted me into the sky. So I started doing the taps, and she's gotten a lot better with it. She still doesn't LIKE it, but she'll let me pick her up and hold her for a few seconds before she gets wiggly.

They've been very receptive to the back taps also, learning to move off my lap after, so I can get up from the couch without feeling like I'm suddenly yeeting them from their cozy naps.

Anyway, I feel like it's really improved our communication, so I thought I'd share.

[fablepaint]

I've been interested in animal training since i was a kid. And with Dirac, I have an opportunity to learn from a pro. She came over yesterday and we went over a few exercises for us to practice together.

Helpful for keeping shoots fun for D and giving him tools to tell me "no. im bored/anxious, im done". And getting guidance on how to best socialize him so noises and strangers are no biggie.

Here he is learning to come towards a beeping sound. It took him no time at all for him learn that beep meant "treat here!!" despite the scary loud.

[just-troy0-0]

Rabbits in Training!!!!

[artemisblackwing]

Here is a Boring Training Video with Hugin

I don't post as much about Hugin because we're advancing through training rather slowly with him because he was 4 years old when he came to us a few months ago. He was used to taking treats from people, but was never handled. This video was taken in September. Just yesterday he voluntarily placed a foot on my arm, so things are going well. Our hope is that we can eventually take him out and about with Munin.

[blueboyluca]

At no time should our lack of skill or lack of familiarity with a less intrusive procedure give us the rationale for being more coercive or more forceful… So if you don’t know how to do it with less intrusiveness, then you find someone who does do it with less intrusiveness and they get to coach you, be the person who helps you learn how to do it. So we don’t want our lack of skill to be the reason why we’re pushing animals around.

Susan Friedman, Live from The Ranch

[sparkylurkdragon]

The cats sang a chorus tonight requesting After Dinner Attention, so I decided some Tricks were in order. I separated them so they wouldn't distract each other - when I was working with one, the other was in the bedroom. (This involved Pick You Up and Urist was Mad, but she got over it.)

Miss Urist remembers all of hers and was Very Excited about them (we haven't had training sessions for a bit because I've been focused on getting Phoenix used to husbandry training). She was so good at it that she did Spin (clockwise), then immediately did 'reverse' Spin (counterclockwise) without being cued! (I waited until I cued her to do it again to click-treat her for it, but it was super cute.)

Phoenix so far knows Sit (because he learned it during husbandry training for Let Me See Eyes/Ears/Teeth), is already good at Mark ('touch the clicker with your nose'), and is working on Sit Pretty and Spin.

Sit Pretty I'm teaching him the same way I taught Urist, by holding a treat above his head just out of reach, but he needs to work on just sitting pretty and not wildly flailing at the treat. We made okay progress - I managed to click him when was just raising his forefeet off the ground tonight.

Spin is in the very earliest stages; right now I'm working on teaching him to turn his head to follow the treat. Hopefully soon enough he'll try to follow it by walking.

They both did really well!

[heu-ris-tic]

I want to follow more animal enrichment/training type blogs!! Idk how active anyone is anymore but, like this post if you see it and I'll follow you :)?

[acti-veg]

Is it bad or abusive to teach your pet tricks?

If you were teaching tricks to some animals as an entertainment event like a professional dog show or a circus then that’d be a different thing, but just teaching tricks as an exercise with your pet isn’t exploitative in and of itself. I’d actually encourage it, so long as it isn’t done in any way that would stress out the animal and that you stop when it’s clear they don’t want to be doing it. Done properly it promotes good behaviour, it’s good mental stimulation for your pet, it can be really fun for them and it’s a great bonding exercise. You should know your pet enough to be able to tell if they’re enjoying something or are not in the mood. So long as the trick isn't uncomfortable or unhealthy for them to perform, and there is no force involved or punishment for failure then I don't see the harm.

[thejunglenook]

Real behavior modification with any species isn't flashy before & afters. It's slow to go fast & creating real emotional changes.

[spoonful116]

There are 3 main types of assistive animals: therapy animals, service dogs, and emotional support animals. I'm taking a look at each type and some of the similarities and differences

[woodsfae]

My friend has a cat called Kiwi who loves the outdoors, but has no recall (hasn't been trained to come when called), so whenever she manages to bum-rush the door and get outside, she gets really hyped and runs around and it takes forever to catch her.

But, when I have been visiting my friend the last few weeks, I've been demonstrating very basic clicker training/positive reinforcement for training recall, for cooperative putting-a-harness-on, and general handler attention. I've only given this kitty about four, very short training sessions (less than 5 minutes...ideal length! But really, very beginning stages). Today when a maintenance person for the apartment came in carelessly, Kiwi got out. My friend had a hysterectomy 3 weeks ago tomorrow and isn't allowed to bend at the waist for weeks yet, so I went to catch the cat.

When I went outside with the clicker and some treats and called Kiwi, she came running! My heart was so warmed! Then, since she was overaroused, she bolted past me and went and crouched by the outside of her favorite window. I clicked the clicker, and she froze. The unconscious response and attention to the click, which always heralds a treat, worked a charm. I went over, picked her and up put her inside with a treat jackpot to reinforce all of those great behaviors she exhibited: handler attention, recall, and emotional self-regulation.

Any amount of positive reinfrocement training is SO helpful. It's enrichment and helps them be happier, more interested, and engaged kitties. It helps in emergencies. It let me catch her in two mintues instead of two hours. And when we went inside and I initiated some training games, she was so interested in them, and in interacting with me and cooperatively communicating about the training game.

My heart is overflowing with happiness today. It was lovely to be reminded so clearly that any amount of training is beneficial to the animal and their human friends. Kiwi's person was delighted to see how much our tiny bit of training helped the situation. More positive reinforcement at work!

[artemisblackwing]

How to Get a Bird Back When it Flies Away

(This applies to corvids, parrots, and some other birds.)

I have heard people say that if your bird flies away you'll never get it back, but if you know what to do parrots and corvids are some of the easiest birds to get back.

Here are a few ideas about what to do:

Watch direction of flight so even if it flies out of sight, you know what direction to start looking in. Depending on the type of bird and how frightened it is, the bird may fly miles before landing.

If a bird is frightened, it is likely to fly in a fairly straight line away from whatever upset it.

DO NOT LEAVE YOUR BIRD even if you have waited for hours below it and it hasn't flown down to you. If night falls, and you are unable to stay with the bird, make absolutely sure you are back before dawn when the bird will wake up. The bird is very likely to fly somewhere new at dawn, or start looking for you. I can't stress this enough: you need almost unreasonable amounts of patience. It may take your bird many hours (perhaps even days) to fly down to you, but don't lose hope. (If you don't know for sure where the bird is, make sure you start looking for it again at dawn.)

Have someone else go get treats to lure the bird down, or its cage if that is available. (If the bird likes its cage, that can act as a lure.)

Things you can do to prepare for this ahead of time:

Teach your bird to come to its name.

Teach it to fly down to you. ("Stepping up" and flying upwards to you are not equivalent to flying down. Flying down takes different skills.)

Record its calls, so you can replay them for it when it flies off. If you can't see the bird or the bird can't see you, you can replay the recordings to help call it to you.

If your bird has unclipped wings, but never flies because its wings were clipped so young that it doesn't know how, either keep its wings clipped or teach it to fly. Otherwise it may spontaneously fly off your shoulder when its outside and not know how to fly back to you.