Clicker Training

[Tay]

Hi everyone! I posted a few days ago about having a hard time getting Charlie to come to me when it’s time to ‘go home’. I ordered a clicker with his christmas presents and was wondering if anyone has had success in training their rabbit to come with the clicker – and if so how you did it? 

I’ve tried bribing him with a treat. He’s obsessed with pellets so I started bribing him with those, but it’s not really working. I also ordered some other oxbow treats that he loves that I’ll try to give only when he comes, but I’m just wondering if anyone has advice on successful clicker training. 

Thanks!

[jerseygirl]

Actually one of our current members has trained her rabbit to go into his cage. I’ll alert her to this post so she can give you an idea of how she went about it.
Meanwhile, this video shows technique of how to start clicker training.

[Ellie from The Netherlands]

Hi Taylor, thanks Jerseygirl for giving me a heads-up!

We’re in the process of training our Netherland Dwarf Breintje. He knows 3 commands at the moment: “come home”, “I want to feed you something, come sit next to me” and “get into your travel cage”. Especially the “come home” part was important because Breintje refused to go into his cage again for the night. I’m often in bad health, and he would lead me into endless binky-chases around the coffee table “Teehee, come get me, I’m much faster than youuhoo!!”. With this training he gets more treats, and I get to keep my dignity ^_^

We never knew of the clickers, and Breintje has always been very food-orientated, so Breintje was trained with very small pieces of his favourite snacks: raisins, sunflower seeds and rabbit treats. So I know nothing about training with the clickers, but I hope that this advice will help you a bit anyway. My BF is skeptical about the clickers, he thinks they would work better for dogs. Dogs like to please people, whilst a bunny is less inclined to obey commands within their group. From his point of view, it would take a lot of time to train the rabbit this way.

Rabbits can be trained, because they’re creatures of habit. It may take a while to teach them a new habit, but being positive and consistent will help. Before you start to train, make sure that the room is quiet without major distractions. Also make sure that the commands are very distinct. My rabbit got confused by “cage” and “travel cage”, they’re quite alike in Dutch. Throughout the whole training, make sure that the rabbit doesn’t get startled by sudden movements, noises etc. You’ll want to make sure that the rabbit associates the action with positive things, or it may set back the entire process.

Step 1: Take a small piece of a treat which the rabbit likes, and make sure to rattle the bag a lot, so the rabbit knows to associate the sound with the treat. If your rabbit doesn’t have a favourite treat yet, this may be step 1. You can also practise the following: make noise with the treats, call the rabbit by their name and tell them to come. Keep the command short and clear: name, come! Reward with a small piece of the treat, a happy voice and pettings, repeat several times a day.

Step 2: Stand near the cage opening, and attract your buns attention with the treat bag. Continue making the noise until the rabbit jumps into the cage, and do not give the treat before the rabbit is in. It may help to stick your hand in the cage, so that the rabbit can only get to the treat from inside. Don’t close the cage yet, just repeat this stage for a couple of days until the rabbit gets it. Repeat several times a day.

Step 3: As step 2, but give the voice command for “home” while you’re standing near the cage.

Step 4: Once the rabbit associates that command with jumping into the cage, you can try to stand a bit further away from the cage. Breintje will jump into his cage now if I call him from anywhere in the room, as long as I’m standing. It doesn’t work yet from the couch.

Step 5: Try and vary with different people if you can. Friends who visit frequently also manage to get him into his cage with the command, to the amazement of others.

 

Hope this helps!

 

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