What animals can’t we train?

A smart trainer can theoretically train any behavior that an animal is physically able to perform and mentally able to understand.

The folks at the New England Aquarium are taking this task seriously, and they’ve been training all sorts of behaviors to some of the most unlikely species! They’ve recently been working on target training with some of their lobsters.

Here’s a video, the quality of the video isn’t great, but it’s easy to see that the lobster is already understanding that it should approach the target after just a few training sessions! I’ve talked in the past about some of the benefits of target training, it’s a great first behavior to work on and can be expanded later to help train other behaviors.

You can read more about this and other animals on the aquarium’s blog.

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4 Responses to What animals can’t we train?

  1. Matt April 26, 2009 at 1:38 am #

    What’s great about this kind of video is it helps pet owners to see that training is a science. A science that actually is proven to get you results. It’s about figuring out how to motivate the lobster, it’s not about establishing dominance over the lobster.

  2. animal list August 17, 2010 at 9:11 am #

    ya , thats great video!… Are you giving training ti him?

    • Mary Hunter August 17, 2010 at 6:21 pm #

      Glad you liked the video!

      I am not the one doing the training– it’s a video clip from the training program at the New England Aquarium.

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    […] training is GREAT for dogs, cats, and horses. (And even lobsters and goldfish!) With clicker training, animals learn fast and are generally more interested and […]

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