This session with my Mexican black kingsnake was done to reduce bites from the Mexican black kingsnake because of anticipatory food response. This was the first training session I had done with my Mexican black kingsnake in a while so im glad the target training session went so well. Lori torrini from behaviour education was kind enough to evualuate the target training session and provide feedback for us.
Lori Torrini's channel:
/ @loritorrini
About Lori Torrini:
Lori has extensive experience and education in animal training and behavior spanning 30 years, some of which includes an applied science degree in Zoo Keeping Technology, certifications with the Certified Horsemanship Association (CHA) and the Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers (CCPDT-KA). Lori completed the AZA (Association of Zoos & Aquariums) Animal Training Applications Course, the General and Professional Animal Welfare courses through San Diego Zoo Global, Fundamentals of Animal Learning through San Diego Zoo Global, the Introduction to Enrichment course via San Diego Zoo Global, the the 8-week Living and Learning with Animals course taught by Dr. Susan Friedman through Behavior Works, and the 6-week Foundations in Snake Training course through Reptelligence. Lori was recently accepted into the applied animal behavior program at the University of Washington.
In addition to her daily work caring for and training animals, Lori is working on snake behavior studies, snake training and enrichment trials, supervising interns from the local community college, and producing RU-vid videos. In 2019 Lori had one of her snake training articles published in the IAABC Journal:
spring2019.iaabcjournal.org/t....
About target training:
Targeting is conditioning an animal to touch part of its body to an object when presented with the chosen object. The animal follows the object, or target, to the specific location that you want them to move to. First, choose an object to use as the target. Next, pair the target with a food reward or scent (an unconditioned stimulus, something like a food item that the snake naturally will be drawn to) until the target becomes a conditioned stimulus (the target now elicits a response from the snake without the food or scent being paired with it). Once the snake is responding to the target (i.e., looking at it, moving in its direction, tongue flicking toward it, etc.) move forward with small approximations until the snake is touching their nose or tongue to the target, at which point they are presented with the food reward. When the snake is consistently looking at, moving toward, and touching the target, then begin moving the target short distances from the snake. This will require the snake to move to the target in order to touch it and receive their food reward. Eventually the snake should be able to follow the target completely from their enclosure to a secondary location.
Keep in mind that you may be rewarding only once per training session since snakes typically eat one food item per meal. As noted above, if you want to reward several times during one session, make sure the total weight of food items you give is equal to one normal meal so that you are not overfeeding the animal. Also, make sure the interval between feedings is a normal timespan; this may mean you are only training once a week, every other week, or once a month. Do not sacrifice the digestive health of the animal to train more often or to reward more frequently when using food as the reward.
Thank you for watching my Mexican black kingsnake target training session evaluated by Lori Torrini.
19 сен 2020
