You can train a fish?

This is truly terrific. I especially appreciate the basketball and football stunts of the fish. I actually tried to teach my dog how to fetch and I did not really include this chaining method as I should have. I didn't want to reward my dog until he gave the ball back because I "knew" that he would understand that giving me the tennis ball would earn a reward. First, I used food to get him to come back but I would never give the food unless he came with the tennis ball. Then, I tried to have him come without receiving food but verbal praise instead. At this point he just stopped coming. This was frustrating because I didn't want to have to give him food every time he fetched a ball. I think this shows that my rewarding only a specific action and the continuous reinforcement schedule only hurt my dog's ability to fetch.

Amazing. I knew that training animals could be done, but I never thought of training fish. Although the trainer didn't make the fish learn anything beneficial, it makes you ponder the endless possibilities of animal training. Many pets and circus animals have been taught to do tricks, but, perhaps, the most valuable form of animal training is what we have taught dogs. Like you mentioned, dogs can sniff out bombs and help lead and protect the blind. With the number of animals out there, and with all of their own unique traits and abilities, you have to wonder how far will people take this knowledge and be able to benefit from it.

This title caught my attention right away because I have heard so many rumors that fish have a very short memory span. I have heard people say some fish only have a memory span of 3 seconds so I never would have thought to train a fish to do tricks or anything. It seems like dogs are so talented because they are trained to do tricks but when you think about it, you could use classical conditioning to train so many other animals. The opportunities are endless! It would be especially helpful if people could train more animals as service pets as dogs are helpful but it could be interesting to train other animals as well and more convenient.

That's pretty neat! As some of the other commenters have mentioned, I never thought it would be possible to train fish due to their small brains and their limited capacity to hold memories. I wonder if it's possible to train animals of even smaller sizes, like ants for example. I'd like to know if there is a cut-off point. What are the characteristics that an animal must possess in order to be trained to do such tricks?

If I have time over spring break, I might try using operant conditioning to train my pets how to do certain things. It would be interesting to see how difficult this training is and if I would be successful.

This was interesting to read. I never thought fish could be trained or "shaped" because of the physical size of their brains. They are not big and I thought, from past tests, that their brains were so small that they could not retain any sort of information and lacked a long term memory. Shaping is an interesting topic. I have eight dogs at home and training them is crucial. They are dogs that compete at shows and stuff, so training is even more important. We use bait to get them to walk a certain way and sit and such. Shaping is incredibly important and apparently can be used with even the smallest of animals.

Wow this is very surprising to me! I didn't think fish could be trained because I have heard a few times that fish only remember things for a few seconds. This video really proved me wrong! In order to participate in shaping or any other sort of trained learning, there must be memory involved. It is really cool that even animals like fish can be trained to do things through chaining!

This is a great article; it is quite surprising what other species can learn, and how they can develop into something that benefits us as humans. Something so small such as this can bring joy to just about anyone’s day, but there are so many other possibilities. Dog’s, like you said have been trained to help lead the blind and sniff for bombs, but also help track suspects or trapped disaster victims. I find it fascinating that as humans we can teach other animals to help support us. Without the idea of shaping, our society would be a lot different.

Oh my goodness this is amazing!
Its shocking how something as simple as a fish can be trained!
This makes me think of this product that teaches cats how to pee in a toilet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ndC-OURdoc
My mom bought this product, but we still haven't tried it.
Maybe instead of trying to make robots to do all these things for humans, we should just train animals to do them.

This is pretty amazing! Like you said, if we can train fish to do this, what else can we train other animals to do? In our modern day we have trained many animals to do numerous things to help benefit the human race (seeing-eye dogs, drug-sniffing dogs, etc). But on the other side of things, controversies towards "taking advantage of animals" and other ideas along those lines may arise. For instance, we might train a dog to perform tasks in highly dangerous situations, essentially substituting a human with a dog. However those who fight for animal right may propose that the life of an animal is just as valuable as a human's and therefore should not be used as a substitution is this type of case. I personally think its a tough call, animals could be trained to do so much good, but lines do need to be drawn for high-risk/unethical situations.