The training process clearly demonstrates how you can use a simple behavior (touching a small square target) to train something more complex (having the dog stick her head into a pot). By starting out with a behavior the dog already knows (touching the target) the learning process is nearly errorless because this original behavior can be used and shaped into the new behavior. Watch in the video how the trainer gradually lowers the target into the pot and also, importantly, how the trainer gradually fades out his hand.

Many dogs pay attention to not just the target, but also that the target is connected to the trainer’s hand. If he had dropped the target into the pot and abruptly taken his hand away, the dog might have gotten a bit confused at first. Instead, the progression of teaching steps are nearly seamless and carefully guide the dog toward the final behavior. For more ideas of behaviors you can teach to dogs (and horses, fish and other animals) using targeting, check out this post.

Watch on Youtube: The Russians are coming!

I always like clicker training videos that clearly show all the steps that went into training a particular behavior. If you know of other great videos that do a good job of breaking down the training process so that it’s easy to see the steps the trainer used to teach the behavior, let me know. I like sharing these kinds of videos because I think they help clicker trainers learn about good shaping and get new ideas for how to train fun behaviors.

As many of you know, I’m part of ORCA (the Organization for Reinforcement Contingencies with Animals) at UNT. Much of what ORCA does is research, training and community service. However, one of our other missions is to educate the public about positive training. We do this at our big annual animal training conference and by giving presentations to community groups and organizations. Last semester, two other ORCA members and I gave a presentation to the university’s pre-vet club. We had a lot of fun getting to chat with the pre-vet students about animal training. One thing we discussed was the huge impact that positive training has had on zoo animals.

Zoo animal care is one area where clicker training and positive reinforcement training have made a huge difference in improving the lives of animals. Many zoos today have comprehensive training programs where keepers and veterinarians train animals to voluntarily participate during many husbandry or medical procedures. This can be from something as basic as training a giraffe to move from one enclosure to the next enclosure to something as complex as training a chimpanzee to sit perfectly still while a veterinarian draws a blood sample.

Before positive training came to zoos, many zoos had to dart or sedate animals for routine procedures such as yearly vaccinations. Or, animals had to be forced to comply when keepers needed them to move between pens, get into travel crates, or perform other tasks.

Clicker training and positive reinforcement training have given zoos tools so that they can teach animals to willingly participate during many tasks. This makes animal care less stressful and safer for both the animals and the keepers. It also greatly improves the care animals receive. Rather than sedating the animal several times a year for veterinary care, keepers can constantly be assessing the health and welfare of their animals.

Below is a short video clip that we showed during our presentation to the pre-vet club. It comes from the North Carolina Zoological Park and shows several keepers interacting with baboons. You’ll see baboons receiving injections, getting their teeth brushed, and much more. Enjoy!

Watch on YouTube Baboons benefit from Operant Conditioning

My mice have names now! The little black and white one is Dickens, the one who is almost entirely white is Jack, and the scruffy, long-haired, gray and white mouse is Oscar. A big thanks to everyone who suggested names on facebook, by e-mail, and in person. Also, I’ve been looking into getting the mice neutered! Neutering the boys would reduce their smell (male mice have quite the odor) and allow them to live together peacefully (adult unneutered male mice will often fight to the death).

I’ve continued to work with the mice and they’re getting a lot friendlier. This video is from the very end of December, so it’s a little old. However, I just got a chance to edit it, so I still wanted to share it. I had my mice for about two weeks when this video was recorded.

The mouse in this video is Dickens, my black and white mouse. He’s the bravest and the boldest of the three. Dickens is pretty friendly now, even friendlier than he was when I made this video. He’ll come to the top of the cage when I come into the room, begging to be picked up. He’s a curious little fellow and loves to scamper all over me.

Watch on YouTube: Dickens works on socialization training

In this video, I was practicing picking him up out of the cage and then putting him back into the cage. I don’t hold him for long and do lots of repetitions. This way he gets lots of chances to practice stepping on and off of my hand. Also, repetition is good because it helps him get accustom to what it feels like to ride on my hand when my hand is moving.

Once he hops onto my hand and I pick him up, he gets a chance to explore and gets to eat a bit of seed. These are both two activities he really seems to enjoy! The seed mixture is mostly millet, although there is a bit of other stuff mixed in as well.

I have started the beginnings of clicker training with him, but we haven’t gotten very far yet. We’ve been experimenting with the best way to set up a training area. I’ve also started getting him comfortable with the training area and teaching him to eat out of a small measuring spoon. I’m trying to remember all the little things I learned when I started clicker training my rats, much of which I wrote about in this post. I’ll keep you updated as we progress with more mouse training.

Watch on YouTube: Georgie Learns to Jump

Georgie learned this trick incredibly fast. She had about 15 clicks (treats) before I took this video. I have several ideas about how to expand on this trick. I’d love to teach her to jump several jumps in a row. We could probably even progress to a whole course of jumps! I’ve seen videos online of mice and rats doing small agility courses with half a dozen to a dozen different obstacles. I’d love to work on something like that with Georgie in the new year.

Stringing multiple objects together involves creating what is called a chain of behaviors. The animal learns how to do the behaviors in a certain order and knows there will be a reward at the end for completing the entire chain in the correct order. Chaining is a useful concept to work on with animals because it greatly expands the complexity and length of the behaviors we can teach.

Also, while my toilet tissue rolls are pretty snazzy, I’d like to figure out a way to make some even classier jumps. I’ve seen some neat ones in other people’s videos made out of Popsicle sticks, then painted. I think there would also be lots of possibilities for making rat (and mouse) jumps and agility equipment out of kids toys, such as Lincoln logs, tinker toys or Legos. So stay tuned, Georgie and I have lots of ideas for new tricks and behaviors to train in 2012!

So, the mice and I have been hanging out in the bathtub. The bathtub is a great place to work with mice or rats because it is a small, contained area and would be very difficult for the animal to escape. Mice are fast and remarkably agile, especially when they’re scared. I had to pick up one of my little guys shortly after I got the mice. I was feeding them and he crawled up the side of the cage and started to escape. I picked him up gently and held him for a moment, but he was pretty frightened. In an effort to get away, he leapt out of my hands. He landed on the ground a good several feet away from me, completely unfazed by his huge jump, and began to scamper away. Luckily, I was able to grab him.

Having to grab a mouse to pick it up is stressful for the mouse. So is picking up a mouse by the tail. Both of these methods are commonly used by people with mice who are unconfident or unsure about people. But, this is no fun for the mouse if you are forcing him to be picked up against his will. It also ends up being no fun for the person, if the mouse is continually trying to jump down or get away. In addition, a scared or stressed mouse is much more likely to bite you or poop on you.

Instead, I want my mice to jump willingly into my hands (like my last mouse Houdini did) and enjoy being picked up. My mice have several nests in their cage. They often like to hang out in a Kleenex box. To transport them to the bathtub, I wait until one or two of them are in the Kleenex box, then pick it up and carry it to the bathtub. Transporting mice in a small box is a good method for several reasons. By picking the mouse up in a box, I don’t have to grab him or chase him around the cage to pick him up. This is a whole lot less stressful! Also, while I’m working with the mice, they have a familiar spot that they can run and hide in if at any time they feel worried or scared.

So, the mice, Kleenex box, and I all hangout in the bathtub. When I work with the mice, I never force them to come out of the box or force them to interact with me. It’s completely their choice. Mice are skittish by nature, but they are also pretty curious little creatures. The first time we played in the bathtub, it wasn’t long before they were running all around and climbing all over me.

They were still somewhat skeptical of my hand, especially when it moved. One way I’ve been working on this is by feeding them out of my hand. Pretty soon they got comfortable with this and even started sitting on my hand. The next step was moving my hand slightly so they could get use to a bit of motion. Sometimes I feed them seed on a spoon, while other times I just put it in the palm of my hand. I’ve been using a bird seed mix that is mostly composed of millet because mice really like millet. In addition, the seeds are small, which means they eat them quickly and are constantly coming back for more.

Watch on YouTube: Pet Mouse Socialization and Taming

The two mice you see in this video are getting pretty tame. The white mouse is a little bit shyer, but he is wiling to sit on my hand and is getting comfortable with me moving my hand a bit. The black and white fellow has gotten super friendly since this video was taken. I can now pick him up out of the cage very easily. If he’s out running around, I just stick my hand in and he jumps right up! He seems to enjoy being held and is even letting me pet him. I have another video of him that I’ll share once I get it edited.

The key to working with mice (or any other shy animal) is patience. Going slowly at the beginning and letting the animal choose to interact with you will help the animal develop a tremendous amount of trust in you. Sometimes it can be difficult to go slowly at the beginning—it can seem like you aren’t making any progress. However, you’ll have a much happier animal later on once the animal learns that it is fun to interact with you.

This bearded dragon thinks the ants in this phone game look pretty appetizing. And, she has pretty good aim, too! I assume that this did not take any training, but I’m not sure. I just hope she got a treat for all her hard work!

What do you think?

Watch on YouTube: Bearded Dragon Playing Ant Crusher

I experimented some last spring with teaching my dog to use my ipad. We didn’t get very far, but she did get to the point where she would touch a square on the screen, the ipad would make a sound, and she would come and get a treat.

Touch screens have expanded the possibilities for research on animal behavior and intelligence. I know touch screens have been used for research with species such as rats, pigeons, primates and dogs. I’ve been thinking recently about training my rat Georgie to use my ipad–I know that she could totally do it! I bet Georgie could even learn to play songs on some of the musical instrument ipad apps. (I wonder if she’d be as good as the musical lab rats that I posted about last month?)

Do you have any high-tech pets? Do you incorporate technology into your animal training? Have any cool ideas for training tasks using technology with animals? I’d love to hear some of your thoughts!

DVD Trailer: Operant Conditioning with Bob Bailey

Bob Bailey is one of the fathers of modern animal training practices. First a student of biology and zoology, Bob Bailey began training dolphins for the U.S. Navy in the early 1960s. In the mid-1960s, he went to work for Animal Behavior Enterprises (ABE), an animal training company founded by Keller Breland and Marian Breland, two students of B.F. Skinner. I’ll write a longer post about ABE later this summer, but it was a fantastic company and one of the driving forcing that brought the science of behavior out of the lab and applied this science of behavior to training pets, livestock and even exotic animals. (Much of the research and training ABE did in the 1960s and 1970s is still much more advanced than most of the training people are doing today.)

During the past couple of decades, Bob Bailey has spent much time teaching animal trainers how to be better trainers. One of his favorite ways to teach people to be better animal trainers is by making them train chickens. Why chickens? Chickens are fast moving and offer quite a bit of behavior. They are also actually pretty smart. So, if you can learn how to have the timing and mechanical skills to train a chicken, you should be prepared to train almost anything!

Much of the DVD is footage from Bob Bailey’s chicken training workshops. You’ll see people working on exercises to improve their timing and food delivery, as well as teaching (seemingly) simple behaviors, such as having a chicken peck a round circle. The DVD also has some neat footage and explanations of more difficult behaviors, including Bob’s cone discrimination. (When the two cones are yellow, the bird must make a figure-8 between them. When they are replaced by red cones, the bird must merely circle around the two cones. There is a short video of this task at the end of this previous blog post.) The DVD also shows how the same principles and ideas apply equally well to many other species, including dogs, horses, and a couple of polar bears.

One of my favorite things about the DVD is that it discusses many concepts and tips that are needed to get top level performance. For instance, one training task shown in the video is how to get a chicken to peck only at a red square, never at a yellow or blue square. However, Bob Bailey has his students train this behavior to such a high level that if the bird is presented with only the yellow and blue square, it will completely ignore both of them and not peck either of them (for at least 20 seconds). Now that’s what we call great stimulus control. He does this by breaking down the task into many parts, so that the bird is almost always correct. He gradually has his students make the task more complex, until the birds can do the final behavior with a very high degree of accuracy.

Why the title of this post? Bob Bailey likes to say that animal training is “simple, but not easy.” Meaning, most everything about great training can be summed up in a handful of simple ideas and principles. Many of Bob’s favorite principles are presented during the DVD. However, many of these simple skills, such as timing, food delivery, knowing when to raise criteria, and so on, can take a lifetime to perfect.

So, if you have a chance, I’d definitely recommend watching this DVD, Operant Conditioning with Bob Bailey. If anyone else has had a chance to watch it, I’d love to hear your review!

What is Constructional Aggression Treatment (CAT)?

I’ve written a bit in the past about using CAT with fearful horses. Fearful behaviors and aggressive behaviors are often very similar–the animal behaves in some way to increase the distance between his self and the unwanted animal or object. So, an aggressive dog lunges or bites to increase the distance between it and something else, just as a fearful animal runs away to increase the distance between it and something else.

With Constructional Aggression Treatment, we give the animal what he wants (distance from something) whenever the animal displays any signs of friendly, relaxed, or calm behavior. We start small, accepting any small signs of better behavior and later on build up more and more friendly behavior.

Treating Resource Guarding using CAT

So, for Rocky, the trainer and another dog would approach Rocky while he was chewing on a tennis ball. As soon as Rocky showed any signs of more relaxed or friendly behavior, the trainer and other dog would leave, which is exactly what Rocky wanted. Before beginning the training, Rocky could use aggression (snapping, biting, etc.) to get the other dog to go away. Now, only friendly or relaxed behaviors would make the other dog go away.

Not only did Rocky figure out the new conditions, but he started trying to interact with the other dog and actually started to play with the other dog and share his toys!! This is what CAT calls “switch over,” where the animal switches from wanting something to go away to wanting interaction.

With a bit more training, Rocky’s new behavior quickly generalized to other dogs as well. Last I heard, Rocky is living with a new dog, who just joined the household. He will pick up a toy, take it to the new dog and ask him to play. Now that’s successful training, if you ask me! Check out the video below, which shows clips from the training process.

On Youtube: Constructional Aggression Treatment (CAT) for Resource Guarding

**Side note: Please be extremely careful when working with aggressive or fearful animals! Work at a level where the animal does not feel stressed or frustrated. Also, take precautions to insure that people and animals do not get injured. For instance, with an aggressive dog, keep the dog on a leash. Or, with a very fearful or aggressive horse, start by working with a fence between you and the horse. **

I think he must have had a fair amount of training at some point. He doesn’t seem overly happy about being ridden, but he does seem to tolerate a lot. He is pretty stiff, as well as dull/resistant to cues. He’ll benefit from lots of work on bending and flexibility, as well as learning to respond to light, soft cues. The video is of the last two minutes of a 12 minute ride, so he was more responsive than at the beginning.

I think it’s important to make sure the horse likes riding and training. So, if 10-15 minutes into the ride, the horse is trying really hard and showing a lot of improvement, I’ll get off. Later, we can work on riding for longer periods of time.

On a similar note, if after a few minutes I felt we hadn’t been getting anywhere and that we were really struggling to make any improvement, I’d probably either pick something easier to work on or get off. We’d go back to ground work or other pre-requisite skills. There’s no reason to push things under saddle, especially with a green horse or a horse you don’t know very well.

On the ground, Connor and I have been working a lot on softness. I want a slight touch on the lead rope or rein to mean move your head or body in that direction. Often, he’ll choose to brace against the pressure instead of giving to it, but he’s getting MUCH better.

I have a number of exercises I like for teaching this, including teaching the horse to move his head and forequarters in a variety of directions from light pressure on the lead. This works best if you start with light pressure and reward even the slightest try. So, I might use my thumb and index finger to put light pressure on the lead downward or to the side. The moment I felt any give from the horse (even half a centimeter at the beginning!), I would take my fingers off. Most horses catch on pretty fast and start offering more (especially when you combine this with clicker training).

Eventually, though, there shouldn’t be pressure. I should be able to pick up my hand and move it in a certain direction, and the horse should follow with his neck and body so that he maintains slack in the lead rope.

I know that some clicker trainers argue that if you want slack, then start with slack (i.e. there’s no need to start with pressure). However, I feel that it’s really important for the horse to know and respond to the slightest bit of pressure. This will come in handy later for riding and rein cues, when I do want to make use of light contact and pressure.

Also, from my experience, if you use pressure at very low levels, you do not escalate the pressure, and you reward the slightest try, the horse learns quickly and does not see the pressure as a “bad” thing. Of course, I think it helps that it is usually paired with a click and a treat!

Here’s a short clip from Wednesday (his second ride) as well as a bit of information about what we’ve been doing so far. Starting horses under saddle does not have to be frightening or stressful for the horse. Clicker training helps our horses learn to be brave and confident so that they happily accept new experiences, even a rider on their back.

Watch Tex’s Second Ride –Colt Starting with Clicker Training on Youtube

Tex had quite a bit of handling this fall. He’s worn a saddle and saddle pad and done some ground work exercises. Before actually getting on him for a ride, I spent several sessions leaning and crawling all over his back. This included leaning all my weight on him, kicking a leg over his hindquarters, laying on his back and hindquarters and sliding off each side. By the time I finally sat up, he was pretty bored with it all!

For his first ride, I let him do whatever he wanted, which was a lot of standing around. Since he had no inclination for voluntary forward movement I just waited for him to offer to move forward. Whenever he would, even if it was just a step or two, I would click and give him a treat. Eventually he got the hang of three steps forward, click, treat!

This is where people often get into trouble. Rather than giving the horse time to stand around and think, they try and make the horse move forward. Demanding too much at the beginning can easily lead to a confused or frightened horse.

For our second ride, we did more of the same. He will stop and flex his head around from the slightest touch on the lead rope, so I’m not too worried about working on woah at this point. Right now we’re working on forward motion and not worrying too much about which direction it takes us in. I want him to readily move forward when asked and to keep moving forward until asked to stop. I’m not asking at all at this point, I’m just taking what he offers me. We’ve built this up to about half a dozen steps so far.

You’ll notice on the video that he is very flexible! He is still figuring out exactly how to take a treat while I’m on his back, this requires a bit of balancing and positioning. However, overall he is doing great so far. I’m really proud of him and I think that he is going to turn out to be one really awesome little pony.