Cirque du Filet

[freshwater]

I finally finished the Cirque du file scene for my show, The Ugly
Guppy:

http://tinyurl.com/cfilet

It's amazing how much of my life is wrapped up in that 5 minutes: two
years... 10 beloved fish (8 of whom were loved and lost)... over 300
hours of training. But I'd do it again! (Glad I don't have to,
however.)

Regards,
Diane

http://www.freshwaterpearlspuppetry.com/bubbleblog/

[Helix Fairweather]

On Wed, 18 Nov 2009, freshwater wrote:

> http://tinyurl.com/cfilet
>

Diane! How lovely!

Questions, questions - :)

I love that the hoop was NOT the cue to do it as she had two different
behaviors involving the hoop. What are your cues for those behaviors?

Labyrinth: Was it a cued behavior for her to come up between two of the
hoops and then go through?

Nicely done that we don't see any of the reinforcement. It all looks very
clean and neat (we do see the marker occasionally).

Nicely done!

Helix Fairweather



REPLY PRIVATELY TO:
mailto:he...@cyberagility.com - Albany, OR
Karen Pryor Academy & Clicker Expo Faculty
Level 2 TAG Teach Certified
http://www.cyberagility.com
LINKS TO SCIENCE-BASED ARTICLES:
http://www.cyberagility.com/links.html (doesn't show well in IE 8)

[Dean Pomerleau]

Diane - I second Helix's kudos.  Congrats to you and your wonderful fish!

--Dean

[freshwater]

I actually didn't use anything other than the props to cue any of
these behaviors. This was a "git 'er done quick" kind of training
scenario (based on losing so many fish before they could complete the
training). Clem is one of those inventive critters who tries all
manner of interesting variations while he's learning. I just happened
to be filming when he did the "spin in place" bit in the single hoop
and the "squeeze through the maze" routine in the labyrinth. Those
were both errors that I didn't reinforce, but they looked so cool that
I kept them in the show! Artistic license. ;-)

All that remains now is for Clem to finish learning to play soccer.
He's making progress. Fingers crossed.

Meanwhile, I have three other goldies in training. With them I'm just
experimenting and refining, particularly with cueing.

And this winter I will venture boldly into the unknown when I begin
keeping, training, and performing with seahorses. THAT will be cool!

Regards,
Diane

http://www.freshwaterpearlspuppetry.com/bubbleblog/

[Helix Fairweather]

Diane,

Might I suggest you enter this into the Canis Film Festival? (not just for
canines!) This is a film contest sponsored by Karen Pryor (KPCT) to
acknowledge great video examples of clicker training - yours qualifies as
it's marker-based training using a light as a marker.

Here is the information: http://www.canisfilmfestival.com

It would be nice to see fish represented in the competition!

Helix Fairweather

--

[Helix Fairweather]

On Wed, 18 Nov 2009, freshwater wrote:

> training). Clem is one of those inventive critters who tries all
> manner of interesting variations while he's learning. I just happened
> to be filming when he did the "spin in place" bit in the single hoop

I love the spin in the hoop behavior!

> And this winter I will venture boldly into the unknown when I begin
> keeping, training, and performing with seahorses. THAT will be cool!

Really!!!

Helix

[freshwater]

The stationary spin inside the hoop is my favorite, too. When that
happened I was SOOO tempted to click it, but I knew I was going to
build on the straight-through hoop pass, so I didn't. I also knew the
camera had it, fortunately. Just one of those transient magical
moments.

I'm really excited about the seahorse thing. I'm taking a Seahorse
Keeper certification course (free!) from Ocean Rider Seahorse farm in
Hawaii (not on site, unfortunately - just by e-mail!) When Clem has
finished his soccer training and that scene has been filmed, I'll
distribute the two new goldies in my new tall tank into Clem and
Pele's tanks. Then I'll convert the tall tank to marine, recycle it,
and finally get two pairs of seahorses from Ocean Rider.

Seahorses are quite intelligent, gentle and personable, so I think
they'll make great trainees. Ultimately I plan to do a shadow/live-
videoed show with them, as well.

I'm finding the idea of working with seahorses really magical! :-))

Regards,
Diane

http://www.freshwaterpearlspuppetry.com/bubbleblog/

[Helix Fairweather]

On Thu, 19 Nov 2009, freshwater wrote:

> I'm really excited about the seahorse thing. I'm taking a Seahorse
> Keeper certification course (free!) from Ocean Rider Seahorse farm in

Wow! How big are the seahorses?

Helix
--

[freshwater]

The species I plan to get (Hippocampus erectus) is about 5 inches long
(with tail curled). There are 34 species worldwide, and they vary a
lot in size. The smallest is about the size of a thumbnail, and the
largest the size of a man's forearm. H. erectus will be a good size, I
think. I'll be able to keep two pairs in a 45 gallon tank.

I'm not sure yet just what I want to train them to do. They perform an
astonishing courtship dance that I wouldn't want to interfere with in
any way. It's a chain of spectacular behaviors that include quivering,
promenading with tails entwined, the carousel dance, the maypole
dance, pointing, pouch pumping and more. This little animation is a
nice illustration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2e_-lRL_ms

I don't think I could improve on that! (And I wouldn't want to
jeopardize the courtship chain by putting any of the components under
stimulus control.) Still pondering what direction to take with them.

But it's exciting!

Regards,
Diane

http://www.freshwaterpearlspuppetry.com/bubbleblog/

[des]

Hi,

I think seahorses are fascinating creatures. One thing I wondered
about in training them is that they are fairly passive fish.
I have looked into keeping them. The captive bred seem to be hardy
enough and you may actually have babies! (Though to keep them alive
takes some work.) If you haven't already gotten a tank, you should get
a deep tank vs a wider one.That way they can perform their dance and
will be livelier.

They aren't going to do a lot of behaviors. You can look at them a
long time before they move. The other thing is that I don't know how
well the target feeder will work. They are trained to eat frozen mysid
shrimp, they will also eat various live food. They might eat brine
shrimp which are just about zero nutrition. You can pretty much forget
any type of pellet food.

Anyway, I will be interested, under these restrictions what you can
do.

BTW, I have mudskippers. They are fascinating fish-- you couldn't most
of use the kit, but I think they could learn things like jumping over
hurdles and so on. The tank is also strange as it is mostly land, not
water. Also I can't really tell one from another. So there are
problems with "oddball fish".

Anyawy, I hope you enjoy your seahorses. It will be interesting if you
figure out how to work with them, and I would be interested in reading
about it.

--des

On Nov 20, 8:56 am, freshwater <fisht...@freshwpearls.com> wrote:
> The species I plan to get (Hippocampus erectus) is about 5 inches long
> (with tail curled). There are 34 species worldwide, and they vary a

[freshwater]

I have almost completed Ocean Rider Seahorse Farm's Seahorse Keeper
Certification Course. It has been incredibly helpful, deatiled, and
informative; I recommend it for anyone considering keeping these
fascinating critters. The course is free: http://www.seahorse.com/ .

I've been watching seahorses in the aquarium at the Mall of America
here and have discussed behavior with Pete Giwojna of seahorse.com.
It's true that seahorses are not fast or dynamic swimmers. But they
are highly interactive with a dynamic range of social displays. It's
subtle, but there's always a lot going on in a seahorse's world. I'm
hoping to be able to capture some of those interesting behaviors, put
them on cue, and chain them together for my own nefarious
purposes, ;-) I'll let y'all know how it goes.

Regards,
Diane

http://www.freshwaterpearlspuppetry.com/bubbleblog/