As I mentioned earlier this month, I was going to train the bunnies this month. I’m glad I didn’t. I’m glad I waited. I bought a stack of different clickers for training to see which ones are the best. Even though I haven’t officially started training Buttons yet, I think I like the Pawise one at the moment. I’m waiting for Karen Pryor’s i-click, which is supposed to be the best one for rabbits, so I will have to do a very close comparison when I do receive it.
Who is Karen Pryor?
Karen Pryor did a lot of study in animal behaviour and cognition. She figured out how to create an empathetic and effective connection between animals and their human counterparts. She invented and developed the clicker training concept and tested her ideas on marine animals in aquariums (like dolphins and seals), and found that it worked really well. She then went on to clicker train dogs, cats and other domestic animals.
She wrote a book called “Don’t Shoot the Dog” in 1984, which is still an international best seller. It gave people the ability to communicate with their pets by using a small plastic device that makes a clicking sound when pressed.
She won a Nobel Prize in 2019, with her companion Theresa McKeon, for helping to train surgeons to perform orthopedic surgery with clicker training. If you’re interested in reading the official journal article that let her receive the prize, it’s here.
I finally got Karen Pryor’s i-click in the post on the 26th April. I’m in love. It is fantastic. Initially, I thought the click was too pointy/sharp, but I tested it with Buttons and he loved it. More than the Pawise one. He actually started to do what I asked him to do (more about that below in Training Buttons with a Button).
Get yourself an official i-click, don’t waste your time with anything else.
What Food To Use?
There’s three schools of thought when it comes to the foods that you use to train bunnies:
- use their normal pellets
- use some dried fruit, like raisins, dried apple, etc…
- use some treat that’s special
None of those are healthy for bunnies. Too many pellets are bad for their health, dried fruits are a sugar overload, and who knows what they put in treats.
The last thing I want is to make Buttons overweight because I’m feeding him a lot of the wrong type of food. With that in mind I’m looking for a food that buttons enjoys eating and is healthy, because I’ll need to feed him a lot of it when I’m training him.
He doesn’t get excited over food, but he does really like Peter’s Nibble O’s, Twiggies and Little Gems. Unfortunately, these are not a healthy option and are not at all good for him, but he enjoys them (or he did until he got sick from eating them – a bad batch). I purposefully don’t give him them often, because they are full of sugar, clay, and fillers like flour. Any brightly coloured foods should be banned and taken off the market.
I found these Wombaroo Clover Pellets which might be a good option, as they will not be his normal food, but will be tasty/healthy enough for him to enjoy when training. Wombaroo is a good quality brand, so I think they could be good.
My issue is that Buttons is not very food motivated because of his sore tummy, he may not be easy to train until I get his tummy under control and then it may be too late because he is too old to train. I can only see how this goes.
Training Buttons with a Button
For the past few days I have played with Buttons and given him some Little Gems or Nibble O’s. Each time he creeps forward and takes the treat I click the clicker. I want him to get used to the click when he gets a treat.
I have only given him about 3 treats each day, at this rate, it will be a slow process. Luckily I ordered the Wombaroo Clover pellets… they should be here in the next few days…
Break through: Wednesday, 26th April, I went out to spend some time with Buttons, he saw me coming with the little red bags of treats and came running. He never comes to me, but today he did!
I gave him about 3 Little Gems, each time with a click of my new i-click, and he was thrilled. I then tried to get him to lift his head to get a Nibble O and he did it! I clicked and let him have it. I repeated that about two more times, and he loved it. I’m not sure if he loved the treats or the attention more, but he is a happy bun. He then hopped away to lay down in the shade.
We will get there Butts, and you’ll get to know your 300 life skills before too long.
I’ve decided to not call them tricks, but call them life skills instead. I don’t know what it is, but the word tricks has a weird connotation (imagine a circus) in my mind making it hard for me to come up with them. But as soon as I decided to call them life skills, I have plenty of ideas about what I can teach him to do. That’s just my brain… 300? Yeah. A big ask, but we will see.