Have you ever trained your chickens to do something? On purpose, I mean. Them learning what the treat bucket looks like does not count.
basically its not training, its behavior modelling and yes coming when they see the treat bucket is also 'training' ... conditioning; training in the true sense is when u get up early in the morning to give food to your chickens cause otherwise they make a ruckus. THAT is called 'training the owner'. most animals do that really well. for most 'less intelligent' animals, u reward for actions that u want them to do, just as they do them, and slowly u build up the actions. u have to have really good timing or know your animal really well... on more intelligent animals negative modelling also works (pressure on a horse to get it to move where u want it to go -simplifying a bit here- using the fright /flight tendencies, etc...) you can 'train' a cichlid fish to come when u ring a bell (pure pavlov)... and jsut wacht how humans automatically pat their pockets or turn their heads when a cell phone rings... hilarious conditioning... 'dont shoot the dog ' by karen pryor who trained dolphins etc using conditioning only is a great book (she also worked with abuse children etc... no hitting etc with her system)... i like it, we've used it a lot with our animasl in the petting zoo although sometimes pure strenghth is a good thing also (like when hormones are raging in a male sheep, etc).
