A quarterly training publication by
Phins with Fur Animal Training
Tips from the Pool Volume 1, Issue 1
Fall 2012
Special points of interest: Unwritten training tipsImportant rules that trainers sometimes forget to tell pet owners The animal is always right...always!! (P. 2) Horse whispering: developing solid relationships (P.2) Enrichment
Inside this issue:
Lessons from a Pelican
2
Becoming a Tree DwellerCat Training
2
Trick Corner: Ring Toss
3
Trust First, then RespectWorking with horses
4
Unwritten: 5 Crucial Training Tips to Remember Many dog trainers make sure to tell their clients (you, the owner) important rules to follow when it comes to training: Be consistent, don’t give more than one cue at once, make sure to reward any good behaviors. However, there are some important rules that we as trainers understand but sometimes forget to convey to our clients. Here are the important rules to remember when you are working with any animal: 1. The animal chooses the reinforcer. It’s easy to fall into stereotyped “likes” when we work with our pets. “All dogs like belly rubs,” “Rabbits love carrots,” or even “dolphins love fish.”
When we utilize positive reinforcement training, where the animal is rewarded with something it likes for doing something you like, it is important to remember that it’s what they like that they should be working for! I have experienced Panama, a 40 year old dolphin, enjoys water play as a reinforcer first-hand the fallacies of all three of the young dolphin named Hope. Hope had recently aforementioned examples. My own dog is not a fan of been weaned off of her belly rubs. In fact, we are bottle and had graduated currently working on desen- to solid food (fish!). Like sitizing her to touches on her many babies, she prestomach! In my experience ferred milk! Hope’s diet was utilized in training, working with rabbits, both preferred produce other than but play was used much carrots! During my internmore! She enjoyed being ship at Clearwater Marine Continued on page 2 Aquarium, I worked with a
Enrichment-It’s that simple! So, what is enrichment, anyway? Enrichment is anything that can make the animal’s environment more interesting or different. Enrichment can be as extravagant as taking a car ride and going to the dog beach, or as sim-
ple as putting your cat’s food bowl in a new place. Enrichment helps to mentally stimulate animals and keep them happy! The Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) requires the facilities it offers accreditation to
provide monthly enrichment calendars for each of their animals. When I interned at Tampa’s Lowry Park Zoo, I was able to witness the beauty of enrichment for a variety of Continued on page 3
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Unwritten Training Tips Continued from front page squirted with water guns, so her trainers always made sure to carry a bucket and a water gun to the pool! 2. In the beginning, close enough is good enough! When you are building a new behavior, getting close to the target behavior is perfect! Expecting too much from your animal at first will almost always result in failure and frustration for both of you!
3. Reinforce attitude, not just behavior. When your dog is trying, you should reward him! You should always reinforce a good attitude. Be careful to not reinforce tense, nervous, or scared attitudes. You should never reinforce a dog for being fearful! Comforting a dog while they are scared only reinforces that emotion!
Fergie, the Corgi, sitting comfortably on the treadmill
4. Quit while you are ahead! If ever you feel yourself saying “Just one more,” it’s the perfect time to quit! I had a small Corgi named Fergie in one of my Treadmill classes. My first class with
her was roughly 30 minutes. After evaluating the session, I decided that I had kept it going for far too long. The remaining 5 sessions were only 10 minutes each. In all, Fergie went from being terrified of the treadmill to happily walking on it in a total of 80 minutes! 5. The animal is always right! Many people feel their animal is being stubborn, spiteful, or “messing with them.” This is never the case! Whether or not you believe me, the animal is not going to change its behavior unless you do! You have to be the “bigger person” and see how you can change to make the situation better! You will be surprised!
Tree-Dwelling Cali: Building Confidence in a Cat My fellow intern and I were talking one day about her cat, who would sit inside of her litter box. I mentioned to her something I saw on a show called “My Cat from Hell.” Jackson Galaxy, a cat behaviorist, places cats in two categories: bush dwellers and tree dwellers. Bush dwellers tend to hide and are more timid. Tree dwellers are confident, and claim tall spaces. My friend and I discussed a plan to help Cali become a tree dweller, since sitting in the litter box can indicate insecurities. The problem was that Cali
had previously been unwelcome in high places. We worked to make these high spaces become more reinforcing. She created makeshift steps to make high places more accessible to Cali, and placed some treats in high places as motivation. Cali
Cali exploring high spaces
I Love Lucy: Pelican Teachings Remember in the above story, “Unwritten: 5 Crucial Training Tips to Remember,” how I mentioned that the animal is always right? No one proved that more clearly than a clever pelican named Lucy. While interning at Clearwater Marine Aquaruim, I worked with an African Great White
Pelican team with Ricky and Lucy
Pelican named Lucy. She and her buddy, Ricky, were being crate trained. Lucy quickly caught on to this, and would eagerly fly over to her side of the exhibit and could barely wait to hop inside and earn her fish! One day, she ducked her head to go inside, but wouldn’t go in. Confused, I tried to stick a fish through
first began to emerge when she thought she wasn’t being watched. Her owner praised her to let her know that being up high was not only allowed, but desirable! Cali gradually became more confident, and stopped sitting in her litter box! She now claims tall spaces readily, and even was attempting to use her paws to open her owner’s eyes while she slept on the couch, where she was previously not comfortable! the holes in the back of the crate to entice her to come in. It was then that I realized that the kennel was upside down! Of course it didn’t look the same to her! As soon as I flipped it over, she went right in! Later in the summer, Lucy again hesitated to go in her kennel. Remembering the previous incident, I inspected the crate. Lucy’s door was always opened from the left. That day, it was opened to the right! Once I fixed it, she went right in!
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Enrichment Continued from front page our animals. Things as simple as I started with my dog, who was the rubbing sage on the sides of our easiest. My dog rarely eats out of a Florida Panther’s habitat, giving food bowl. Even if I don’t have time the river otters a trough full of dirt, to work with her during feeding, I or giving the Red still make sure she Wolves a cardworks for her food. board box provided Putting all of her tons of fun for food in a puzzle them. After interntoy, such as a ing with the zoo Kong or a Busyand Clearwater Buddy toy helps Marine Aquarium, stimulate her where we did a lot mind. When she of enrichment as sees me preparing well, I began to her Kong, she can provide different hardly wait for me forms of enrichto leave so that ment for my own she can have it! Panda, a guinea pig, enjoys an upside down igloo with hay pets.
My guinea pigs and rabbit also receive enrichment. I provide them with various cardboard containers with hay in them. I stuff toilet paper tubes, tissue boxes, even trash bag boxes! They love it! For my guinea pigs, I often switch up the places I put the hay in their cage, or will provide massive amounts to last a couple days. This allows them to create tunnels, make beds, and play games in the hay-it’s no longer just something to eat! Enrichment should be a part of every pet’s life! Keeping things new and different is a great way to keep them mentally healthy!
Trick Corner: Ring Toss Maddie, my Labrador Retriever, loves to learn new tricks. In the Trick Corner, we’ll discuss our recent trick-training adventures, and give you some tips on teaching them to your dog. What You’ll Need: Rings (I used flexible dive rings.) A cone or stand Weights
Prerequisites: “Take it”-Take and hold an object
Fetch to hand
you’re looking for, and she would become overexcited and try many different things with the cone, without the ring, of course. She would bite it, retrieve it, and just beat it up in an attempt to “try it all!” To solve this problem, I held the cones to the ground with my hands and waited for her to stop interacting with them, then told her to retrieve the ring, at which point she was rewarded!
Another issue I had was Maddie’s desire to Maddie and I recently learned to bring the ring to me, not the cone. I decided ring toss. She really enjoys this, and to work with this retrieving instinct by plachopefully, your dog can, too! ing the cone over my hand and helping the ring slide onto the cone. Allowing her to feel When I first set out to teach this, I success enabled her to achieve success. Stickwanted to get Maddie acquainted ing to my guns (remember, the animal is alwith the rings first. I used just one ways right!) would have just resulted in her (the same one every time) in the becoming frustrated and ultimately rehearsbeginning. We played with the ing the incorrect behavior. Making this step rings, just to create a fun, positive easier for her allowed the game to stay fun association with them. and productive! One of the first issues I encountered The final issue I had was the cones themwith this trick was Maddie’s exciteselves! She kept knocking them down in her ment over the cones. Free-shaping eagerness, but I noticed she “got better” as allows dogs to guess what behavior
Maddie playing ring toss
she added more rings. I started to use old collars to weight down the cones, and her success rate jumped dramatically! Again, being stubborn and insisting she be gentler would have led to more failure, increased learning time, and decreased fun! She is a dog, after all, so I couldn’t expect perfection! It took us only about a week to master this trick!
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It’s Dolphin Training...for Dogs! Trust First, then Respect During my junior year in college at the University of Florida, I took a class called Weanling Handling. In this class, each student is assigned a foal (baby horse) who has just been weaned from its mother. Students are charged with teaching the horse basic ground manners, such as wearing a halter, walking on a lead rope, loading into a trailer, and accepting bathing and brushing. Students must also teach their foals how to lunge, or how to be exercised in a circle around the trainer. The trainer holds a lunge line, or long rope, attached to the horse’s halter, and the horse is put through its paces in a circle. The way this class is taught is with traditional horse training methods. In traditional training, horses are taught using a
pressure-release system. This system is based on negative reinforcement, where the likelihood of behavior is increased when an aversive stimulus is removed. An example of this is the obnoxious bell that goes off in your car when you don’t have your seatbelt on. Once you put it on, the bell stops. I decided to go a different route when working with my fillies (female foals). With both of my girls, I sought to earn their trust first, then respect. I taught all of their goal behaviors with positive reinforcement techniques, until it came to lunging. Using positive reinforcement at this stage would not help these foals, since they would not be taught this way when started in saddle. Using gen-
tle pressure and release, I was able to utilize my hands, rather than a whip, as a way to apply pressure. Note: Neither the whip nor the trainer’s hands were EVER used to hit or make contact with the horses. Many students attempted lunging earlier, before the rest of their goals were met. I felt it was important to establish trust first before attempting to elicit respect from the horse. As a result, all of my babies bounced back from the initially unpleasant lunging experience, and easily trusted me again, while the other horses developed difficulties in future goal behaviors requiring trust, such as approaching novel objects, like a giant soccer ball, or moving outside of the training area. At the end of both of the 6 week periods (students get 2 horses 6 weeks apart), my girls passed their behavior evaluations with flying colors. I discussed what I thought about the sequence of my goals with my instructor, who said simply “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell everybody this whole time.”