Outdoors is no place right now to be training my rabbits under the clicker method. I came to a deeper understanding of this today, as I tried to use the clicker with them when they were out enjoying the outdoors on their harnesses. "Training moments" simply didn't present themselves: the rabbits were far too distracted by all the stimuli around them. Truthfully, they tend to be less oriented towards treats, anyway, when they are on their harnesses. They are concentrating so much more thoroughly on everything that is going on around them. I realize now that in order to get quality training time alone with each rabbit, I will actually need to use the large bathroom as a neutral training area. THat will get complicated in August, when our new Flemish Giant will actually be staying there until he is integrated with the rabbits in the Purple Room.
But I realize that the rabbits need the relative dearth of stimuli of that segregated training area in which to focus on the target stick. So I have learned my lesson. Until they are more oriented to the target stick, they simply are not going to pay attention to it out of doors.
