#liontraining

Do you have an animal that is eager to train? Sometimes the pace of the training session can end up feeling like you are trying to keep up with the enthusiasm of the animal. To slow things down, remember that the animal is doing what it has been taught works to earn reinforcers. If you want to slow down the speed of presentation of behaviors, you can reinforce the animal for waiting calmly in between cueing other behaviors. You can also start adding duration to other behaviors. Soon you will find the session looks calmer and more relaxed, instead of a race to do as many behaviors as possible to keep up with the animal. This rescued young lion has got the basics of targeting down. Now its time to work on adding duration and reinforcing for calm. As she gets the hang of it, she can look like Santiago another rescued animal whose caregivers have done a great job training duration and reinforcing calm behavior. #lion #mountainlion #trainingduration #trainingcalm #liontraining #bigcattraining #bigcats https://www.instagram.com/p/BrDhwndFfTP/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=twr2uwyq66qq

Animal training is all about timing and observation. When we were training the Baylor Bears to be comfortable with touch and the initial interaction with the syringe for hand injections it was essential that we time delivery of the food for that exact moment. Some people call that distraction training, but it’s not if we have criteria. It’s a pairing procedure (some call it classical conditioning, but this is incorrect as well because it is truly a shaping procedure. This is because we do have criteria that the animal must meet, which by definition makes it operant. More on that in the membership program at www.animaltrainingfundamentals.com) Once we’ve used this technique to overcome the fear response, we transition to delaying delivery of reinforcers just a split second and then we gradually add more time in between the animal allowing touch and delivery of reinforcers. You see the beginnings of that in the short clip I posted yesterday. One more session for the bears and those delays can be long enough for a sedation injection. We shape so that the animal definitely understands what criteria must be met in order to receive reinforcers and we definitely do not proceed unless they meet criteria. Again MUCH more details in the membership program as we dissect each tiny element of the full video to explain where those decisions are made to help them understand. By no means is it distraction training and absolutely we are paying attention to tiny little signals that the animal gives us with body language that helps us make very specific choices as to when to proceed, when to deliver reinforcers and when to start the delay in delivery of reinforcers. And THIS is exactly how to get fast learning with an animal that understands what the criteria is 😊 Not distraction. Not confusion. Just good application of timing and observation. Here’s an example of the difference of just trying to distract vs the result of using the steps I describe from one of the zoos with which I work. #injectiontraining #liontraining #lion

Even though this lion had no prior formal training experience, some simple target training got his shifting behavior on track in one session. It is not always that easy for every situation. I’ll be tackling the super challenging scenarios as well in the upcoming free course Training Animals to Shift Reliably for professionals Monday and Tuesday June 11 and 12th Sign up at www.animaltrainingfundamentals.com or see Link in IG profile #lion #liontraining #shifttraining #freecourse #animaltraining