Yellow Brick Dogs

Dogs are incredibly fun to train. So are cats, horses, and fish, and I train all four.

Rusty is a 13 year-old cat, adopted from animal control at the age of 6 weeks. About 2 years ago, I started clicker training with her. Taking a few minutes every day, I taught Rusty to "Sit", nose-target multiple objects, target objects with both paws, play the piano, and to sit up and slap my hand. We also play around a bit with cat agility, although I admit that we haven't put too much into that.

Here is a video I made of a training session in which Rusty and I worked on going over the a-frame and playing piano. I hadn't asked her to do either of those tricks in a long, long time, and I didn't push her too hard.



Pony is a 24 year old horse who has been clicker trained for about a year and a half. We practice dressage for fun, and the clicker allows me to immediately reward Pony for good movement, a nice shoulder-in, or excellent transitions. As well as improving his performance while riding, the clicker is a fun way to teach tricks. Pony is also learning to retrieve a plastic soccer cone.



Dumbledore & Paro are two Betta Splendens that I began training after I attended the ClickerExpo in Los Angeles in January 2007. Karen Pryor showed a few videos of a trained Oscar fish. At first, I wanted an Oscar as well, because they are apparently very personable and outgoing. I read somewhere that Oscars are like Labradors that live in an aquarium. I soon realized that an Oscar fish wasn't the right fish for me, as they quickly grow up to a foot long, and are very destructive to their tank plants. They also like to eat their tank mates. So, after much research (I attended the ClickerExpo in January, and I got my first fish in March), I decided to get a Betta fish. I saw them in all the pet stores, in their tiny cups, and finally found the one for me. I now have two aquariums set up, and two Bettas. The Bettas also now have some tiny catfish friends which was a training challenge in itself, as Bettas tend to like being alone. I've taught both of the Bettas to touch a target, and to surface on cue. Dumbledore would also push a floating piece of cork in circles. I use a penlight as my clicker, and use freeze-dried foods as their treats.

Update: My first Betta, Dumbledore passed away. I think he may have been older than thought originally or he may have contracted an illness. He was an amazing fish with a great personality. Currently I only have one tank, and Paro got to "move on up" to the big tank and lives with two albino cory-cats and one lazy otocinclus (who doesn't like to eat algae, tsk tsk!).

A while ago, I made a short instructional video on how to teach your fish to target an object.