Does anyone do jumping/agility with their buns?

[bunnnnnnie!]

I’m sure you all know what I’m talking about, but if not, here’s some examples…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6m5eBK0W3k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RejsRq0MtBI

Does anyone do this stuff with their buns?  I’d love to teach Zeus to do this, but I’m not sure if his size would be an issue, or even his personality.  He’s soooo laidback, and not food motivated at all.  But he is pets motivated!

[Moonlight_Wolf]

I have taught Fern to jump over some home made hurdles, nothing professional though. Fern is also laid back, but she is food motivated I bet you could teach him, but it might be harder if he won’t follow the food.

[Andi]

My bunnies would laugh at me if I asked them LOL
None of mine have an outgoing personality enough i think, plus they are all old. I think you would need a lot of paitence to teach a bunny agility LOL

[angelicvampyre]

I have been looking at stuff like that, Bugz would excel in this but is not harness trained and in fact the harness is evil and must DIED, Rufus who is harness trained can’t jump to save his life so thinking this is something that will never happen with my guys!

[BinkyBunny]

I know that there were a couple of members who were successfully training their bunnies to do a few tricks. I just can’t remember now who they were. Hopefully they will see this and post.

I always thought Jack would be good at it because he learned very quickly when I first started clicker training him, but then I waited too long to continue as now he’s an old boy with arthritis in his lower spine and front paw. (Not horrible though) So, I’d have to stick to some basic easy moves just for some mind stimulation.

Vivian is a smart gal and pretty agile for a senior, so it would be fun to try some low-key senior moves — nothing like the jumps seen in the links!

[MirBear]

i started training hershey on monday, both of mine are harness trained, currently shes getting aquainted with my make-shift jumps

im not doing clicker though, as i can’t find a clicker.

[angelicvampyre]

MirBear go to your local party shop and see if they have the clickers for party tricks otherwise try a pen the retracts some of them are loud enough that you can use them

[Moonlight_Wolf]

I personally don’t use a clicker even though I have one! I just find it a pain to use the clicker because I can’t have a clicker in one hand and food in the other because normally I have to use one hand to hold a hoop or hold my hand out to get a high five. I don’t have three hands! But if it works for you then hey! Why not?
I really need to take a video of Fern doing her hurdles, she really is quite good. And she actually learned really quickly. I like watching her go over two in succession, with no pause in between, it is just soo cute! I really love training Fern. She is just so smart and training her is so rewarding. Thistle… no offense… is not that bright. I could probably train him if I wanted but it is just so much easier to train her instead!
A tip for training is that you should use something big as food. I find that for training it is easiest to use lettuce because the buns can see the treat. But for rehearsing, anything will work. It is just easier to train with lettuce or big food because the buns can see it and if you are trying to make them follow the food then it is easiest if they can easily see where the food is.
Good luck!

[LittlePuffyTail]

MirBear, I bought a clicker at the pet store for my horse. Try the dog section.

[MirBear]

ive scouted our pet store and nothing.. no where can i find one. mine are harnes trained so ive been trying to lead hershey over my tiny homemade jumps (gotta start small) and i mean TINY! my makeup case is the only thing ive tried her over yet.. lol and shes bigger than it is.. i just dont want her to get hurt. so untill she gets the hang of it, no jump bigger than her yet she hops over her x-pen just fine . (i dont lead her over it. i wont even try!)

[corpathina]

Moonlight, I’d be really interested in hearing how you trained Fern. I’d love to see some videos too! Have you ever posted a thread about it or anything? My clicker and training book should arrive tomorrow and I’ve been working with MJ for a while now to come when called, sit up, etc. I’m really thinking about making him some jumps and trying that because he LOVES to run and jump more than anything else. I think he would really enjoy it. If you’ve never posted about training Fern, I’d really love to hear about it! (I’m sure everyone else would too!)

[Moonlight_Wolf]

No I haven’t ever posted about training Fern to do jumps before, but I definitely will show some videos soon when I can get someone to tape it for me. I did however post on how I trained her to do hoops, high fives, spins and periscopes (‘up’).

This is how I trained her:
Well I would get a jump (has to be fairly thin so she can’t jump up on it and can only jump over) it doesn’t matter what its made out of. At one point I made a jump by putting two boxes a little way away from each other and then put a dowel so it was sitting on both between them. (the dowel was a square prism not a cylinder, so it didn’t roll.) But now I use just a cardboard box that was cut in half and taped together so it is longer rather than fatter.

Well anyway to train her I would get some lettuce (lettuce it good to use because they can easily see it, I found that if i used pellets then she would get confused to which hand was holding the treat and sometimes would think i had dropped the treat) and make her follow it over the jump. At first she would just put her paws on the jump so I would reward her to let her know she was going in the right direction. Eventually she learned to go over the jump because I moved the lettuce farther away when her paws were on the jump so she would lean forward and then finally go over the jump. (keep in mind that I did teach Fern to jump hoops before I taught her to do jumps so that might have made it easier.) Then I taught her to go over two jumps in a row by holding the lettuce at the end of both jumps so she had to go over both jumps to get to it.

If you think that Fern had it easier because she already knew how to jump hoops then to teach Fern to jump hoops I started by keeping the hoop on the ground and making her walk through it by holding a treat on the other side or leading her through the hoop by moving my hand with the treat in it. At first Fern was afraid of the hoop it took her a while to learn that it was harmless. Anyway, I slowly made it higher until she had to jump through it to get the food and eventually I didn’t have to hold the treat on the other side for her anymore. Occasionally after that I would only have to hold the treat on the other side for the first time she did it so she could “remember” but now I don’t ever have to do it because she remembers perfectly!

The hoop could help you by if your bun refuses to go over the jump even after the hoop training then you could hold the hoop over the jumps so he jumps through the hoop over the jump. You could do this until he gets used to going over the jump. This did not work for fern for some reason but I could see it working for someone else.

By the way the hoop I used was actually a butterfly net with the net cut off so it is smaller and has a “handle” that I can hold onto when she jumps.

I find that it was good for me to have taught Fern some basic tricks (spin, Up, High five) before I did the harder ones, just because she got accustomed to training and seemed to have a longer attention span.

Good luck with the training and I hope it works out for you!

[Moonlight_Wolf]

Ok I finally posted a video of Fern doing her jumps in the lounge section if anyone is interested!

[jennyrabbit]

I have posted lots of Vidoes of Jennys tricks

here
https://binkybunny.com/FORUM/tabid/54/aff/3/aft/111467/afv/topic/Default.aspx

here
https://binkybunny.com/FORUM/tabid/54/afv/topic/aff/6/aft/111223/Default.aspx

and here
https://binkybunny.com/FORUM/tabid/54/afv/topic/aff/6/aft/111286/Default.aspx

from what I understand harness’ are optional with the rabbit hopping and agility..I could be wronge, but I read somewhere that it was your choice. Jenny will not tolerate a harness, she hates them with a passion.

[BinkyBunny]

 For member’s convenience, I posted the link to Moonlight’s thread in the lounge about her bunny jumping —well done training!  

https://binkybunny.com/FORUM/tabid/5…fault.aspx

jennyrabbit - I saw those before too– great job!

 

[Moonlight_Wolf]

Cute tricks Jenny rabbit! You should try and work towards getting her to do full blown agility like the dogs do and have her touch the “mark” and “target” in the middle of the jumps!

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