Treats for training?

[mardigraskisses]

Didn't know whether to post this here, or the show room, but I'm just wondering what kind of food bribing I can do to train Bayou without him eating a lot of extra calories?

I know (most) treats from the pet store are unhealthy and while Bayou looooves fruit, I don't want to over do it.

When training your rabbit, what do you use, how often, how much of it?

 

[Korr_and_Sophie]

What are you wanting to train your rabbit to do?

I do agility with my buns and no one in the club uses treats for it. Most of the rabbit will not take a treat away from home and getting them to do it for a treat can be challenging at the best of time. The rabbit do it because they want to.

You would use small pieces of veggies or small amounts of pellets (2-3 each time).

 

[mardigraskisses]

I just want to train him to do the basic, stand up, come here, type things. I'm going to get a clicker sometime this week and try my hand at clicker training.

If you don't use treats what do you use? :?

 

[elrohwen]

I use pellets 99% of the time for training. I can easily take some out of what would be his normal dinner amount and use those for training. They're small, so I can give as many as I want really; usually Otto's attention span wanes before I've given too many pellets. I find they're the most effective when I work with him before he's fed in the evening. When he's hungry he's much more focused on the pellets.

I only use fruit for training if I need to lure him somewhere like his cage or carrier, for example. They're very high value treats for him and are good at making him go where I need him to go.

 

[Korr_and_Sophie]

mardigraskisses wrote:

If you don't use treats what do you use? :?

For agility, the rabbits are encouraged to do it mostly by tickling them on the sides or near the butt (where depends on the rabbit). The first few times they go around the course, lots of encouragement is needed. Basically, we show the rabbit what is expected of them by placing the front paws over a low jump or onto the contact obstacles and they do the rest on their own. Petting and praise are the rewards given.