Getting ferrets calm enough to train?

[Deleted]

I've just started trying to clicker train Little Nuisance as an interactive thing we can do together.

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I'm watching training videos (Joey the trained ferret, what a sweet little thing). In the videos, Courtney's ferret sits in front of her, engaged and watching to see what she does. He faces her, and lies flat on the ground. She moves her hand, Joey responds, he gets a treat.

That's not what happens here. Madam hears the treat bag rustling. I sit down. She climbs up onto my legs. She climbs up my chest. When I move my hand out of the way, she strains her neck to follow my fingers. She goes back onto the floor, back hunched up. I try and do the right movement (we're doing roll over - the first step is, put the treat by the ferret's ear, when the ferret is facing you). Monster is way too excited. She isn't sat on the ground - she's on her feet, so she automatically dashes in a circle. If I move my hand out of the way because she's not ready or attentive or positioned right for me to put the treat by her ear - she follows my hand and starts clambering on me again.

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I understand that Joey is a legendary-level trained ferret, and I've been training for 2 days. We've both got things to learn.

She can definitely learn tricks: when she hears the packet rustle, she always stands on her legs (a treat we taught without clicker when we first got her, and which is probably partially responsible for "jumping at you" as a treat getting technique) then runs into her cage (as I treat her for following my pointing). So she can understand the link between behavior and good noms.

However, I think Munchkin is WAY more excited by the prospect of treats than she should be to train well. I need her attentive and keen, but not lurching at my hand or clambering on my knees. I need to un-train that first? Or feed treats she likes somewhat less? Or train at a different time (currently, I train after food and letting her run around a bit on her own)?

What are your thoughts, ferretfriends?

[Sherry]

Get the treats out of the bag first so she isn't distracted by it. Make sure she is well fed so she isn't too hungry. Keeps sessions very short(5 minutes or less). You may have to physically help her to understand what you want. Example, standing. Stand up yourself, bent over. Show her the treat in your closed fingers and slowly raise your hand. Her head should follow. If she even gets her front end up off the ground that is success. Code word, click and treat. Keep working that one(a very natural behaviour for them) until she stands on command.

[Deleted]

I'll start by saying I haven't actually done any training like this with my ferrets yet and I can imagine the level of energy they would bring.

I have, however, done some clicker training with dogs, horses and a little with a cat, so I have a reasonably good grasp of the concepts. I've also done a lot of reading on the topic.

I think you've set yourself a hard task starting with roll over. The beauty of clicker training is the ability to 'shape' behaviours, and to 'chain' behaviours together.

Shaping refers to teaching incremental parts of the behaviour in order to form the finished product. So a sequence for roll over could be: lie down - touch nose to treat - follow treat a short way - follow treat to shoulder - follow treat so that your whole head turns - next the rest of the body should follow.

With your newbie I'd take a step even further back and train one of two things to build attention.

First would be any moment they stop and look at you. You need to be really quick with the clicker here. At first you are going to be rewarding the tiniest fraction of a second. It's ok if they really have no clue why you clicked to start with. Just keep trying to click a stop and look. Remember your ferret is still learning the game. They don't yet understand click means treat and they also don't understand "I cause my person to click". You will see the moment that light bulb goes on and they start trying to purposefully figure out they need to do something to make you click. Next increase the criteria. It's time to reward incremental steps further. If you've been rewarding for a fraction of a second, now try and reward half a second, then one second, then 2 and so on. If your ferret starts to get frustrated or lose interest, take it back again. Don't click for nothing at all, but maybe click for the fraction of a second again to gain their interest.

The second thing you could start with, which I personally would (although the building attention exercise is still a good one to do), is to train targeting. Targeting is where the ferret touches a designated place with a specified part of their body. So the touch could be to a ball, the end of a stick, a piece of paper, a specific toy or even your hand. You could ask them to touch it with their nose, front paws, back paws or any other pert of their body. Just remember obscure parts aren't a beginner ferret trick.

For this exercise I would choose targeting your hand with their nose.

it's best to not lure with food for too long as it can actually just cause them to follow food and not really think about things. This is why I like to get them following my hand. For my dog, I chose a particular way I like to hold out my fingers. I then get her to touch my fingers with her nose.

To start place a small treat in your closed hand and hold it out to your ferret. Try to have them come a short distance to it rather than bopping their nose for them. As soon as their nose touches your hand, click, open it and give them the treat. Do this 4 more times. Try not to do it any more times than that so you don't get stuck on this step. Next have a treat ready to go so you can grab it really quickly. Perhaps in your clicker hand. This time hold out your closed, treat free, hand in exactly the same way you were before. As soon as their nose touches it, click and open your hand so they see nothing is there and immediately hand them the treat from your other hand. The goal here is to teach them there's no treat there but you still get one. Make the gap between opening the hand they touched, and giving the treat from the other hand, quite fast. Repeat this step a few more times until you can see they are purposefully touching and not just sniffing around.
Next start to move you hand a little to one side. Gradually move it further and further from your body. Continue clicking for a brief touch. Remember these steps could happen really fast or take several sessions. Keep sessions short and move at your ferrets pace. As with the first activity, if they start getting frustrated or losing interest, take a step back. You might have your hand well away from your body and thy're doing great when suddenly they get confused and forget the game. Just bring your hand back to where they can be succesful and gradually increase the difficulty again.

So now you've got a ferret that can reliably touch your hand wherever you put it. The next step to shaping "roll over" is following your hand when you move it. Do the same as before. First start rewarding the slightly longer touches. Once they can touch for more than a moment, start gradually moving your hand a short way. Another way you can do this is to move your hand just as they're about to touch it and see if they follow it. Click for any steps following. Here we've raised one criteria, so you can lower your criteria on actually touching. Any steps following your hand is great. Gradually increase the distance to follow and start to see if you can do things like wiggle side to side and have them follow your hand.

If you've trained all this then congratulations! You now have the foundations for so many behaviours. Following in a circle is a spin, following up is standing on hind legs, and following behind the shoulder is the start to roll over.

I know this seems like the long way to get to roll over, but you've actually taught so much important stuff. Your ferret has not only learnt to follow your hand, (which as I said, is the start to many other behaviours), they've also learned the game of clicker training, and they've switched their brain on for learning. As well as that, you've had a tonne of practice at shaping and timing your clicks and gotten to know what works and doesn't work for your ferret.

Sorry, this went on a lot longer than I intended. Sorry about the essay, but I hope it helps. If you have any questions, let me know.

[LindaM]

I'd like to add a part about treats, since clicker training tends to involve the ferret getting quite a few treats, so it's best that your treats are healthy.

Avoid the following treats like they are the plague, because they are: Marshall's Bandits, Brown's Tropical Carnival, Ferretone, Ferrevite, Ferret Chew Treat N-Bones, N-Bone Ferret Soft Treats, etc.

Those all tend to have a lot of indigestible content and fillers, as well as being loaded with sugars that will lead to giving your poor baby insulinoma in the long run. Please avoid them.

Instead, try these healthy treats! Dab of Salmon oil (limit of 1tsp per ferret, per week) and Freeze-Dried Raw treats! FDR brands that are good include Orijen, Purebites, Vital Essentials (mine love their chicken hearts), and Nature's Variety Instinct Rawboost Mixers. Two things to take note of, be wary of liver treats, always check the package, too many of that will lead to a Vitamin A toxicity and the second note, NV Instinct does include some indigestibles in their FDR, but only around 5%, yet because of that it still makes the single ingredient ones from other brands healthier.

Sometimes the treats are a bit big too, especially if you need to give several times, so feel free to break off smaller pieces to use as treats instead of the whole thing at a time.