Training Nemo - UPDATED

Nemo is a very high energy dolphin, so we decided to train him to do a double-front flip rather than a single. To start training him to do this behavior, we focused on motivating Nemo following a target: a long pole with a little buoy on the end that Nemo follows, in this case, with his mouth or "rostrum." Our first step was to train Nemo to complete one rotation (flip) under the water’s surface. Then, after he understood what we wanted him to do, we added the second rotation. The next part of the process was to motivate Nemo to take the flip out of the water and follow the target pole. After Nemo learned to flip out of the water, we used the "bridge" (a whistle) and "primary reinforcement" (fish) to perfect Nemo’s double flip. One day, Nemo over rotated by an additional half-flip, and we decided to adopt this change in the criteria for the behavior: we decided to use the bridge and primary reinforcement to complete the third rotation. Now Nemo has the most amazing triple front flip. It’s WICKED!.