would somebody explain this to me please? i'm missing the point. what is the clicker for? the rabbit seems to get endless treats. the clicker doesn't seem to be a code or purpose other than to attract attention. give me a clue, please!
Hi, I clicker trained my Bertie under the advice of both Anne McBride (Behaviourist) and John Chitty (Bunny specialist).
From a behaviour point of view, I had a lone housebunny, it gave Bertie a lot of mental stimulation. I wasn't training him to do tricks for entertainment, but for his mental wellbing. He'd spend a good half hour learning something, then he would then do things on his own as result of it. He became more interested in his toys, tunnels, was lifting bunny dumbells and hopping around with them, and he became more alert, intelligent and engaging because of it. It helped deal with any boredom related stress.
Medically, it provided him with a lot of exercise, and as he had arthritis in his spine, it meant that I could lower his dose of Metacam. It also helped him loose weight and this in turn helped his back problems.
You can see the first part of what we did
on this video . Sadly he didn't live long enough to make the second
There's some more info on it
here
You can use the clicker to toilet train, and to reinforce good behaviours, such as chewing cardboard instaed of walls etc.
I was very uncertain about training a bunny, as I didn't feel it was right to have it under my 'control', but this never happened, Berts loved his training sessions, and used to grab the clicker from the coffee table to let me know when he was ready
Hope that helps