The Trick Training Diaries - Jan. 31st, 2010

I decided to do another short session of trick training today.

The first 10 minutes were only with Shade since Zuri was busy in the birdroom but she eventually joined in the fun as well.

Shade picked up turn around fairly easy this time around. It definitively took less approximations to get to the final "product" as it did yesterday. Since she mastered it pretty well, I wanted to start teaching her the wave; I would use the step up command and the moment she would lift her food in the air, I would reward her. However, she would sometimes refer to turning around when I asked her to wave; I assumed she thought she would get a treat just by performing a trick. Since it was not the tricked I asked, I didn't give her anything. If she would just turn around, I would wait until she was still, asked her to turn around and then reward her - trying to make it clear that she will get the reward ONLY if she performed what I asked. The wave will definitively need more work but I stopped when it was obvious she wanted to do something else and had enough. I also had to take some steps back (to targeting and turning) whilst trying to teach the wave.

Zuri also remembered the turn around quite well. Once it was obvious she knew the turning trick, I actually started chaining it with something else; I would ask her to target to my hand (it would involve moving along the tree to find me) and then to turn before giving her the treat. She did fairly well with this.

I need a device which can take decent video and start to record these sessions...