An Introduction to Target Training a Fish!

Watch as Karen Pryor demonstrates how clicker training can be used with all types of animals, including a fish! Excerpted from Clicker Magic, available in full-length or individual lessons. From the ClickFlicks Learning Center. http://www.clickertraining.tv

"Clicker training" is the popular term for the training or teaching method based on what we know about how living organisms learn.

Research has shown that any creature—whether a dog, cat, dolphin, parrot, fish, horse, llama, or person—is more likely to learn and repeat actions that result in consequences it desires and enjoys. So clicker trainers provide consequences desired by their animal in exchange for actions or behaviors desired by their trainers.

We call these consequences "rewards" and the process is called "reinforcement." Clicker training, therefore, is a positive-reinforcement-based system of training.

First widely used by dolphin trainers who needed a way to teach behavior without using physical force, operant conditioning (the scientific term for clicker training) can be and has been successfully employed with animals of all sizes and species, both domesticated and wild, young and old; all breeds of dogs and puppies, cats, birds, leopards, rats, rabbits, chinchillas, fish, and more.

Clicker trainers who learn the underlying principles have at their disposal a powerful set of tools that enable them to analyze behaviors, modify existing methods for individual animals, and create new methods where none previously existed. This flexibility allows the tools of clicker training to be re-invented in new forms that work in a range of situations, and for an infinite variety of animals.

The same principles have also been applied to training for athletes, dancers, skaters, and other people. Called "TAGteach," this form of training uses a click as a marker signal to teach precise physical motions quickly, accurately, and positively.

More information can be found at http://www.clickertraining.com

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• clicker
• training
• dog
• puppy
• housetraining
• fish
• target

[digitaldown]

i never bought that 8 second memory theory. salmon can remember where to return to spawn years later hundreds of miles away. do that with an 8 second memory.

[flipxy]

That's a tiny tank for an oscar. I keep many species of fish ranging from cichlids to livebearers and they do this without the light. They all know that when i'm in the fish room, it's time to eat or time for me to clean their tanks. Either way, they'll follow me or my hand wherever i point (without any "clicker" or light)

[kornaphex]

That tank is miles too small and cruel to keep an oscar on its own. I'm very surprised that its still alive! Also most oscars respond to any movement by the tank and know that they are due to be fed. You don't know what your talking about!!

[SawMessage]

please thats nothing i trained my fish to fee themselfs. and how to jump from one end of the tank to the other in thin air

[MrsJohnnyDeppForever]

hmmm weird but cool lol

[HaemessB]

Definitly not. Now you know.

[deathrail]

Great, a whole evolution of peoples FISH lashing out at them! lol

[debz2dogz]

Great video to help with my dog training classes. Just about any living organism responds to clicker training.

[zarhad]

wow, training a fish, i thought they only had like a 8 second memory...maybe not...

[clubpenguin131]

cooL