More on chickens

You can laugh if you want, but... I am leaning so much from these chickens! Bob Bailey said: "Training is a mechanical skill." Consequently, any kind of animal training is rather more about training the owners/handlers and less about training the animal! I have now spent a week observing myself training chickens and other people taking their dog to training class, and Mr Bailey is just so right! If your cues are clear, your observation skills tuned in and your timing correct your animal will do what you ask for. If your messages are muddled up, if you are not sure what you are saying/asking for, if you forget to mark the correct answer and forget to reward, then surely all you get is a confused animal that simply doesn't know what you want. Surprised?

Clicker chickens

This time I'm travelling inspired by the cats: I'm in Sequim, WA and I'm clicker training chickens. Yes, really!

Chickens are smart, and fast, and you better get your clicker timing right. It's 12 of us here at Legacy training centre, learning about chicken, dogs, operant conditioning and running a training business under the expert guidance of Terry Ryan. Here is my chicken no.19:

 

And this is a chicken-feed-cup-clicker, specially invented by Terry for the chicken camps:

Clicker games

Clicker games are a less obvious, but just as definite favourite with my gang. You think you can't train cats? Why not? True, you can't force cats to do things, like so many do with dogs or horses, but that's the beauty of it - cats are the ideal positive training animals!
I trained the yard cats back home in Athens when I was a 10year old kid, just for fun, intuitively, without knowing anything about it. Soon after the furry family arrived here, I started reading up on animal training, and before long I stumbled on positive training, operant conditioning, and the use of the clicker. I was fascinated - it all just made sense.
I got myself a clicker... and a couple of days later we were all hooked. They all come running when they hear the clicker, and workd for their clicks purring madly. Such fun!
Check it out youself: here are my clicker videos!

Oscar likes...

...sitting on my cross-legged lap. Whether I'm trying to do a bit of meditation, or whether I'm typing, like now, he will often clamber up on my legs and snuggle in. Love it!

Some cats feel like making themselves comfortable on rather more unlikely spots though! This is such cool little clip.