Lady and I have reatched a level of understanding that is tolerateable. However I think that I have sommited no crimeas far as encourageing peorsons such as CSR to speak They are a definite part of the fish keeping world and persons less fish loveing that CSR do cause damage to fish And I am most certainly not to be clumped in with him against my will I spent t least half an hour on chat with csr tring to explain to him the benefits of haveing a puffer even if it doesnt puff. My speculations were meant to broatch the subject of ending that subject because there is not now nor will there ever be any way for me to fix the problem of people who think along cer's lines but Want a puffer from getting one.
Now A1
I know you weren't angry I apredciate how you presented facts rather than putting words in my mouth or going back after I clairified something and treating it as if (that something) were meant a different way. I appreciated your post and found it most enjoyable.
And I'm sorry I missused conditioning I meant to say Assosciation but I mixed the two up I understand the theory fully I am an excelent study in biology and have spent countless hours studying them and the causes and some time discussing the subject with the head of the UAB hospital (or one of the top 5 higher ups may have been the head of something else mabey the adminastrative portion of the hospital) who recieved his doctorate in the study of animal behavior and the causes there of. The conditioning would not be gettin the puffer to puff for food It would be getting it to assosiate your cue with food. However conditioning does alter an animals behavior it a dog in its natural state doesn't salivate at bells but a dog in pavlovs lab did unfortunatly it was throught tubes in there necks because he rerouted he salivary ducts
Okay on to Clair
These numbers are to help you respond to me
c1) I Dont refer to my fish puffing up as being a great party piece infact I tell everyone out right that my puffer doesn't puff often. I do defend that it would be a great party trick if your puffer were in a mindset where puffing didn't cause stress. I had a friend who trained his dog to sneez on cue and to close the door on cue and to do backflips all throught conditioningand asosciation thereapys. Stress is a hormaonal thing and those hormones can be overted by re arrangeing the nerve structure throught training. Many people find hot Sauce to be rather stressfull but I enjoy it because I have been seeking it out so long that my mind works differently when I come into contactwith it.
c2) It is a bit unkind of you to assume that I do not know of what I speak. I still defend that that is not a natural way for a puffer to get food. in the wild puffers are hunters whos food is seldom droped to them and in no way shape or form will puffing aid them in finding or catchngthere food as it slows them down, makes them easyer to see, makes it harder for them to get into small crevases, and makes it nearly imposible to do a quick lunge to grab a fish (extreemly important for an ambush predator). Are they held with other fish? could the other fish have become stressed out to the point that they began to harras the puffer? Perhaps you feed your fish a steady diet (a very unnatural thing to do) and the stress of being hungry caused it to puff so rather than puffing to get food it acidently puffed because it had not gotten food and you drew the conclusion for it. Something you seem to be adept at. You say no conditioning has taken place but your animal has twice displayed unnatural behavior as a result of its conditioning te have being fed the norm (not the case with wild fish).
c3)I never Said or even suggested that I wasgoing to mess whith nature althought if it could be done with a minimum of stress I dont see any problem with it. those of you out there with dogs dont let them go all over simply because its natural you have them go outside because it is more pleasent for you to live in a house w/o dog feces in it. Or we train monkeys to do tricks which they learn redily thats messing with nature but its okay animals are designed to learn to a certain extent Lizzards learn very little and humans learn alot even the lowly hydra can learn. Fish are in truth just another animal and while we should treat them with the love and respect which we treat our terrestrial pets I think it is a bit odd to decide to avoid intentionall training (unnatural behavior is trained unintentionally How many fish have you seen come to the surface of a lake when you approatch I've never seen any but the fish in my tank always do)
c4) I also dont like that you insinuated that I am an irresponsable aquarist for simply thinking about how fish suffering can be averted. If I were planning on doing it I would have done it on my own and then told you all about my puffers amazeing ability a few months later. By posting what I knew whould be an unpopular idea I created a situation where (if I were to train a fish) I would never be able to tell the forums about it which wont be a problem because I'm not planning on doing it. But I think its folly to assume thatwhat thoughts occure in my head have any effect on the well being of my fish I dont think that I or my fish have any pshycic ability althought that one Danio was looking kinda shifty the other day.
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