Continuing with my fish...

Training this fish is a BLAST!!

He's very enthusiastic and quick to figure stuff out. 

I wrote this on  3/19:

"At first, I was using a water-tap as my "click", but I decided to switch from the water tapping to the flash of light. Tapping the water became kind of cumbersome and he would often go to my finger instead of the food and get himself confused. I guess my finger can be a target instead, and I didn't even have to train it.

I made a hoop for Fish today. I used two plastic coated paper clips...made one into the actual hoop, and straightened the other. I attached the hoop to the straight wire with some fishing line, creating a little loop in the middle of the straight wire so that the hoop wouldn't move side to side. Eventually I want to make a series of hoops of various heights, this method seems the easiest way. Suction cups would have been too annoying to place and remove and using some kind of float wouldn't be good, because the hoop would move with the current. This way, I can place the hoop anywhere along the front wall of the tank, simply by resting the straight wire over the opening the hood. Pretty easy.

I missed a really great click opportunity, but my light was out of reach and the bloodworm jar was closed, and unfortunately it's child-safe and takes me a bit to open it...my smart, brave fishy thought he would check this hoop out as soon as I put it in the water, and swam right up the opening, perfectly. Stupid me, when I flailed around reaching for the worms and light, I scared him. Not too bad, mind you. Anyway, after that he decided to just hang out at the surface and play with the fishing line, biting it, curling around it, etc. Pretty cute, but I didn't want those behaviors. Just the hoop please! So, I clicked any behavior that involved moving down a bit in the water. A centimeter, half a centimeter. That's pretty much all I got by the time his stomach was full and had to end the session. Not bad...I just have about 5 inches to go."

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As of now I have stopped working on the hoop, and am working only on targeting. I used another plastic coated paper clip (they are great!), and bent it so it hangs on the tank edge and made the other end into a little loop that is about 4 inches underwater. So far he consistently touches the wire with his nose or body when it is presented. He doesn't get anything "for free", so he is targeting for his dinner, which usually consists of 2-3 betta bio gold pellets and a freeze-dried bloodworm or two.

 Teaching the targeting was basically the same as teaching any other animal, except I could only get in a few clicks per session. By logging in every single click, I kept track of my progress. He has gotten clicked 32 times for touching the target in any way (body or nose touches). 12 of those repetitions were very good "nose touches". When the majority (90%) of the touches are nose touches, I will begin ignoring other types of touching. He's pretty emotional, and I am going slowly with everything.

 I cleaned his aquarium yesterday. I am going to have to eventually train him to get into a jar on cue because he definitely didn't want to leave his big comfy tank. He eventually swam into the jar out of curiosity. He seemed a bit stressed, so I set him on the table and put a paper bag over the jar to (hopefully) calm him down while I cleaned. It took me 15-20 minutes to vacuum the gravel and do the water change. I went over to the jar and lifted off the bag. He had turned from him normal beautiful red and blue to a very striking black and white. Poor boy! I have seen him have stripes before, but they were kind of faint. He was black on top, and black and white striped on the bottom. I felt pretty awful, but as soon as he slipped back into his tank, he returned to normal. According to some things I have read, stress, poor water conditions and bad nutrition can cause a male to lose color and have "fear stripes".

I will write more later on, but for now I will say this: If you've been thinking of training a new species, do it! I'm learning so much working with my cat and my horse (and now my fish!) that helps me with my dog training. 

-Lulu 

PS: He still hasn't got a name...any ideas?