Now you’ve seen how fun agility training can be, we are proud to give you a clicker training refresher (see our whole series about clicker training starting here). Guest bloggers Joan Orr and Teresa Lewin are Karen Pryor Method educators. We’re going to help you learn training skills so you and your rabbit can have SO MUCH FUN together! (images inserted by Small Pet Select)
Basic Approach to Teaching any Trick
The following step-by-step instructions employ the same basic approach. Once you are comfortable with it, you can follow this approach to teach any trick you like. The basic steps (which may require several training sessions to accomplish) are as follows:
1. Establish the behavior (or at least the start of the behavior) so that the pet is doing it without using any cues. (Try various approaches to get the pet to do the movement you have in mind, including luring with food, using the target, or setting up the environment so that the behavior is likely to happen).
2. C/T at the moment the pet moves in a way that is the behavior you want, or is a behavior that is a beginning to the behavior you want. Here is a great example of click timing from Sarah Owings.
4. Raise the criteria for a C/T as the pet gets closer and closer to the end result for which you are looking.
5. Once the pet is doing the action you want repeatedly, i.e., once the behavior is established, give a verbal cue and/or a hand signal WHILE the pet is doing the behavior. C/T for good performance.
6. After a few trials, give the verbal cue or hand signal BEFORE the pet does the behavior. C/T for good performance.
7. When the pet seems to be performing reliably, reserve the C/T only for correct performance that occurs after you give the cue. Don’t C/T if the pet performs spontaneously trying to get a response from you when you have not cued the behavior.
Establishing the behavior before adding a verbal cue or hand signal ensures that the pet will comply with the cue when it is given. Since you already know that the pet is going to do the behavior that you want, you make certain of a successful association with the cue when cued, and only cued, behaviors are clicked and treated. Words and hand signals are meaningless to the pet at first and so there is no point using them until the pet associates them with some action through consistent repetition. You can see the effect of a meaningless verbal cue by going up to one of your friends of family members, holding up a cookie and saying “Grog” to them over and over while making gestures with your hands. This is how your pet feels if you say “sit, sit, sit” or “come, come, come” without the words being solidly connected to the actual behavior.
Teach only one aspect of a trick at a time and move on only once that aspect is mastered. A fundamental rule in animal training is to change only one thing at a time. For example, to get the pet to jump higher, don’t change to a new location or use new jump equipment at the same time. Move to the new location, go back to an easy step in the training sequence and then build up to higher jumps. Use new equipment in the old location before trying it in a new place. Strange as it may seem to us, pets can be very impacted by the situation and the context of the training and may not understand that “jump” means jump over a stick in the kitchen and also means jump through a hoop outside. You will have to teach each trick each time you change the environment or the equipment or switch to a new trainer. As the pet gains experience it will begin to generalize more quickly and will learn old tricks in new situations very quickly. If you plan to take your pet to Aunt Martha’s house to show off to the relatives, be sure to give yourself enough time to run through the training sequence in the new environment and to give the pet adequate time to adjust to the new surroundings. We have been embarrassed by our pets enough times to know the importance of this advice!
Next up, guest bloggers Joan Orr and Teresa Lewin (Karen Pryor Method clicker trainers and authors of “Getting Started: Clicking with your Rabbit”) are going to take us through target training instructions, then on to obstacle courses!
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