Secrets to an Awesome Training Session

I had one of those training sessions the other day. You know the kind, the ones that stay in your mind because you just felt so great afterwards.  This particular training session was at a zoo, one of my regular contracts. When I work with zoos I usually do a lot of coaching and stand back and let the keepers do the hands on portion. I only step in if needed since the goal is for keepers to practice and refine their training skills, as I am only a temporary visitor. On this day our third person was needed elsewhere which left just two of us of to work with one of the female giraffes.  This meant I needed to help out a bit more than usual to attain the intended training goal. I had been told this female had been hesitant to offer much in the way of behavior and while she was often enthusiastic to eat the special leaf eater biscuits we had to offer it was challenging to get her to actually do much.  I wasn’t quite sure what this meant but I kept it in the back of my mind as we discussed out training goal and plan.

A major healthcare goal for giraffes is to be able to trim their hooves. A nice behavior to have them do to facilitate this is to voluntarily curl a front hoof under their body and rest their fetlock on something like a bale of hay. This gives us full access to the bottom of their hoof for trimming. This was our behavior goal. The challenge is how do you get a giraffe to voluntarily present this behavior?

No matter what species you are training or what behavior, the first goal is to find a way to get an action happening so that you can reinforce it. There are a number of ways to do this. You can show what you have to offer. For example you can lure a rabbit onto a scale by leaving a trail of favorite food items to the scale. Eventually you can start leaving less of a trail and start delivering the food after your rabbit gets onto the scale. This is a good strategy as you don’t want your animal to be dependent on seeing what you have to offer.

You can also get action by using a target. You can easily train your parrot to gently touch a ball on the end of a stick with his beak. This can then be used to direct him where to go. This is especially helpful for parrots that may have issues with hands. You can easily direct them in and out of enclosure without having to pick them up.

Another strategy is to use free shaping. This is when the animal offers tiny actions towards the desired behavior and these actions are bridged and reinforced. This approach requires excellent observation skills by the trainer and good timing of the bridging stimulus and delivery of reinforcers.  This approach creates an animal that typically is eagerly offering actions trying to discover what works. Trainers must walk a fine line of pushing for more action but also keep reinforcement rates high enough to avoid frustration.

We decided to use the free shaping strategy with this giraffe. We also set up our environment so that it might be easy for her to present the action we wanted. This meant placing the bale of hay close to her front feet, with the keeper on the other side of the fence offering her biscuits for any actions that involved interacting with the bale.  She did start offering tiny movements of her feet right away, however as mentioned the challenging part can be trying to up the criteria without frustrating your animal or causing them to lose interest. To address this we came up with a strategy that relies on behavior economics. In other words we assigned a rating system to her efforts as we raised our criteria; 1, 3 or 5 biscuits.  Low but acceptable effort only got 1 biscuit, a little extra effort got 3 biscuits and when she really gave us extra effort she received 5 or more biscuits. Yes sometimes her efforts were too low to receive any biscuits and as we raised criteria what earned biscuits did change. But we did this carefully and our rating system allowed us to reinforce more often rather than less often. This helped address the challenge of her reputation of not offering much. By keeping our rates of reinforcement high and communicating what was more important with extra reinforcers we were able to increase criteria and keep our giraffe girl eagerly participating.

Giraffes are BIG. I was focused on the feet and shouting out 1, 3 or 5 and the trainer feeding was also watching the giraffe's face and body language for her level of focus and engagement in the session. She could also decide if we needed to offer more to keep her engaged in the session.  It may seem odd to have two trainers making decisions, but it is sometimes required when you can’t see the entire animal. In any case our strategies worked! Within 8 minutes we had her holding her left hoof in the exact position we wanted for a good 10 seconds.

Talk about a rush! We got the behavior quickly, our animal was eager and engaged and no longer labeled a hesitant learner once we revisited our training strategies.  Best of all we are now looking forward to having regular hoof care be a breeze. 

You probably are not training a giraffe in your home, but believe it or not the same principles can apply to your parrot, rabbit, guinea pig, dog, even your fish! Do you have a behavior or animal that has been a bit of a challenge to train? Do you have a good plan for getting an action started? Have you set up your environment so that it is easy for your animal to present the action? How will you keep your animal engaged in the session and avoid frustration? Take a look at these factors and with a few adjustments to your strategy maybe you too can have one of those training sessions that make you and your animal feel just awesome.

Barbara Heidenreich
www.BarbarasFFAT.com
www.GoodBirdInc.com
www.BunnyTraining.com 
Copyright 2015

Barbara Heidenreich has been a professional animal trainer since 1990. Her company Barbara’s Force Free Animal Training (www.BarbarasFFAT.com) provide animal training DVDs, books, webinars and workshops. She has been a featured speaker in over twenty countries and has been published in nine languages. Barbara works with the companion animal community and also consults on animal training in zoos.

New Year's Resolution Ideas for Animal Trainers

 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everybody does the health and fitness resolution for the New Year. But animal people are different, aren’t we? Why break tradition now? How about some New Year’s resolution ideas that will benefit you and the animals in your life? Here are 10 ideas that will help animal trainers start the New Year just right.



1.    Train a behavior that will make veterinary care easier for an animal in your life. Simple things like loading into a carrier, being comfortable with touch and training for restraint can make a big difference in reducing stress for veterinary care. Here is a video clip to get you inspired to train your parrots.

2.    Read a book that is related to the field but not specifically about animal training. I really enjoyed reading the Science of Consequences by Susan Schneider this year. Another good one is Coercion and its Fallout by Murray Sidman. Not a book but another interesting resource is the Brain Science Podcast.

3.    Try shaking up your training practices. If you always use a bridging stimulus, try to become a faster treat deliverer and see if you can train some behaviors without a bridge. (Trust me, you can) If you never bridge, try training a behavior that requires one, such as working with an animal at a distance.

4.    Train a species you have never worked with before. This is a great way to really learn how important natural history and ethology are when it comes to behavior modification. Sure the behavior analysis principles are the same. But real behavior change comes with practical application. This means also learning about what matters to that species.

5.    Train a solid recall on an animal in your life. It is a pleasure when an animal comes running/flying towards you the moment a recall cue is given. Practice recalling at short distances when you are 99.9% sure your animal will come. Gradually increase the distance and make sure quick response to the cue is part of your criteria.

6.    Train a behavior you have never done before. I had a blast training my rabbit to do a scent discrimination this year.

7.    Attend an animal training conference, workshop or lecture live and in person. In addition to learning you also get to meet like-minded animal training enthusiasts. Often the best part of attending an event is the wonderful friendships that are forged. Check the calendar here for upcoming events in 2015.

8.    Share something you have learned about force free animal training with at least one other person. Remember this movement to get people to understand you can be nice to animals and still have them be well behaved is a wonderful virus we want to spread. Pretty soon, being kind in animal training will be the norm and traditionally heavy handed approaches will be a thing of the past.

9.    Do a before and after story. If you work with animals with behavior problems or have one in your home with issues you would like to address, start documenting! Nothing shows how beneficial force free animal training is than a transformation story. Take video footage or notes on the behavior problem before intervention. Develop an intervention plan, implement it and document your process. Once you have resolution (and you will) take your “after” video and share with the world! Real life success stories are great motivation for others and show people that behavior problems can be fixed.
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10.    Question a practice you have always done. Decide if it still has a place in your training tool kit. If it doesn’t maybe it’s time for out with the old and in with the new.  When I reflect on my own growth as a trainer, I see there are many things I used to do, that I would no longer consider. Some dropped off naturally but others were conscious decisions. Every trainer that improves their practices contributes to an even stronger and better training community.

There you go! Ten ideas to jump start the New Year for animal trainers. Feel free to share with other animal lovers looking to kick off 2015 with some animal training adventures.

Barbara Heidenreich has been a professional animal trainer since 1990. Her company Barbara’s Force Free Animal Training (www.BarbarasFFAT.com) provides pet training DVDs, books and workshops. She has been a featured speaker in eighteen countries and has been published in nine languages. Barbara also consults on animal training in zoos.

Barbara Heidenreich on Coffee with Cudmore Radio Show

Check out my radio interview this morning on Coffee with Cudmore. We talk about exotic animal controversies, rabbits for Easter and more. Visit www.BarbarasFFAT.com for resources to train your pets.