The Basics

The training basics. The following post is all about the fundamentals we use every time we train. Some times these things we know without knowing exactly how, or its a great place to start if you're new to the world of animal training. 

The fundamentals it’s important we all understand, to allow us to work with our animals as best as possible.

A bridge is a word you often hear trainers talking about. So, what exactly is it?

A bridge is a signal the trainer uses to tell the animal “Yes, that’s exactly what I want you to do!” while they get the reward to the animal. It ‘bridges’ the gap between the behaviour being performed and the reward being issued.

A bridge can be anything, it is often a whistle, a clicker, or a word. But it can also be a movement, a physical tap or just about anything else you can think of.

We train the bridge by giving an animal a reward and then the trainer performs the bridge. Slowly we then start doing the bridge earlier and earlier in that process until the bridge is performed and the animal is immediately looking for the reward it knows is coming.

Then we can begin training a behaviour and every time the animal performs the correct approximation (the ‘step’ in their training plan) we can bridge immediately and then pull the reward from our pocket/training pouch/wherever and deliver it to the animal.

Bridges are important when establishing a behaviour because we are still communicating to the animal exactly what we want them to do. It’s also important because everything is a behaviour. If we can’t specify exactly what we want from the animal we could be accidentally rewarding them for: blinking, fluffing up, turning their head, standing, sneezing, sighing, or any number of other things.

Bridges are important when establishing a behaviour because we are still communicating to the animal exactly what we want them to do. After a behaviour is classified as established a bridge is not necessarily used.

Now we know what a bridge is, where does it fit in? Typically, when watching a training session you will see: cue, behaviour, bridge, reward.

Cue: the ‘command’ asking the animal to do something

Behaviour: the animal does what it think’s the trainer wants to see

Bridge: the ‘yes, that’s correct’ symbol as soon as the animal achieves the behaviour associated with the cue that was given

Reward: the yummy treat that reaffirms the correct behaviour has been completed. It is what the animal is trying to get by performing the behaviour asked of it.

Positive and negative reinforcement. They’re terms used a lot but mean nothing if you don’t understand them.

In the training sense, positive and negative doesn’t mean ‘good’ and ‘bad’. It simply means adding (positive) or removing (negative). When combined with the word reinforcement we learn that it means adding or removing something that will increase the likelihood of a behaviour being performed.

Positive Reinforcement: Giving an animal a tasty treat after they perform a behaviour so they’re more likely to do it again.

Negative Reinforcement: Taking yourself away from an animal that doesn’t like your presence after they’ve performed a behaviour you want.

Both are ‘rewards’ for the individual and will strengthen the likelihood they associate the behaviour with the reward, but neither is bad or good. It is all situational dependent. Flighty animals often prefer the negative reinforcement of the trainer moving away so they feel ‘safe’, and we often start there when building relationships with animals with that sort of personality.

Classical conditioning vs operant conditioning. What do they even mean?

Classical Conditioning: This happens when we have an animal associate a stimulus (aka, the cue) with something they already do. Pavlov’s Dog is the most well-known example of this. Every time the dog sees his dinner he begins to drool. So, as he’s drooling, Pavlov rings a bell. Eventually, simply ringing the bell causes to dog to drool.

Operant Conditioning: This happens when we associate a stimulus (or, cue) with a behaviour. The choice to perform the behaviour is informed by the history of the behaviour. So, if every time I open a door for Kayla, she gives me a chocolate, I will likely always do it because I’m pretty confident I’ll get a chocolate out of it.

Generally, most training you’ll see in a zoo setting is a form of operant conditioning. But not always. 

Training vs. conditioning, what’s the difference? Think of it like cars; all civics are Hondas, but not every Honda is a civic. All training is conditioning, but not all conditioning is positive reinforcement training. For the purpose of this, ‘training’ refers to ‘positive reinforcement training’.

Training is a type of operant conditioning typically. This is because behaviours like opening mouths, targeting, and stepping on scales are not typically natural behaviours so are not already ‘done’ by the animal.

Sometimes if it’s a behaviour an animal does already do, it’s more like classical conditioning as we opportunistically reward the behaviour and then begin to shape it into exactly what we need.

There are so many types of conditioning and all its subcategories it’s a bit of a rabbit hole to dive down! But along with training the other common type of conditioning you might see at the zoo is desensitization. Ever seen a pet pack or something else odd looking in an enclosure? Keepers will place things into dens or enclosures for the animals to investigate in their own time. That way when we then begin to ask them to come over to it or step inside it it’s not something new, it’s part of their everyday and they have taken their own time to establish this for themselves.