Training

Reinforcement

A critical component in training is identifying a positive reinforcer. Reinforcers should be customized to the individual animal and situation. Behavior goes where reinforcement flows, so if the desired behavior is increasing or continuing, the reinforcers are effective. Potential options for food reinforcers can include regular diet items like pelleted grain, hay, or hay cubes. Tactile reinforcement is a secondary or conditioned reinforcer that is learned in place of a primary reinforcer. Secondary reinforcers acquire their reinforcing value through association with primary reinforcers. (Miller and Lorscher, 2026) Reinforcers need to be delivered as soon as possible after the desired behavior occurs. Reinforcement can be delivered by tossing it to the rhino or by hand feeding if it can be safely accomplished. 

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Training Methods

There are several steps to creating a husbandry training program for rhinos. After the behavioral goals are set, a safe facility to work the animals is identified, reinforcement type and delivery has been determined, the next steps are learning about the animal to be trained, building a relationship with that animal, and designing a training plan. An overview of learning and training can be found in Mellen and Ellis (1996).

 

Natural History/Individual History

An understanding of the natural history of rhinos, paired with information about an individual animal’s specific background and level of experience, play an integral part in a husbandry training program. For example, wild-caught or hand-reared rhinos may react differently to trainers when compared to captive, parent-reared individuals in human care. It is helpful to start training in a location where the animal is most comfortable. Some animals need to have more space around them to feel comfortable within the training environment. The space needs for a rhino often center around the size of the enclosure in which the animal is being trained. Other relevant issues regarding an animal’s space requirement may include proximity to conspecifics, other species, and issues such as noise levels and extraneous activity. Keeping training sessions short and moving at a comfortable pace for the rhino may help keep their focus. Tactile interaction is important—most rhinos enjoy being scratched. Care must be taken to avoid startling the animal or putting yourself in the danger zones—areas where the rhino is able to charge, horn, or otherwise injure someone. When desensitized, rhinos will interact positively with their keepers and will seek out tactile interaction. Keepers need to always maintain awareness and caution as startled rhinos can react violently and quickly. Studying the animal’s natural history helps to gain insight into the animal’s behavior. For more information on rhino natural history, see the Behavior chapter of this manual. Insight also can be gathered from staff, the animal’s past records, or previous institutions about the animal’s individual history. There is no substitute for simple observation—just watching the rhino’s behavior in different situations, for example, what it looks like when the rhino is calm or aggressive. Watch the rhino on and off exhibit, at different times throughout the day, and when the rhino is unaware it is being observed. This will greatly help understanding and interpretation of the rhino’s behavior during a training session.

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Relationship

If a rhino is not comfortable being in close proximity to people, the rhino might not engage (or aggress toward) a trainer. Developing a positive relationship can help address these issues. A relationship can be developed through establishing a routine of normal daily care, such as feeding/observing/cleaning, and calm interactions. The more positive interactions the animal has with staff, the more comfortable the rhino will be. For example, instead of just putting the diet in the enclosure, the trainer can hand-feed some of the diet. If the animal is particularly skittish, the trainer may start by placing or tossing the food in the enclosure and sitting nearby while the rhino eats. As the animal becomes comfortable with the trainer’s presence, s/he can work their positioning closer and closer to the animal. A long-handled brush is another tool that may allow a rhino to build trust with a new trainer through tactile.

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Training Plans

Creating a training plan can be a good process to help trainers think through what steps they are going to take to train a behavior. One way to do this is identify the goal of the behavior, to establish what the final behavior will look like, and then break down the behavior into a series of small steps called “successive approximations” to reach the final goal. Examples of training plans can be found in Appendix C.  

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Bridging Stimulus

Utilizing a bridging stimulus can be a very useful tool in training rhinos, especially for advanced husbandry or medical goals. A bridge is a signal that pinpoints the exact moment in time when the behavioral criterion for that approximation was met. First a trainer must select a bridge. Common bridges used are clickers or whistles. Once selected, the trainer needs to associate the sound with the delivery of reinforcement. For example, if the bridge selected was the clicker, the trainer would pair the click with delivering the reinforcer (food), repeating this for several sessions with the rhino until the connection between the click and the reinforcer has been established. Once the association has been established, the sound of the clicker should be backed up with a reinforcer. The trainer can now begin to use the bridge to clearly communicate the exact moment that the behavioral criterion has been met when shaping behaviors and signal that reinforcement is on the way. For more information on a bridging stimulus, see Pryor (1984), Mellen and Ellis (1996), and Ramirez (1999). 

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Shaping Behavior

For consistency, one trainer should shape new behaviors with an animal. There are several shaping techniques that can be used to teach successive approximations towards a final behavioral goal.  Capturing, baiting/luring, and prompting are all common shaping techniques that are used to teach behavior.  A shaping technique that works well with rhinos is using the sight of food as a lure. In most cases, rhinos focus on the food and follow it wherever it is placed. Trainers can also use their body positioning when shaping behaviors. The animal will, on many occasions, shift its body position when the trainer moves. For example, if a rhino is facing a trainer and the trainer takes a step to the left, many times the rhino will follow and shift its body to the left as well. Another useful tool in the shaping process is a target. A target is an object to which an animal is trained to touch a part of its body (Mellen and Ellis, 1996). Training a rhino to target different parts of its body is a good method of shaping many body-positioning behaviors such as standing, presenting a side of the body, or presenting a foot. Once the behaviors are occurring reliably, a cue can be added to signal that behavior.  When the behavior occurs following the cue consistently, the behavior can be generalized to other areas and situations.  The behavior can then be passed off to other trainers. 

(Appendix C). When starting a program, it is best to begin by training some foundational behaviors that will provide the building blocks for more complex behaviors. Foundational behaviors can include: bridge, target, tactile, stationing, and basic body-positioning behaviors such as moving forward, moving backward, moving closer, standing still on a scale and open mouth.  These foundational behaviors are necessary before moving on to more complex behaviors like blood collection, injections, mouth rinses, enemas or other medical or husbandry procedures.  

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Record Keeping

It is important for trainers to keep records of all sessions. Trainers can go back and look for patterns in behavior, which helps keep consistency among trainers and leaves a historical record for others. For an example of a documentation form, please see Appendix D. 

Safety  

Establishing a safety protocol is another valuable component of a rhino training program. These protocols will allow a facility and training team to set clear guidelines to ensure the safety and well-being of the trainers and the animals. Trainers should have a solid understanding of the antecedents that precede a behavior, be able to describe the behavior in clear, observable terms, and identify the immediate consequences that follow it. By analyzing behavior in this way, we can effectively arrange antecedents to set the animal up for successful learning. A clear understanding of an animal’s natural history and individual background provides valuable context for interpreting undesired behavior during a session and should be taken into account when deciding when it is appropriate to end a session. 

In any training session where the trainer is in close proximity to the rhino, as in many medical behaviors, it is important for keepers to work in groups of two or more. When multiple keepers are present during a session, it allows for better observation and safety, as several people can monitor the keeper training the rhino. The observer(s) can watch the rhino’s behavior and track the position of its head and horn(s).  

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Summary and Resources

The purpose of this chapter is to give trainers an idea of the type of behaviors that can be trained with rhinos and what these behaviors might look like. This chapter provides direction on starting a training program, ideas for shaping techniques and reinforcement, some specific challenges to training rhinos, and resources for additional training information. This chapter is meant as a reference for basic training information and contains just a small amount of the information that is available.

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