My son, who is in the 5th grade this year, works with me training our animals. He has been at it for about a year and it has really caught on to a lot of good skills. It causes a little trouble though - we had to drop out of puppy kindergarten after 3 weeks. Neither of us could take it. He would get very frustrated because the "trainer" kept trying to lure our pup into behaviors that he already knew and had solid cues for. "Dad, if she would just give him the command, he would do what she wanted!" "Dad, I wish I could work with that other puppy - she is confusing him by pushing him around like that!" "Dad, she just reinforced the behavior she is trying to get rid of!"
When we were in the planning stages of getting our Parrot, I bought a video at the local Petco just so the family could see what a performing parrot looked like (apparently they had not grown up at the zoo and the wildlife park getting as close to the bird trainers as they could and watching the shows over and over). There we were - my boy and I sitting side by side watching a parrot training video. "Dad, I don't like this video - she is pushing that parrot through the movements - if she would just wait for a minute and capture the start of the behavior with a clicker and then refine it in steps, she could train that bird in half the time!"
He makes me proud! (Don't misunderstand - I am not encouraging critizism of other trainers - but I am proiud of what he has learned and how well he works with the animals).
