Cruddy video, sorry (autofocus got it wrong) but exciting session with Kronos. We have worked on a variety of husbandry procedures in ways that let him opt into whatever procedure I am signaling. Prior to this we'd done lip handling, but this was my first time touching or rubbing his teeth. It went so smoothly that I went ahead and added toothpaste.
You don’t have to watch the whole thing (10 mins of training sped up to 5 mins is still pretty boring) to get the gist, but the gist is that you don’t always have to set aside special time for training. Making breakfast was a good opportunity to teach Finn to stay outside of the tiny kitchen we have for the month (the entire space is pretty much what you see here). For reinforcers, I used what he was coming into the kitchen for in the first place—the chance to catch a scrap of tortilla here and there.
I could also have asked him to do something like go lie down on a mat, but he was already standing, and all I had to do was catch it where it was already happening. I'm going to be talking about this, among other things, in my presentation on choosing alternative behaviors to replace unwanted behaviors at Karen Pryor Clicker Training's ClickerExpo Live in January. Registration is at: https://clickerexpo.clickertraining.com/clicker-expo-virtual/
