Clicker training?

Discussion in 'Monitors & Tegus' started by jenphilly, Nov 19, 2005.

  1. mutt225

    mutt225 New Member

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    ok i dont know about tegus never worked with em, but i have worked with many monitors and there is no way a monitor would come to you with a clicker. so yes this is very silly to me thats like calling its name and it coming to you. They do what they want not what you want. Im not saying they are not smart, but they do not care for you they care for them selves. if theirs food they come out to eat not cause you want em to. Some will eat then and some wont. Its up to them. Ive had monitors come to the smell and taste of food, or they come round feeding time but if i sat there and clicked our yelled its name i should just be yelling at a wall. They are not dogs they do not act like even close to dogs. They may be smart as but as for them acting like a dog they do not. Just get a dog if thats what you want , why do you think so many monitors end up with no home becasue they are not what people expect. they expect something that will come, they can hold, let run around the house all day, and be as nice as pie. but its just not true for many in most cases. i have trained birds,many small mammals, and other animals to do things but never reptiles.
     
  2. JEFFREH

    JEFFREH Administrator

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  3. Axe

    Axe Well-Known Member

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    No, that's not true. Like I said, I've not done it myself, but I have seen monitors that are trained to clickers, whistles & voice commands.
     
  4. JEFFREH

    JEFFREH Administrator

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  5. jenphilly

    jenphilly New Member

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    Sorry, have not been on for a bit... started this whole discussion and been away! :)

    I will post in the spring once Spot is up and about and we start his training. I'll even use my digital camera's video option and take short 'films' and post them as well, so everyone can truly judge for themselves whether Spot is reacting to the clicker. I believe 100% we can do the training, it was more the question or feedback from someone who has done this what the best reward would be - decided to wait til Spot is awake and see what insect, worm or fruit he goes to first, then we will only use that as a clicker training reward.

    I don't believe that we can train any lizard to respond to his name, but a noise or sound is very reasonable. Think about nature, lizards not only respond to what they see, but what they hear. We were just watching a show on tv about a blind alligator and how the zoo cannot work in his cage freely because he reacts to noise. They get the alligator to a side of his cage where they can confine him by making small splashes in the water, the alligator reacts as the noise because it sounds like a fish breaking the surface of the water and the alligator moves to the splashing noise. Should we do splash training instead of clicker training :) The logic is the same....

    Thanks to everyone for participating in this conversation and I look forward to posting in the spring what progress we make!!

    Jen
     
  6. JEFFREH

    JEFFREH Administrator

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  7. camdalizardman18

    camdalizardman18 New Member

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    now see if you were paying any attention what so ever, i wasnt talking about monitors now was i?
    you seem to be very up tight about a discussion board. all i have to say is HOLY CRAP :!:

    listen to yourself for a second, your entire paragraph is about how monitors only care about themselves. no, actually they need people to feed them and take care of them and they probably rely on them. i agree with you that they are seldom in a sense that they dont interact w/ people alot.

    you pretty much wrote the same thing over and over. it gave me the impression that you think monitors are dumb.


    now as i was saying, tegus are infact very inteligent. they can make connections to different sounds and colors.
     
  8. JEFFREH

    JEFFREH Administrator

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  9. Axe

    Axe Well-Known Member

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    Keep it civil folks :D

    Some people think training a rat or a bird is silly, but they're trainable too.
     
  10. JEFFREH

    JEFFREH Administrator

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  11. bratspets

    bratspets Member

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    RE: who knows.......

    Jen: You go girl.

    I would guess any sound would work as long as you are consistent. The clicker has the advantage of consistent SHARP sound.

    I have a different whistle to call my cats than my dogs. They each have different names they respond to. One dog comes running to the kitchen if he hears the other catch and chew a morsel of food.

    We have trained pet rats before...it is just plain fun. And my dad's trained parakeets were a hoot.

    Conditioned responses, or "training" can be helpful. If you can train a chicken to play piano, you can train a lizard to come at dinnertime...as long as they are hungry.

    If you learn about training in general, you can probably do it successfully with your lizards.
    http://www.wagntrain.com/OC/#Learning
     
  12. shadows_fall99

    shadows_fall99 New Member

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    RE: who knows.......

    I got my sav. to come out when it time to be fed by tapping on the screen top of his cage, he comes out everytime I tap on it.
     
  13. snake_bint

    snake_bint New Member

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    RE: who knows.......

    While I believe that you can condition a large lizard to respond to click training in response to food, I doubt that that will transfer over to other behaviors, like leaving the safety of hide just by being called by a click. I'm not saying that lizards are stupid or untrainable, but we must keep in mind that their brains & nervous systems are quite diffent from mammals & birds. After all, mammals are the only animals with brain having a cerebral cortex, which in humans controls language among other things. Reptiles rely on a more developed mid & hind brain, which are responsible for vital functioning, coordination, & survivalistic behavior. This difference makes training lizards much different than training any mammal. I bet you'll have success in training him to associate clicks with food & he'll come running, but I doubt that he'll identify a click with coming out of his hide unless he's quite hungry. If he does respond though I think you should continue to reward him with treats more often than you would a dog so that the behavior doesn't face extinction. For example, Pavlov's dogs eventually stopped salivating at the sound of a tone if they weren't at least occassionally reinforced with the taste of meat afterwards.
    Good luck & keep us posted.
     
  14. KLiK

    KLiK Well-Known Member

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    Re: who knows.......

    on animal planet they had a show where a zoo had trained 3 cuban crocodiles to learn to stay, come out the water, go back into the water, and open their mouths when they heard different amount of clicks from a 5$ clicker
     
  15. crocdoc

    crocdoc New Member

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    This is a bit off-topic, but advising people to keep monitors this way isn't a good idea. You live in Florida, so perhaps if your house isn't air conditioned you may be able to keep a monitor short term like this (provided it still had access to hot basking spots, swimming areas etc). However, most people in the US have air conditioned or centrally heated houses which are way too cool and dry for a tropical monitor. Almost all of the big, free roaming monitors I know about have died at relatively young ages from 'complications' which invariably amount to 'improper conditions'. The vet usually puts it down to 'kidney failure' or 'organ failure', the owner blames some genetic defect and is none the wiser.

    It's one thing to allow a lizard to free roam for a couple of hours a day, but it's an entirely different scenario if it is living like that 24/7. In my opinion, if one isn't able to house them properly, simply don't get a large monitor. There are plenty of smaller, more easily housed species available.
     

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