Teaching Your Bunny Tricks

BUNS INC·SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2018

Intro: How to Teach Your Bunny Simple Tricks!

Rabbits need to be educated. They eat, they flop around and poop a lot, but they
really should do something more useful, like spinning in circles around our feet
on command!

Like humans, rabbits are extremely motivated by treats. Most have a fondness
for raisins and apple, which are used in the below video as bribes to perform
tricks.

The video shows you what training a rabbit looks like, and how to gradually
reduce the level of prompting needed to get your bunny to do tricks. The
following steps in this instruction will help you understand what the levels of
prompting are and some basic tips for how to begin training your rabbit.

Video: https://youtu.be/XFj5qExZ-84
Learning objective:

By following the training technique outlined in this instruction, your rabbit will be
able to perform simple tricks like spinning in circles, running around your feet, or
moving in a figure eight pattern. Training your rabbit will also keep his body
active, sharpen his ability to comprehend and follow tasks, and strengthen the
loving bond between both of you.
 Step 1: Hierarchy of Prompts
So here's what you need to know - there's something called the hierarchy of
prompts. For rabbit training, here's how it looks:

At the bottom are the most hands-on prompts, like physically picking up your
rabbit and spinning him in a circle. Next comes putting a treat right in front of
your bun's nose and using the sweet smell of a raisin to lure him into running
around in a circle. After that you can use a gesture without a treat, like making a
circular motion with your hand. And finally, with enough training and more than a
handful of treats, your rabbit will be able to perform a trick with just the verbal
prompt. Your goal is to gradually reduce the amount of prompting needed for
your bunny to complete a trick, from excessive pointing and grunting to a simple
one-word command.
 Step 2: Begin Training

Tools: clicker & raisins

Start by using a combination of lead-with-treat, gesture and verbal. Use a strong

tone of voice, but not shouting. Lead-with-treat and gesture can be combined in
one hand movement for now. If you need to physically push your bun, you
probably need a better treat. Begin each trick by calling your rabbit's name,
positioning him in front of you by leading-with-treat, and then issuing the
command + prompts. Each time your rabbit completes the trick, click the clicker
and give him a treat with a lot of verbal praise. If your bun doesn't, firmly say no
and start again.

As your bunny understands what to do, gradually remove the prompts at the
bottom of the hierarchy. Use a gesture, but don't have the treat in hand. Then
minimize the gestural prompt further and further until a single word is all that's
needed!
 Step 3: Learning Multiple Tricks and
Beyond

Sometimes rabbits have funny ideas about tricks... like doing things without
prompts, eg: spinning in circles assuming that the act of spinning in itself
somehow magically produced raisins which fall from the sky. Like a rain dance of
sorts. You'll need to be patient with your bun if he does this by not reacting to his
self-prompted tricks. Learning a second trick was a bit tricky, too. Sometimes a
bunny can think that any combination of words and gestures means spin. So you
may need to start all over from the beginning with full gestural, lead-with-treat,
and verbal prompting with a lot of corrections. Then to reinforce the idea of two
separate commands, mix up the tricks, randomly switching between two types.

And of course, be sure to give your rabbit plenty of breaks and verbal praise. If
you use raisins to motivate your bunny, keep your training sessions fairly short -
it's not good for a rabbit to have lots of sugars in one sitting. You can teach spin,
circle around you, figure eight, walk, come here, and up here (jump onto a piece
of furniture).

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=9lPE3IAw62g

Source: https://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-teach-your-bunny-simple-tricks/