The following article was written by Kay Elliott, a very special volunteer llama trainer at Forget Me Not Farm.

I first learned about the Forget Me Not Farm in what was perhaps an unconventional way. In August 2009 I enrolled in the Karen Pryor Academy in order to advance my knowledge and skills as a dog trainer. The academy curriculum required that, in addition to training my own dog, I train an animal of another species. I was unable to take a new pet into my home, so I began a search for an animal to train.

Fortuitously, my search led me to the Farm. I wrote to Carol Rathmann, the Farm’s director, who generously invited me for a visit. As it turned out, Carol knew Karen Pryor who had been to the farm, and was familiar with the type of training I do, called clicker training. Clicker training is a force-free training method based in behavioral science in which a mechanical “clicker” is used to mark desirable behavior and let the animal know that a reinforcement is on the way.

Carol gave me a tour of the barn and its animals, pointing out the ones who she thought would make good learners. It was Frida, the llama, who inspired me the most. Carol told me that Frida had a habit of putting her mouth close to people’s faces in what resembled a friendly kiss. Since my first assignment in the academy was to “capture” a naturally occurring behavior and put it on cue, this seemed like a great choice that would bring smiles to future recipients of her “kiss.”

The first thing I had to do was “charge the clicker,” meaning that I had to teach Frida that the sound of the clicker meant that reinforcement (in this case, food) was on the way. The simplest way to teach this is to just pair the clicker with food: click, feed; click, feed; click, feed; etc.

Once Frida understood what the click meant, the rest was pretty much up to her. I stood close and still and waited for her to put her face close to mine. When she did, click! followed by yummy treats. Pretty soon Frida knew that putting her face close to mine was what made the click happen. That’s when I added the cue, “kiss!”

Next, I raised the criteria, waiting to click until Frida’s mouth touched my cheek. This meant not clicking for behaviors that previously got clicked so I had to be very careful not to frustrate her. She was an excellent learner and offered me stronger behavior when I held out for it.

The final piece was stimulus control, which meant that Frida would offer the kiss only after hearing the cue. This was the hard part, because Frida really enjoyed offering kisses and didn’t want to wait for the cue! She did eventually come to understand that she should offer the kiss only after hearing the cue, but with so many people wanting kisses from her, she is back to offering them without the cue. Oh well, maybe it’s nicer to be kissed without having to ask for it!