Clicker Training; 2 rabbits?

[Miss Riley]

Today I ordered the book on clicker training from Binky Bunny along with a clicker. My rabbits are 6 months old so I figure they’re still young enough to learn. Then I realized how am I supposed to clicker train them both at once? I would assume the solution would be to teach them one at a time which would involve taking one out while the other one watches. But if they’re both learning or one has already learned and I’m teaching the other and I only practice with one out at a time wouldn’t that confuse, frustrate, or defeat the purpose for the other or they’d to respond as well even though they’re not doing anything? Or even when they both learn they could each be doing two separate things when I click? I’m not sure how to go about training. Perhaps the book will help when it comes. I hope I kind of made that clear. Also this is my first post so hello Binky Bunny world!

[LBJ10]

Hmm, I can’t help you here. I do clicker training where I work, but I have never tried it with my rabbits. Part of the reason is one of them is deaf, so I’m still trying to come up with a method. People have said to try hand signals, but Leopold doesn’t pay enough attention to what I’m doing. And then there is poor Wooly, who is really a follower and not a leader. I thought about trying to clicker train him, but I would have to isolate him because Leopold would just be getting in the way.

Anyway, what about those clickers they have for dogs that does two different kinds of clicks. You’re supposed to assign one click to each dog. I suppose it could work with rabbits too.

[litheandgraphic]

Hello and welcome!

Clicker training with two rabbits will probably be a bit more difficult than training just the one, it’s true, though I’m sure you could probably do both at once — just remember to only treat the rabbit who does the correct thing. The other bunny may learn just from watching their partner. LBJ10‘s notes on clicker training dogs makes perfect sense to me. Rabbits are smart enough to figure out that, oh, yeah, that sound means I get a treat, but that other sound means other bunny gets a treat.

By the way, if your bunnies are startled by the sound of the clicker, which is pretty common, try just using your mouth to make two different clicker sounds.

Also, rabbits can learn clicker training at pretty much any age, so long as they’re still motivated by rewards!

[Miss Riley]

The two sound clicker sounds like my best best.

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

We just adopted a second dog so I was in a similar situation! When we train them both at the same time, my husband trains one and I do the other; They have two different clickers that have two different (though similar) sounds; so that helps them distinguish who ‘got the click’. We had to do some combined sessions because I wanted to counter condition their responses to each other approaching each others ‘resources’ -But in general I do their sessions separately-much easier

[Beka27]

I’ve always been under the impression that you would want to train them separately from each other. You can’t treat them both simultaneously and the point of click training is that it’s an instant reward. I would probably just focus on click training one right now. And then depending on how that goes, you could separate the other to work on training one on one without confusing the other.

Click training sessions should be kept short, no longer than about 5 minutes. You don’t want to overtreat, and if the rabbit begins to lose interest, stop for the day.

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