Donkey walks!

I'm sooo pleased with my boys!
I'm now able to take Luca & Henry on walks, together and on my own!
I walk them 50m down the lane to my 'big field' on most days but attempting a walk down the village when we were both quite green with each other was a bit of an embarassment, so it took me some time, and some work, to dare trying again.
After several weeks of practicing 'stop' we took our first walk down the village a couple of weeks ago, past a car, a tractor, a chatty neighbour and his stone lions(!). The donks were great, if a bit careful.
Every possible circular walk out the door here involves crossing a stream or two, so the footbridge was our next challenge. It took 3 walks down to the bridge until they felt comfortable by the gushing stream, but then just 5 minutes to tempt Luca to cross the bridge. He then kept going back and forth over it as he done nothing else his whole life, while I was trying to persuade Henry to step on the bridge... took another 3 walks until he felt it was safe to cross. All the while was trying to be less clumsy with my bundle of lead ropes...
Today we did our second circular walk around the village, past gaggles of lambs, a friendly pony, and some not so friendly horses in a distant field making a racket as soon as they saw us - the donks perked up their ears but stayed very cool otherwise.
I can tell they love it - they actualy demand it now!

Sheep training

The access route between the two fields is rather complicated - the small fiel only exits through a narrow steep gateway into the garden, the big filed has a gate into the road some 50m down the lane from our garden gate.
So I have been planning the sheep move for some time with as many daily training sessions as possible (sometimes with a clicker, sometimes just with a feed bucket):
- come to me when called (somehow I ended up with a rather silly call, that sounds a bit like 'shoooosheeeee shipship'... it works though, even across the big field)
- eat from the bucket, then from my hand (it took the first one less than a week, the last one almost 2 months to be happy to eat from my hand)
- allow handling while eating
- follow me with the bucket
- follow me to new scary places (i.e. the garden, which turns out to be lush and yummy!)
- eat from my hand in new scary places (not suprisingly, they seem to return to a 'raw' flighty state when in new surroundings)

After all that, I just opened the garden gate and the flock happily followed me down the road and intothe new field, no problem - who needs a trailer?

A click diary

I was digging around some files on my laptop today, and run into this. I didn't quite remember at first that I had written this; indeed I intended to keep a clicker training diary, but then I never made it beyond that first entry. It's hilarious, so I decided to post it here for your entertainment!

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!

Clicker taming

Today I used the clicker on Papa Cat. To truly baffling effect! So far the closest he will let me is that he will maybe, reluctantly sniff my hand; with the clicker I had him in front of me, eating treats eagerly off my hand, within 5 minutes!
I used the following sequence (with kibble treats):
- click/throw treat
- throw treat/click for eating
- extend hand for sniff/click-treat for sniffing
- offer treat on hand/click for sniffing, put treat down to eat next to my fingers
- offer treat on hand/click for eating off hand.

PS. Sadly, only a few days after this post Papa Cat disappeared, and has not showed up again...

Show me the perfect treat

Positive clicker training requires the treat to be something of value to the trainee, something they really want! As a beginner I'm still on the big quest for the perfect treat, something my cats will go crazy for... It to be yummy, small, quick to eat, easy to handle. I'm forever looking for and trying out new ideas... If you have any ideas, let me know!

training list

Here is my working list for our clicker training sessions:

What they have learned (more or less):
* go to mat * sit * high five * nose to target * jump up/down something * sit pretty * jump through my arms

What we're working on:
* come * go to crate * sit calmly in crate (even when it's locked or lifted/moved) * down * roll over * fetch/retrieve (well, we are at 'mouth/bite this' at the moment) * move through my legs (eventually weave) * walk on my shoulders * sit still to be brushed * scratch the scratching post * leave it (kitty-zen)

What I'd love to teach eventually:
(to be continued)

clicker training!

I started clicker training the whole gang about 6 weeks ago and they have taken to it enthusiastically. To the point that they all queue up outside the closed door of the room where I try to work with each separately, scratching and meowing to be let in, LOL.
Psipsina even hisses and swats at the others waiting their turn when I let her out of the training room, which worries me a bit. I have tried to let her remain in the room staying 'in her spot' while I work with another one, but this is not yet reliable enough and it doesn't always work well - depending on how keen she is on the treats I end up having to control her rather than working with the kitten, so I have to keep the training sessions separate for another while at least. (means I'll probably end up with a frayed carpet by that bedroom door)

Clicker training for cats?

Even as a kid, I didn't think teaching tricks to cats was anything unusual - I just gave it a go, and they certainly took to it (and they were 'just' street cats too). So I obviously I was eager to try my hand at training my new bunch of cats too!
Almost 30 years later and positive training (also known as operant conditioning) has become more widely know, and the internet makes it all easily accessible - it only took me a bit of digging to unearth a wealth of information and support on clicker training (a totally new concept to me, but it just so makes sense) and indeed on clicker training cats (see my links list).
Oh how fascinating and exciting this all is.
Bring on the clickers! (of course I ordered one today!)