No Force No Fear Wild Burro and Donkey Training - Ivan VIDEO #3

Описание: Now we're making progress! See last two videos on Ivan for background and earlier training sessions:    • No Force No Fear Wild Burro and Donkey Tra...      • No Force No Fear Wild Burro and Donkey Tra...   And Facebook pages:   / 702220753659310     / 702699140278138     / 702859946928724  
Helpful (I hope!) tips from these next two videos spliced together: It's helpful to start a session with an already fluent easy task the donkey will readily do (called a "high probability behavior"). For Ivan this included the cue "easy" for the behavior of standing calmly with head forward (the anti-mugging behavior!) and "neck", a cue to move his neck over to my fingers, a prerequisite for teaching needle injection acceptance in the future. In the first clip I cue "easy", Ivan lines his head out, then I cue "ready" meaning if you stand still as my hand touches your leg/hoof, a reinforcer will be delivered. As you can see Ivan takes a step back with the left front foot I wanted him to lift. He basically said "No not yet", so what do we do now? Ask for another high probability behavior or two to get his behavioral momentum going, and then cue "ready". Voila! So anytime the donkey gives the incorrect behavior, performs the behavior at a lower criteria, or avoids doing the cued behavior, instead of giving him/her a "time out", which can lead to frustration and confusion, simply cue for an easy high probability behavior or two or three first, then give the missed cue again. Or, you can just repeat the missed cue, especially if you think the animal didn't hear you or got distracted for example.
How did Ivan learn to go from standing still when I slid my hand down his leg, as demonstrated in VIDEO #2, to starting to lift his foot? He started this on his own basically. Because he has a long history of having had trims, he was already familiar with performing the behavior, but I couldn't just cue him for it from day one as he was terrified of having his legs touched at all (meaning he would try to escape from an approaching hand), and we had no trust account established. All the aversive handling with ropes and force caused him to try to escape whenever a hand came anywhere near his leg. Obviously if you are working with a previously wild burro, the donkey will have no idea about picking his foot up for you, so you can shape the behavior starting with reinforcing a simple shift of weight off the leg. Some burros do a lift when I slide my hand down and linger near the hoof for a second or two longer than I had been in prior sessions, or with an ever so light finger tap on the fetlock or hoof (not my favorite or first choice as this is negative reinforcement). Sometimes you can capture the foot lifting up as the burro moves. It just depends on the burro. You have to read each burro as an individual and see what works. This brings up the point that we can't "cookbook" good training. To do a great job we've got to have the basic principles of behavior science/leaarning and tools in our toolbox and then be able to pull out what we need for that animal at that moment. Sure you can have a shaping plan in your head or written down, but that's only half the information you need to train. The animal has the other half and gives you their input during the training session.
We always need to be having a two-way conversation with the learner and be flexible about adjusting what we are doing based on what the animal is communicating.
Next video will be working on the next steps of the shaping plan: duration - holding the hoof up a bit longer, and touching the bottom of the hoof while holding it up. Then a video of Ivan standing outside the training pen, unrestrained, for a trim of his front feet. If you have questions or need help teaching your donkey, contact me at [email protected] or text/call 775-813-1107. Comments welcome!