Gus now has the pram-pushing down pat. And he has the pompom retrieve. And he has the pedestal. All three are pretty “hot” in his mind: he loves doing them (for whatever inscrutable asinine reasons). Our current project is to chain them into a full-blown stupid pet trick: push the carriage, stop and reach inside to pull out the pompom, bring the pompom to the pedestal, step up and wave the pompom.
To teach a multistep behavior, many trick-trainers use “back-chaining” — teaching the final move first, then adding the next-to-last move with the final one, then adding the previous move in front of the last two, etc., etc. Since Gus has already learned the pedestal and the pompom, we’re essentially back-chaining by putting the newer pram-pushing trick at the front of the sequence. Anyway, Gus is such an A student that it probably doesn’t matter; he easily handles new and old learning in any permutation. (I
can’t believe I’m discussing this ridiculosity in a serious, expository
format, but we’re in semi-lockdown because of the coronavirus, so
donkey training is one of my few remaining outlets for work or play.)
For our audience-pleasing Pompom Surprise, the main complications for our intrepid performer are (a) reaching into the pram when you have a short donkey neck and (b) resisting the urge to reach in and reveal the pompom too soon. Here’s how it’s going so far:
I’ve learned that Gus does not have a reliable “leave it” on a verbal cue after all; that will take more practice, with the pompom and in plenty of other contexts to make sure it’s solid. And I’ve seen that Gus will have no trouble adding a move-to-the-side maneuver in order to position himself for reaching into the pram comfortably. Our fine-tuning agenda is clear and achievable.
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