Lesson 1 – Clicker Training Course

WELCOME, WELCOME, WELCOME.

Welcome to clicker training fundamentals. I am so happy to have you here inside this very special course to help evolve your animal training skills. We are going to learn a lot in the next 11 lessons. Before we get “officially started” though I just want to take this opportunity to extend a virtual handshake. Congratulations to you on making the decision to develop yourself. I guarantee that this is going to be a lot of fun and we are going to learn a lot throughout the course. lets dive in.

Ryan Cartlidge – Animal Training Academy

The clicker training challenge.

This is lesson one. This clicker training course is designed to help you flourish with all your clicker training endeavors. The course consists of 11 Lessons. Each lesson contains video content, written information and quizzes. The clicker training course is designed to be fun and simultaneously teach you how to effectively use the clicker.

Here’s what you will learn in this Clicker Training Course.

What reinforcement is and how it works.
The different kinds of reinforcement (primary and secondary).
How to develop secondary reinforcers with your animals (i.e. the clicker).
How to tell if your animal understands what the clicker means.
Your responsibilities to your animal when using a clicker.
Why to use a clicker.
Pros and cons of using the clicker compared to alternatives (whistles and your voice).
When a clicker is really beneficial in training new behaviors.
How to break behavior up into more learnable chunks.
How to write training plans for your animals.
How to shape new behavior.
Lots of different examples of using the clicker with various animals and behaviors.
And more…..

My clicker training challenge for you.

For me, if there was one thing I would want you to take away from this course, it would be a greater understanding of how/why clickers works. Understanding this will help you use the clicker correctly and become a better Animal Trainer.

The truth is, anyone has the potential to train an animal. There are of course significant variations between people. Some people are naturally better at responding to behaviour. Some people are naturally better at timing. The same way that some people are naturally better at singing. Or writing. Like singing and writing however, these skills can be developed. This is why it’s extremely important for you to practice your training. Like any skill, practice builds confidence through repetition.

Also don’t be afraid to make mistakes. There is a saying I like that has to do with Science. Training is behavioral science and I think it fits quite nicely here. It goes something like this.

If your not making mistakes, your doing it wrong. If your not correcting your mistakes your doing it really wrong. If you can’t admit your making mistakes your not doing it at all! “

At the end of this course, it’s your responsibility to practice and practice and practice. This is what I challenge you to do. By the time you have finished this course you will understand how the clicker works and be able to apply it correctly. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes and have fun.

Lesson 2 – Clicker Training Basics

Welcome. In this lesson, we are going to start discussing clicker training basics and learn all about reinforcers.

A proper understanding of the principles of reinforcement is important. This understanding is fundamental to clicker training basics. Most people know the word reinforcement. However, I find there exists a lot of confusion surrounding what it actually means. I’ve heard people say things like “reinforcement is just a fancy word for bribery” or “I don’t believe in reinforcement, animals are purely instinctual”. Also, sometimes terms like negative reinforcement or punishment get confused. This lesson intends to clear up uncertainty and provide you with fun examples that you will be able to relate to.

I use positive reinforcement in all my training. This is what you will learn about in this course. If you already have a good idea of what this means, great. Let this content be another reference point to what you already know. For those whom this information might be new. Take your time to absorb it and make sure you understand it before you move on to the next lesson.

Clicker Training Basics – Reinforcement definition:

Something that occurs immediately after behaviour.
Serves to maintain or increase the frequency of behaviour in the future.
Two types. Positive and Negative.
Positive means something is added to the environment.
Negative means something is removed.

In this course we are going to be applying the principles of positive reinforcement. so… when your animal does something you want, you are going to provide something it wants. You are going to do this immediately after your animal has done desirable behaviors. We are also going to be using the clicker. It will look like this.

Behavior —> Click—> Primary reinforcer or established reinforcer.

I will explain this in more detail in the next lesson. Correctly understanding reinforcement is a fundamental element of clicker training basics.

Lesson 3 – Reinforcement Categories.

Different categories of reinforcement.

In the last lesson we learnt about reinforcement. Just to recap, reinforcement is something that occurs immediately after behaviour. Reinforcement serves to maintain or increase the frequency of behaviour in the future. We also talked about positive and negative reinforcement. Positive reinforcement refers to when something is added to the environment. Negative reinforcement refers to when something is removed from the environment. Moving forward however, we’re just going to be focusing on positive reinforcement. What this means is, when your animal does something you want, you’re going to give it something it wants.

Hopefully, you now have a clear idea of what reinforcement is. If not then go back and spend some more time going over the last lecture to wrap your mind around it. If you understand it, great. We will move on and start discussing the “different categories of reinforcement.”

There are two main categories of reinforcement that we want to focus on here. The first one is what we call primary reinforcers. A primary reinforcer is something that is innately reinforcing for your animal. These are things like food, water, warmth, shelter, reproduction opportunities and play. For the rest of this course we are going to be mainly focusing on the primary reinforcer food.

The other type of reinforcer we’re going to be talking about is secondary reinforcers. Secondary reinforcers are previously novel stimuli that have been continuously paired with another already established reinforcer (when training this is normally a primary reinforcer, and is normally food). What I mean by pairing is that the novel stimuli (i.e. a clicker) is added to the environment and then closely (within a second or two) followed by the other reinforcer (in this course we are going to be using food). Through continual pairing, the once neutral stimuli takes on the reinforcing value of the other reinforcer. This is how the clicker will become reinforcing in your training and for your animal.

In the next lecture I’m going to recommend a technique for you to start your clicker training off. Hopefully you already have an idea in your mind as to how we might do this.

Lesson 4 – Pairing Secondary Reinforcers

In this lesson we are going to learn more about secondary reinforcers and clickers. You will learn about what you need to do to start pairing your clicker with food (our chosen primary reinforcer). Start by watching the video for this lesson below.

Before we move on with secondary reinforcers – Are you making any of these mistakes?

In this written part of the lesson I want to focus on what food you are going to use. We are going to consider two important points here;

The first thing we need to think about, is the fact that all animals are individuals. Individual variation therefore, means that some animals are going to value food more than others. If your animal is not highly food motivated you might have to replace food with something else for the remainder of this course. For example, a favorite toy.
The other thing to think about here is what food items you are using. For example, lets say a pet dog has access to a large quantity of biscuits all day long. Imagine that dog’s owner then tried to use the same biscuits as reinforcement for that dog. They might discover the dog is not highly motivated by them. This dogs owner would need to examine the diet. They could possibly use a treat, as long as the treat was part of a complete and balanced diet. Additionally they could look at other aspects of how they manage the diet.

I am cautious to go into much detail here, because it is challenging to make diet recommendations through this medium. I don’t want to suggest anything that could be misinterpreted and consequently be unhealthy for an animal. You and your individual circumstances will dictate what food you use. Try and find something that is motivating for your animal and that fits into a well balanced and healthy diet. As I mentioned in a previous lecture, stop if you are unsure. Then seek out the help of a professional or veterinarian before continuing.

Additionally weighing your animal should be a relatively consistent event. If you don’t own a good pair of scales then see if your vet has a pair that you could use. Often you will find that they have a big pair of scales in their waiting area. You can pop in to your vet when you drive past and place your animal on the scales there. You need to be conscious of how changes in diet are affecting your animals weight. Also, If your training a pet animal at home (especially a cat or a dog) then their food packets frequently feature a rough feeding guide. Once again, if you are unsure, please seek out the advice of a professional/veterinarian.

What if your animal does not hand feed?

The principles of clicker training can work with any animal. However, at this stage I want to point out that some animals might not be hand feeding. Also, some people might not be comfortable hand feeding. Do you fall into one of these categories? If so, that’s okay. I want you to start thinking about how you might set up your animal’s environment differently. Maybe you could arrange it so you could consistently and easily deliver food to a specific location. If you can manage something like this then you can still pair the delivery of food with the sound of the clicker. Maybe you could do something similar to what you saw in this lessons video. Here I was clicking and then throwing the Kitten’s food in a bowl. I just set the training up like that as an example. Most people can hand fed their cat. This may be more relevant for animals in zoological settings. For example, lions, tigers or elephants. In situations like this closed contact training is recommended.

Some animals can’t be fed due to undesirable aggressive behavior towards hands. For example, later on in this course you will see a possum being trained to voluntarily enter a crate. In this particular example, the possum did not hand feed. We therefore put his food in milk bottle lids and feed him by placing the milk lids on wooden shelves. I did not work with that possum long enough to train hand feeding. Although with positive reinforcement this would have been possible. We can achieve this via a process called shaping. You will learn more about this process later on in this course.

NOTE: please treat your training situation as unique, and always exercise good judgement.

How to create secondary reinforcers for your animals.

Before we more on lets just go through a check list and make sure that the food item you are using fits a few criteria.

Is it part of a healthy and well balanced diet?
Ideally you want to do at least two short training sessions a day. These can range from 1-5 minutes. Short training sessions are ideal. The quantity of the food item needs to last throughout these sessions.
It needs to be in small bite sized chunks. You want your animal to take the food, consume it quickly and then present for the next piece.
Ideally it is something the animal desires, something that is not freely available in its environment and something it will consistently come and engage in training for.
Feel free to use multiple food items as long as they all fit the above criteria.
If you’re unsure seek out the advice of a professional or veterinarian.

For everyone else that has a food item ready to go, great. Let’s move on. In this lesson I encourage you to start practicing your timing. We are getting ready to start pairing your clicker with your food item. As just mentioned your timing is very important here. What I want you to do is pick up your clicker. Then practice clicking and then immediately offering food (like in the video). It’s important that the click comes first. Also that the hand that delivers the food stays still until after the click is sounded. If this is timed incorrectly the animal might start watching for “hand movement” instead of listening for the sound of the clicker.

So far we have learned about what reinforcement is, primary and secondary reinforcers and how to pair them. Before you go on to the next lesson make sure you practice your timing. If you feel ready you can even start practicing with your animal. In the next lesson we are going to have a look at training a duration with your clicker. We will also examine how to make sure your clicker’s reinforcing value is established. I hope you have enjoyed this lesson on pairing secondary reinforcers and I will see you in lesson five.

Lesson 5 – Starting clicker training.

If you haven’t already done so, then in this lesson we are going to be starting clicker training with our animals. In lesson 4 we discussed practicing your timing. We talked about how it was important that the food followed the click. The other highly important element was that the hand with the food in it didn’t move until after the click sound. Watch this lessons video and learn how to start implementing this with your animal.

Starting clicker training

So hopefully you have successfully started clicker training with your animal. From their perspective, a new reinforcer has just entered their world. The once neutral clicking device now means great and wonderful things. Your journey as a clicker trainer has begun. An important thing to watch when starting clicker training is that your animal understands that the clicker has value. We want them to know that every time they hear “CLICK” they are guaranteed food. Over time really good animal trainers develop hypersensitivity to body language. I want you to start practicing this super important skill now. You are going to start looking for changes in your animal’s body language that demonstrate understanding. Like the cat in this lessons video, these might be exaggerated movements. Or they might be very slight like the Swiss shepherd dogs head. If you are sure that your animal understands the click, great. We will move onto the next step – click through to lesson number 6 and we will talk about a metaphorical contract that you have just signed with your animal.

Lesson 6 – Clicker Training is like signing a contract.

Welcome to lesson six of clicker training fundamentals. I hope you are enjoying the course so far. In this lesson we are going to talk about a very important element of clicker training. Improper application of the following principles is one of the biggest mistakes made. Start this lesson off by watching the video below.

Clicker Training is kind of like signing a contract.

In the last lesson I talked about how clicker training is like signing a metaphorical contract with your animal. The promise that you make is that every time you click, your animal is guaranteed a piece of food. Moving forward, its very important that you understand this principle. This applies even if your finger slips and you click accidentally. Even if you click and your animal was doing the complete wrong behaviour. The contract states: You Click –> You Deliver. Here’s why this is important;

In this course you have learned to pair the click with food delivery.
You have tested your animals awareness of the click and they understand its meaning.
The sound of the click is now reinforcing for your animal.
The continual power of the clicker lies in its consistent pairing with your food item after every click.
With the above being true, whatever your animal is doing immediately before an accidental click, gets reinforced. I.e. there is a greater probability of that behaviour occurring in the future.
If you click accidentally and you don’t pair that individual click with food, but you have been and continue to pair every other click with food, your accidental click will still have reinforcing value.
Consequently, you have still reinforced whatever your animal was doing immediately before the accidental click.
Also remember the continual power of the click lies in its consistent pairing with your food item. Because you can’t change the fact that you just accidentally reinforced something, it therefore makes sense to help sustain your clickers power and pair that accidental click with a piece of food.
Hypothetically it makes no difference to the effect of that individual click on future behaviour.

The other mistake that people make has earned the name in the industry ‘Blazing Clickers’ For example, lets’ pretend that a trainer asks for 10 different behaviours from an animal. The animal gets a click after each behaviour. However only gets food for 2 out of the 10 clicks. Here’s what will most likely happen in this situation. Firstly, if it hasn’t already happened, the click will lose its reinforcing value. This is because the power of the clicker relies on its consistent pairing with food (or other established reinforcer). The animal therefore will focus on other information in its environment to predict when food is coming. Commonly this is the movement of the trainers hand. In this situation the specific hand movement takes on the role of the clicker.

Behaviour –> Specific hand movement –> Food

Additionally there are now low levels of reinforcement in the training session. Often behaviours therefore become sloppy or break down. And animals frequently become disinterested. Before moving on with the course I am going to advise you as to how to avoid this pitfall. In your mind sign this metaphorical contract with your animal. Every time you click you deliver food.

We now understand that we have to deliver food after every single click. In the next lesson we are going to examine some added benefits that the clicker can bring to your training sessions. After this we will move on and start talking about shaping/training new behaviours. I’ll see you in lesson 7.

Lesson 7/A – Why use a clicker.

Over the last six lessons you have learned a lot about how the clicker works. The previous lesson introduced the idea of a metaphorical contract. You now know to pair every click with a piece of food. This next lesson is split into two parts and here we are going to answer the questions – why use a clicker? And – When to use a clicker?

Why use a clicker?

The clicker delivers a very sharp, distinct and universal sound. It doesn’t matter whether you use it or someone else does, the sound the clicker produces is the same. This feature gives it universality between users. The clickers sharp, distinct and unique sound makes it ideal for marking behavior. Learn more about its benefits with regards to marking behavior in this lessons video.

Theoretically, you could take any novel stimuli and pair it with food. As long as you follow the techniques taught in this course you could, therefore, replace the clicker with that novel stimuli. There do exist alternatives to the clicker that are frequently used in animal training. In this lesson, we compare the clicker to two of these alternatives.

Why use a clicker – Whistles

Sometimes I replace the clicker with a whistle when I’m training. The whistle acts in the same way as the clicker. I blow the whistle and then deliver food after my animal has exhibited a desirable behavior. There are some benefits to using a whistle over a clicker. The main one is that your hands are freed up as you can grip the whistle between your teeth whilst training. Watch this lessons video to see an example of this with a red-crowned parakeet. I chose the whistle in this situation due to having both my hands tied up. One hand was handling the animal and the other hand was holding my food.

There are also some cons to using a whistle. The whistle does not share the same universality as the clicker. There will likely be variation in the intensity and duration of whistle blows between individuals (and even between your own whistle blows). This has the potential to be confusing for some animals. The fact that the whistle has to be placed into the mouth additionally brings up certain hygienic issues that don’t exist with the clicker.

Why use a clicker – using your voice.

As we have already learned we could hypothetically replace the clicker with anything. This is true as long as we successfully pair whatever item we choose with a food item or other reinforcer. Knowing this information some people, therefore, simply like to use their voice. When using a verbal bridge it is suggested to keep it simple. One or two words would be best. For example “Good boy.” Like the whistle and clicker, using your voice has its pros and cons. One of the biggest advantages is that you don’t have to carry around physical objects like clickers or whistles. Variation in using the voice as a bridge, however, can be even larger then if using a whistle. This is especially pronounced if other people are participating in the training.

One of the main benefits for me when asking the question”why use a clicker?” is its unique sound. The sound is sharp, distinctive, quick to deliver and universal between its users.

Click through to the second part of this lesson and we are going to go over specific situations where clickers/bridges can really come in handy. I’ll see you there.

Lesson 7/B – When to use Clicker Training

Here are some of the things we have learnt so far.

The clicker communicates to your animal exactly when it has done a desirable behaviour.
We deliver the click immediately after a desirable behaviour and immediately before the delivery of food.
Because of our pairing of the clicker with food it has acquired reinforcing value.
Reinforcement is something that occurs immediately after behaviour serving to maintain and/or increase the frequency of that behaviour in the future.
The CLICK is a very sharp, distinctive and universal sound.
It doesn’t matter wether you or someone else uses it, it sounds the same.
The above features make it ideal for marking behaviour.
Now we are going to learn about when to use clicker training.

When to use clicker training.

Communication with your animal is a continuous feedback loop. When applied correctly the clicker can really help with this feedback loop. There are also some very specific occasions when the communication ability of clickers can really come in handy. For example when your capacity to deliver food to your animal might be impaired by distance and/or physical/visual barriers. You can see some examples of this, in this lessons video. One is with Petra the Possum, where there is a significant distance and physical barrier (door) between us. We therefore employ the clicker to communicate to Petra that she has done the right thing and food is on its way. The second example is my cat. In the video, the cat is visually impaired as to what is going on. You can see that in this situation the clicker really helps me communicate to her that she has done the right thing and its time to collect her food. These are some good examples of when to use clicker training.

NOTE: This doesn’t mean that the clicker can’t and shouldn’t be used in other situations. This lesson just attempts to explain situations where I believe it has added benefit. There really isn’t any right or wrong answer as to “when to use clicker training?” Frequently the answer to this comes down to individual preference. I personally like the clicker for it’s assistance in marking with precision when an animal has done a desirable behaviour. I additionally have friends who are some of the best trainers I know who don’t like using them. Consequently, it’s often a personal preference.

Click through to lesson eight. We are going to start to go over shaping/training new behaviour using your clicker.

Bonus “micro lesson” – Hand feeding challenges.

There may be situations where you’re having a challenging time hand feeding an animal. For example, you might risk being bitten. This was initially the case when training Devey the Brush Tail Possum. You can see Devey in this lessons video. The video shows some very early stages of his training. Due to his management at the time we had prioritised the behavior of him voluntarily enter his crate. This however posed a challenge with regards to successfully delivering him his reinforcement.

You can see in the video that we overcame this by placing his food in plastic milk bottle caps. We combined this with the use of a clicker. So when Devey exhibited desirable behavior we clicked and then placed the plastic lid (with food inside) on some shelving. Devey quickly learned that this was how his reinforcement was going to be delivered. It therefore allowed us to easily avoid the possibility of him trying to bite. You can also see that later in the video I am able to hand feed Devey through the mesh door of his crate.

HAND FEEDING CHALLENGES

My time working with Devey unfortunately ended before we got to the stage of training him to hand feed from everyone without having to use the bottle caps or the mesh door. To do this we would have used positive reinforcement to shape Devey towards taking food from the hand in a more desirable fashion. You will learn more about shaping in the following three lessons.

In this situation the clicker really came in handy. Firstly as we learnt in lesson 7/A, one of the pros of the clicker is it’s unique, clear, distinct, sharp and universal sound. Secondly as we learnt in the last lesson it can help communicate to our animals when they might not be able to see us. We combined these qualities with the technique of feeding Devey in the milk bottle lids. As you can see we got results.

Lesson 8 – Shaping Behavior, Splitting Not Lumping

In this lesson, we are going to go over a process called splitting rather than lumping. In lesson nine we are going to be learning how to write a training plan. Then in lesson ten we, will use this training plan, and our new knowledge to start shaping behaviors with our animals. We are going to be devising small little baby steps to help us do this. The proper terminology for these baby steps is successive approximations. Think about them as small learn-able chunks. You have been through this process yourself. For example, when you first started to walk. You didn’t just stand up and start doing it. First you crawled. Then you sat up. Then one leg. Then a wobbly two legs, until you took your first step. During this process, you fell over a lot. However, you were reinforced by “balance” for doing the right thing. Consequently, you learned to walk. So we are going to compile some “baby steps” just like you did when you first started walking. We are going to write these “steps” down on a piece of paper. These steps will make up our training plan.

When shaping behavior, we want to reinforce any slight movements our animals make in the right direction towards a final pre-defined behavior. This involves splitting our final behavior up into smaller learnable chunks. Think about your animal doing something in slow motion. When you watch behavior in slow mo you can really see all the small micro-movements that animals make. Splitting rather than lumping involves considering all those small micro-movements. If our animals are having a challenging time understanding the direction you are trying to go, sometimes it pays to see if you can reinforce even micro movements in the right direction.

If you have finished everything in the lesson then great, click through to the quiz and I will see you in lesson nine!

Lesson 9 – Animal Training plans.

In this lesson, we are going to learn how to write animal training plans and talk about shaping behavior. I have mentioned this concept of shaping throughout the whole course and it’s now time to learn what it means. Shaping is how we train new behaviors. How it works is rather simple. The best way to start the process of shaping off is by having a plan written down on paper before you start physically working with your animal. These are going to be our animal training plans. These plans are going to contain a number of behavioral steps that we can teach our animals to help lead them from what they are currently doing to the final behaviors that we want. The best way to start writing a training plan is to first figure out exactly what your final behaviour is going to be. There is a specific way to think about this. I want you to think of behaviour only in terms of what you can physically see and hear your animal doing. This means not using any labels to describe behaviour. For example happy, sad, angry dominant etc. Additionally, I want you to only describe what you want your animals to do, rather then describe what you don’t want. For example “I don’t want my animal to climb on the furniture” or “I want my animal to stop chewing on my cushions.” Instead you might say “I want my animal to lie on her bed” or “I want my animal to play with this chew toy.”

HOW TO WRITE A GOOD TRAINING PLAN

Our training plan is going to exist of a series of steps that we are going to devise to get from what our animal is already doing to that final defined behaviour. The correct terminology for these steps is successive approximations. Think about them as baby steps to get from behaviour A (what the animal is already doing) to behaviour B (Our final defined behaviour).

The process is rather simple.
1) At the bottom of a blank piece of paper write down your final behaviour. This is the behaviour you want your animal to do after your training is finished. (point B)
2)At the top of that same piece of paper write down the closest behaviour the animal already does. That is the closest behaviour it already does to the final behaviour from step 1. (Point A)
3) Fill in the gaps. Write down small behavioral increments required to get you from Point A to Point B.
4)Implement your training plan. Reinforce each step along the way. Modify the plan as needed. Stop when you reach you final behaviour.

NOTE: You don’t have to stick to your plan. If your animal is learning fast, miss a few steps. If your animal is learning slowly, Maybe add a few steps. Always listen to what your animals behaviour is telling you. Adjust your training accordingly.

Watch this lessons video and then click through to the next lesson where we will start to use our training plans to shape/traing new behaviors with our animals.

Lesson 10 – Shaping behavior

Congratulations ! Let’s start Shaping behavior.

Who is awesome? You are awesome! You have made it to the end of clicker training fundamentals. This is the final lesson where you are going to start shaping behavior with your animals. You have learned everything you need to learn to effectively incorporate the clicker into your training and write a plan for a new behavior. In this lesson, you will learn some basic information about using your training plan to shape new behaviors.

Before we go on, however, I want to remind you of the clicker training challenge that was introduced in lesson one. It is highly beneficial when managing behavior to develop a deep understanding of reinforcement, how it works and how to apply it. Understanding reinforcement and consequently how to use it is a really powerful skill to have. Consequently, Your journey does not end here. Keep seeking opportunities to grow and develop, read books, watch videos, attend conferences and whatever else it takes to continually add to and develop what you have just learned. I also highly recommend filming your training and watching it back. This technique really helps build an improved comprehension of behavior and helps you develop your ability. Most importantly though practice, practice and practice some more! Even the most experienced animal trainers in the world are consistently practicing and developing their skill sets.

Shaping behavior.

This whole course I have been alluding to shaping behavior, so it’s now time to have a turn and start working towards those behaviors you want. Shaping is the process by which we put your training plans into action. It requires successively reinforcing all the steps in the plan you have just written. The way it works is that once you have trained a step in the plan you then withold reinforcement for that step/behavior and then wait for any behavioral movement in the direction of the next step. As soon as we see that movement, we click and deliver food. We do this with each step of the plan until we reach the final behavior You saw an example with this and Devey the possum in the last video. Watch the video for this lesson, do the quiz and then practice, practice, practice!

Now you know how to shape new behavior the world is your oyster. Within the biological restraints of the species you are working with you can pretty much shape anything. If you are unsure of what behaviors might be next on your list then have a go at the following.

Targeting – This is where you get your animal to position a specific body part to a specific location. Frequently this is a nose to a target stick. You don’t have to target noses to target sticks though. You can target any body part. For example animals in zoological settings, such as lions and tigers, are frequently trained to target bums against the mesh. This can be beneficial when administering injections.
Crate training – This is a beneficial behavior for all animals to learn. It can make trips to the vet much less stressful.
Station training – This is when you train your animal to station its entire body to a specific location. This can be really beneficial in a diverse range of situations. You saw an example of this with Petra the possum in this course. We use stationing to get Petra to position herself in a more desirable location for us when we were entering and exiting her exhibit.

Be creative with your training and challenge yourself to train behaviors that reduce stress and increase physical and mental stimulation for your animals.

Than you for participating in clicker training fundamentals. I hope you have enjoyed the experience and I look forward to connecting with you again soon.
You will always have access to this material via this website. Any updates or revisions I make to the course will additionally be updated for free, for your benefit.

Also as I have already mentioned please email me if you have any questions. There are also spaces to leave comments on the bottom of these pages and forums for you to utilize. If you are unsure of anything or would like further clarification about any of the topics that we have covered in this course then please don’t hesitate to send me a message.

Thanks again. Ryan Cartlidge – Animal Training Academy.

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