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Three tricks in the shortest time

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Three tricks in the shortest time

Postby marie83 » Thu Oct 04, 2012 12:13 pm

For a college assignment we have to demonstrate we are capable of training an animal 3 things, we have to film it so they know we have not cheated. I didn't have anything to film with so I kept putting it off until I forgot all about the assignment. Now of course the deadline is apon me and I've got to get it done ASAP.

So starting tonight I will be training Ollie to do 3 things. He already knows how to step up, recall, return to perch, target, open a drawer on a toy on command and he is almost fully trained to play dead- we just need to improve things.

I am training him to:
-climb a ladder (he has never seen before)
-run through a tube (its been sat outside his cage a while)
-turn round on command

Training will be done in blocks of 10 minutes, unless Ollie appears unhappy at any point before that.

So does anyone want to have a guess on how long it will take? (sorry theres no prize, just satisfaction in being the closest)

I do promise that I know my birds well and there will be no welfare issues in trying to cram everything in, I will not cause him stress or get him confused and all training will cease before he loses interest. Ollie is my priority, not my assignment- if it doesn't get done it doesn't get done on time simples.
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Re: Three tricks in the shortest time

Postby Eurycerus » Thu Oct 04, 2012 12:21 pm

That is awesome! Sounds like a fun assignment. I wish I had had things like that on my to do list. I can't wait to see your progress. :] What are you doing at school? It cracks me up to imagine someone trying to make a parrot learn fast (in response to your promise not to terrorize Ollie). I just see their face as it melts in frustration and the parrot just cackles away at them. Parrots are so stubborn. If they don't want to learn they won't!

How can they expect that everyone has an animal they can train? Seems a tad elitist. We are just lucky to have animals in our lives.

I'm going to say it's going to take one week if more than one session a day. Good luck!
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Re: Three tricks in the shortest time

Postby marie83 » Thu Oct 04, 2012 12:31 pm

I'm doing an animal management course. People who don't have animals are using the animals at the colleges mini farm or they are using friends/relatives animals.
One girl taught one of the colleges pigs to target and to walk backwards on command, I cant remember the third thing they taught it off hand.
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Re: Three tricks in the shortest time

Postby Polarn » Thu Oct 04, 2012 12:37 pm

Well, seeing its a college assignment I'm guessing the coarse Marie takes (correct me if im wrong) is kind of based around animal training. And I'm pretty sure anyone even if you doesnt have animals aroudn you normally can find an animal to train with for some period of time each week. I mean if I were to ask my neighbour if it would be ok if I came to their house and took Molly (their golden) out for a walk once a day to teach her to walk nicely next to me instead of pulling the chain and to stay and to lay down my neighbour would probably be excited about her not having to worry about other dogs etc that might excite Molly and that resulting in her faceplanting in the mud. (I've actually thought about helping her out with her golden with just the basics, couse I see her walk by every day trying and trying to get that lil dog to walk properly, but I know neither of em well enough to not feel that I would intrude or put her down by asking if she needed help with the training, but if I could get it as a collegeassignment, easily I would ask her before deciding on one of my own. not only to be able to ask her in a way where I (me) needs this for the assignment and not her couse she's uncapable.

Cool assignment though Marie, I've actually started looking into animal behavior courses at the Uni, mostly couse it's interesting.
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Re: Three tricks in the shortest time

Postby Polarn » Thu Oct 04, 2012 12:38 pm

you beat me to it! :)

EDIT (actual post): Pigs are cool. I miss mine, he did all kinds of tricks. Their actually fairly easy to train, my brother had a dog and I had the "little" pig named Junior. everytime my brother thought the dog something I had to prove to him the pig could do it as well. Never managed him to go inside by himself, but when my brothers dog opened the door to go inside, my little piggy would then grab a rope hanging from the handle on his way in and shut the door behind him :)
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Re: Three tricks in the shortest time

Postby Eurycerus » Thu Oct 04, 2012 1:02 pm

marie83 wrote:I'm doing an animal management course. People who don't have animals are using the animals at the colleges mini farm or they are using friends/relatives animals.
One girl taught one of the colleges pigs to target and to walk backwards on command, I cant remember the third thing they taught it off hand.


Oh okay :] I actually don't know anyone with animals that I could hang out with except my own. As long as they have animals that can be trained that's cool.

Is the course for a larger certificate/major? or just to learn a job skill. It sounds neat-o.
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Re: Three tricks in the shortest time

Postby marie83 » Thu Oct 04, 2012 1:11 pm

I'm not sure how the education system works in Cal tbh but over here this course is the equilent of 3 a levels which people usually take between the age of 16-18 but before they go to university. I'm considering going to uni but it wont be for a while because I need to pay back the money for this course first so for now its just to get my foot back in the door in any animal related job I can get.
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Re: Three tricks in the shortest time

Postby Michael » Thu Oct 04, 2012 1:54 pm

Sounds cool. But instead of the tube or ladder, I would do manipulation of an object as the 3rd. Because basically there are 3 kinds of tricks you can teach:

-Cue based
-Prop based
-Object based

Basically you can tell the bird to do something and it does, show it something and it does something in relation to that like going through a tube, and finally you show it a coin so it puts it in a bank. See if you can have it manipulate an object of some sorts. To keep it simple it could just be pushing a button, pulling a string, etc.
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Re: Three tricks in the shortest time

Postby marie83 » Thu Oct 04, 2012 2:07 pm

You do have a good point Michael and I wish I had thought of that as it would have made this assignment look better, unfortunately the first assignment on the training unit was to plan what we were going to do so unless I can think of an excuse to swap a trick I can't really deviate from the plan because our third assignment is an evaluation of what worked and what didn't along with what changes could be made to improve the plan. I guess I could add that into the improvement section.
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Re: Three tricks in the shortest time

Postby Polarn » Thu Oct 04, 2012 2:08 pm

something like spinning around, running up a ladder onto a platform (or crawl through a tube) to then finnish it of by raising a flag (doing it with a single string to keep pulling) would be kewl! :P

since you had a reply; I think you can explain to them that you had a change of heart since the ladder and the tube is basically the same trick (going from point A to B, both teachable by targeting). And I think that would actually be a valid reason so that you actually have 3 different things really to show as the end result.
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