The Bunny Click

[dazsgeo]

I began clickertraining about 10 years ago and use it to train my dogs for different things. They are so responsive to it. I didn't try it with my previous bonded pair of rabbits- Mona and Smudge, but started doing a little with Glee when I adopted her. She was a biter and I found by clickertraining train her to touch a target, she learned to trust me, figured out that good things came from my hands and stopped biting me.


Glee is my English Lop. I adopted her from a rescue when she was just over 8 months old. She is a character and I have found I really like the breed. I haven'tclickertrained her in awhile and thought that maybestarting a blog would help by making me a little accountable. Hopefully!

Along with my dogs and Glee, I am currently working on clickertraining my Senegal parrot. Any species can learn!

 

[dazsgeo]

Behavior working on: Target stick/ moving in circle

Reward: a bite of romaine lettuce

I got a chance today to practice some clicker with Glee. When I first got her last August I worked with her on touching a target stick. What I did was present the stick close to her head and when she acknowledged it in some way (this could be look at it, turn toward it, ortouch it), I clicked the clicker and then rewarded her with a treat. She quickly caught on and I worked my way up to holding the target stick about a foot away from her and she would move to the stick to touch it. It was at this point that I got busy and she stopped her biting so clickertraining stopped.



Today I started with a little review of touching the target stick . Glee did good andremembered what to do so I decided to use the target stick to get her to turn in a circle. Oneaspect of clickertraining isteaching a behavior in little steps so I moved the stickabout 2 inches toward her left and she followed it with her head. I was ableto get her to do this to both the right and the left for a few inches. Because it's important to end on a good note, I ended the session there. That's where we'll pick uptomorrow andI mightstart mat trainingalso.

 

[Luvr of Wabbits and Polar Bears]

Very cool. Do you have a video's you doing this with your bunnies?

 

[dazsgeo]

Behavior working on: Target stick/ moving in circle

Reward: a bite of romaine lettuce

I was thinking about video taping a little bit of our session. I wasn't able to find the placemat I was going to use for mat training so I'll find and get some video of me starting towork withGlee on that.



Today I worked some more with the target stick. Glee gets to run free in my spare room during the day and her favorite spot is sitting on top of the garbage lid. That's where she was when I went into the room so I used the target stick to get her on the ground so we can work. First to get her in the training mindset,I just put it about an inch from her nose and I clicked and rewarded when she touch it. Next I put the stick about a foot away so she had to jump onto her haybale to touch it- click & treat. Put it a foot away again so she had to get on the floor to touch it-click treat. Using the target stick in this way can be good for getting rabbits to move somewhere like into their cage when they don't want to go in.

With clicker training, the rabbit controls the situation- if they do the behavior they get a reward, if they don't do the behavior, they don't get a reward. It's all up to them. I think this is why my terriers do so well with clicker training, because they think everything is their own idea (oh look, I got her to give me a treat by touching the target stick).

I worked for a few minutes on turning in a circle following the target stick and got her to circle to the right twice. The trick is clicking just as she begins moving her body and get in there with the reward so she has to continue moving to get it. This should hopefully get her moving further on her own into the turn.

Tomorrow we'll continue with the turns and since I am waiting on mat training, I'll try getting her to sit up by following the stick.

 

[dazsgeo]

Behavior working on: Target stick/ moving in circle/ sitting up

Reward: apple



I started our training session the same way as I did yesterday-using the target stick to get her off her favorite spot and down on the ground. Once down we started working on spin to the right. She picked up right where we were yesterday and she quickly followed the target stick as I moved it from her nose in a half circle to her right. Once she was about halfway around I clicked and presented the apple as she continued turning to the right. She did this about 5 times in a row with me click treating between each turn so I decided to try having her turn to the left. First try I clicked for her just turning her head to the left to follow the stick, then was able to have her follow it for 2 turns, click treating for each turn.



Since we had a small success with turns, I moved onto sitting up. Even though Glee wouldmove tothe target stick to get off her perch, she wouldn't move toward itif I held it to high above her head. I started by holding it about an inch above her head so she didn't have to reach far and she touched the stick. I did a few repititions of having her touching the stick at this distance and then was able to move the stick up higher. By doing this I got her to sit up about 3 times trying to rach for the stick. I decided to end here on a good note. We'll see how she does tomorrow with this.

 

[dazsgeo]

Behavior working on: Target stick/ moving in circle/ sitting up

Reward: apple cut into small pieces



Today Glee was raring to go. As soon as I walked into the room, she got down to the ground in front of me. We wroked on the same thing as yesterday. She did both turn to the right and turn to the left about 5 times. Since she is doing so well with this, I'm going to work on getting her to turn 2 times in a row.

She was more eager to work on sitting up today. I had to start with a little reminder on what we were doing by holding the target stick right above her head so she could reach it without lifting her front legs. After that she had no problem lifting her front feet when I held the stick higher, doing it about 4 times before we quit.

The biggest thing today was using the apple as the treat. Yesterday I just cut a big chunk of apple and let her take bites of of it. She was not happy with this; she wanted the whole thing to eat! Today I cut the apple into small pieces so she would get a whole piece to finish and she liked this much better.

 

[dazsgeo]

I didn't realize how long it took to upload videos to Youtube or I would have posted this yesterday.

Here's a video ofGlee and I working on "go to mat". She didn't really well for the first time. I didn't do so well. I let the training session go for too long and she lost interest. I'll try to get a video of her working with the target stick.

[flash=320,256]http://www.youtube.com/v/uIMBD5dzevE[/flash]