llama putting toys in box

THE METHOD I'M USING

I love this game! So do the llamas. It's simply a game where the llama collects a few items strewn around a table or in a box, and drops them into another box one by one. Anything that a llama can pick up will do so long as they are small enough so he can get lots of them in the box.
The toys I use are stuffed, knitted, red, yellow and blue triangular balls (lovingly knitted by an American fan of Thomas's who, sadly, is never likely to meet him). I use the same method that I use for retrieving, rewarding the llama for first touching then mouthing the toy. We then progress to reward for picking it up, then dropping it near the box and finally putting it into the box. All this can be broken down into dozens of tiny progressive steps. I found Oscar was placing it in the box rather than DROPPING it in, so I "shape" the behaviour by clicking (or half-clicking the clicker for precision) the split second that the jaw is open at the desired height over the box... something I could not do with my voice.

If you can add anything to my work or have any questions or comments, please e-mail me.

HOW WE'RE DOING

The story so far: Oscar had this game off to a fine art so I decided to introduce a bit of colour recognition into the activity by rewarding only the yellow triangles dropped into the box. Success! These days, he will burrow under a pile of reds and blues to find that single hidden yellow. Toby is pickng it up well now, using blue a his collecting colour, but lacks accuracy in delivering the triangle.

RECENT NOTES ON PROGRESS

Jan 1st 2012

I have been having great fun over the Christmas period starting the alpaca (Banksy) off on this exercise, with a view to getting him to select a certain colour at a future date. At present he can pick up any colour, blue, yellow or red, that he chooses. The balls are placed in a heap in a white laundry box and have to be dropped into a blue box. No cheating! He is not allowed to pick from the blue box. It does help if the two boxes are on different levels and so I have the white on a table in the stable and the blue on the floor nearby. The ball must be dropped, not placed, in and it has to be in the box (not beside it!) to earn the click. All great fun for both of us.