Unfortunately, I have to put Peach in a holding pattern for our behavior modification, now that she's in season. Not only do girls get really weird when they're in season (stable dogs get spooky, so dogs who are already spooky get ultra-weird), but they smell and they're messy. In about three weeks, we'll be back in the swing of things.
In the meantime, we're going to work on targeting novel objects at home; I've found this to be extremely helpful with my clients' fearful dogs, plus it's fun for owner and dog. Free shaping is always a blast! When we take this on the road (after it's been put on cue), I can ask Peach to touch strange things--signs, buildings, rocks, curbs, cars, etc. And of course I'll still keep working with Basil and Teagan; we have lots to do today.
My friend also gave me one of Terry Ryan's new ClickSticks...it's a target stick with a clicker built into the handle, and it telescopes so that you can make it different lengths. I don't use target sticks much for dogs, but I decided to try it out on my chickens. I keep four laying hens for eggs--Ruby, Ophelia, Zipper and Rosie--and for some strange reason, I've never done any clicker training with them (I have, however, fielded many jokes from my training friends that I could have my own chicken camp). They're trained to come when they're called so that I can corral them into their run and/or coop when necessary, but other than that, I haven't done much with them.
So I took the ClickStick outside with a cup of yogurt; I let Ruby (my favorite because she's so like a dog) out of the run, and began clicking her randomly, quickly offering her the yogurt cup. Within a few clicks she was no longer interested...rather than assuming she was stupid (which would be easy to do, since this is a standard assumption about chickens), I evaluated my reinforcement. The girls get yogurt 4-5 times a week, and while they enjoy it, it apparently wasn't high enough value when Ruby also had the choice of fresh grass and bugs to eat (there is no grass inside the run--they ate it all long ago).
I put Ruby away, went back in the house, and grabbed my food tube, which was already loaded with a mix of canned cat food and cream cheese from Peach's training session yesterday. Canned cat food is THE number one favorite chicken treat, so I thought this might be worth a try...the chickens also recognize the food tube, because I occasionally give them a nibble from it when I'm outside with the dogs.
Back out to the run, food tube in hand. I let Ruby out, and begin clicking her for looking at or pecking the green ball on the end of the ClickStick. Pecking is such an instinctual behavior for a chicken, but strangely enough, Ruby quit pecking at the green ball...and began looking at it instead! She would stretch her neck out, eyeball it, and then immediately waited for the treat. Very deliberate behavior. It was hilarious to watch her figure out that looking at that green ball was getting her clicked, and after about 2 straight minutes of clicking and treating for looking at the green ball, we wrapped up the session and I put her back in with her sisters.
What fun! I'm going to keep going with this and see what I can get from my little fluffybutt hen.
