'Mad scientists' prove pet fish have more on the ball than we thought
Tuesday, January 24, 2006By Bob Batz Jr., Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Lake Fong, Post-Gazette photosDean Pomerleau, right, and his son Kyle, 9, president and vice president of Fish School, are the proud teachers of Albert Einstein, a 3-year-old calico fantail goldfish.Click photo for larger image.
Teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime.
Teach a fish to play football and ... well, now you really could be on to something.
A Pine man and his son have trained a pet goldfish to "carry" a football, "shoot" a soccer ball into a net, even "dance" the limbo.
If you don't believe it, you can check out photos and videos at the Web site they've launched, http://www.fish-school.com/.
You also could tune in to the Animal Planet's "The Planet's Funniest Animals" show, which is to air a video they submitted sometime soon. The "Late Show With David Letterman" still hasn't gotten back to them about being on a Stupid Pet Trick segment.
If you do believe it and want to try this at home, you can order one of their how-to e-books ($5.95) or complete fish training kits ($19.95), both of which come with guarantees as well as frame-able Fish School diplomas.
These guys and their fish are, as the Web site says, "NOT a joke." We went out and checked.
"This Isaac is a genius!" Dean Pomerleau says as he works with his newest student, a betta, or Siamese fighting fish, whose full name is Isaac Newton. Just one day after Mr. Pomerleau acquired him (to replace a fish by the same name who expired), Isaac is swimming through a hoop to get to a bit of food his trainer is offering via a homemade feeding wand.
This "positive reinforcement" technique, as used to train other animals, is what Mr. Pomerleau, 41, and his 9-year-old son, Kyle, began experimenting with about a year ago when Kyle came home with two goldfish he'd won at a school fair.
Isaac Newton, a betta fish, swims through a hoop at Fish School. It will get a piece of food as a reward.Click photo for larger image.
Noticing that the fish recognized and responded to them as they approached their tank, the guys began researching fish intelligence and found lots of scientific evidence that fish are smarter than most people think.
Mr. Pomerleau -- actually, Dr. Pomerleau -- is pretty smart, too, having earned his computer science Ph.D. at Carnegie Mellon University. Co-founder and president of AssistWare Technology, which makes car crash warning devices, he's worked for 16 years in the field of outdoor robot perception and intelligent vehicles.
Kyle is a smart fourth-grader at Richland Elementary School.
Both are at heart, they agree, engineers.
They bought a fantail goldfish they dubbed Albert, for Albert Einstein, and quickly trained it to eat out of their hands.
That's not so unusual. But then, using a Starbucks straw, a rubber-band, a toothpick and other materials, Mr. Pomerleau made the feeding wand. They used that to reward Albert whenever his actions came close to what they wanted him to do.
It didn't take Albert long to learn to swim through a homemade hoop, then through a tunnel, even under a horizontal bar.
Kyle had the idea to train him to push a toy soccer ball into a toy goal and push a toy football, even "fetch" the ball to them from the floor. Now he gets fired up to play when placed in his performance tank, which they surrounded with green artificial turf.
Watch: After scoring another goal at Mr. Pomerleau's Richland office where the fish lives, Albert swims toward the surface, looking for his reward.
Albert Einstein, pushes a soccer ball toward a goal at Fish School in Pine.Click photo for larger image.
"You can see he clearly has something on his mind," Mr. Pomerleau says, wanding him another pellet of food.
It's something to see, agrees a chuckling Bill Huff, who owns the nearby Seahorse fish store that sold them the big goldfish. He's heard of fish learning simple behaviors like eating out of someone's hand, but "not to this scale," as he puts it. "I was pretty pleased with what he's accomplished."
Also impressed, as well as amused, after catching the videos, is Allan Marshall, curator of aquatic life at the Pittsburgh Zoo & Aquarium, where they also do some training or "enrichment" for creatures including octopi and sharks. "No, we do not make our charges push soccer balls or swim through hoops (flaming or otherwise), but we do work with behaviors such as target training, puzzle feeders (octopus) and operant conditioning to reduce stress levels for necessary handling" such as weighing in the case of the penguins.
The self-described mad scientists' success with Albert led them to not only train other fish (including a pair of oscars at home), but also launch the Web site to show others how to do it.
Since December, they've had more than 15,000 unique users. "We've had hits from every continent but Africa. And Antarctica," says Mr. Pomerleau, who saw spikes after an interview with him and his son aired on the Internet show, "Pet Fish Talk," and after other outlets picked up on that. They've sold some 50 downloadable books and kits -- from McCandless to Australia.
Besides sending video to Animal Planet and Letterman, they've applied to the Guinness Book of World Records to have Albert listed as the "World's Smartest Fish." Last week, someone from "Ripley's Believe It Or Not" called to ask for permission to run a photo of Isaac in a forthcoming children's book ("I encouraged them to use a picture of Albert," notes Mr. Pomerleau. "I think he's more photogenic, and certainly more talented!").
They hope to at least take their act to Richland Elementary and add new tricks, too, including basketball.
Mr. Pomerleau, who doesn't expect to give up his day job, says, "It's been a fun project for the two of us," but it's not just frivolous. He's a longtime vegan who doesn't eat any animal products. Kyle now doesn't eat fish.
They both believe that helping show that fish are sentient might help convince people to treat them better, a goal shared by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animal's Fish Empathy Project.
It bothers Kyle, too, that, "People fish for fun. They don't even necessarily eat them."
Mr. Pomerleau, who's contacted PETA about his research, also harbors a practical purpose for training fish to be more than just boring decorations:
Kyle and his sister, Kendall, have long wanted a dog, something Mr. Pomerleau and his wife are happy to keep putting off.
Kendall's hounding continues.
Tuesday, January 24, 2006By Bob Batz Jr., Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Lake Fong, Post-Gazette photosDean Pomerleau, right, and his son Kyle, 9, president and vice president of Fish School, are the proud teachers of Albert Einstein, a 3-year-old calico fantail goldfish.Click photo for larger image.
Teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime.
Teach a fish to play football and ... well, now you really could be on to something.
A Pine man and his son have trained a pet goldfish to "carry" a football, "shoot" a soccer ball into a net, even "dance" the limbo.
If you don't believe it, you can check out photos and videos at the Web site they've launched, http://www.fish-school.com/.
You also could tune in to the Animal Planet's "The Planet's Funniest Animals" show, which is to air a video they submitted sometime soon. The "Late Show With David Letterman" still hasn't gotten back to them about being on a Stupid Pet Trick segment.
If you do believe it and want to try this at home, you can order one of their how-to e-books ($5.95) or complete fish training kits ($19.95), both of which come with guarantees as well as frame-able Fish School diplomas.
These guys and their fish are, as the Web site says, "NOT a joke." We went out and checked.
"This Isaac is a genius!" Dean Pomerleau says as he works with his newest student, a betta, or Siamese fighting fish, whose full name is Isaac Newton. Just one day after Mr. Pomerleau acquired him (to replace a fish by the same name who expired), Isaac is swimming through a hoop to get to a bit of food his trainer is offering via a homemade feeding wand.
This "positive reinforcement" technique, as used to train other animals, is what Mr. Pomerleau, 41, and his 9-year-old son, Kyle, began experimenting with about a year ago when Kyle came home with two goldfish he'd won at a school fair.
Isaac Newton, a betta fish, swims through a hoop at Fish School. It will get a piece of food as a reward.Click photo for larger image.
Noticing that the fish recognized and responded to them as they approached their tank, the guys began researching fish intelligence and found lots of scientific evidence that fish are smarter than most people think.
Mr. Pomerleau -- actually, Dr. Pomerleau -- is pretty smart, too, having earned his computer science Ph.D. at Carnegie Mellon University. Co-founder and president of AssistWare Technology, which makes car crash warning devices, he's worked for 16 years in the field of outdoor robot perception and intelligent vehicles.
Kyle is a smart fourth-grader at Richland Elementary School.
Both are at heart, they agree, engineers.
They bought a fantail goldfish they dubbed Albert, for Albert Einstein, and quickly trained it to eat out of their hands.
That's not so unusual. But then, using a Starbucks straw, a rubber-band, a toothpick and other materials, Mr. Pomerleau made the feeding wand. They used that to reward Albert whenever his actions came close to what they wanted him to do.
It didn't take Albert long to learn to swim through a homemade hoop, then through a tunnel, even under a horizontal bar.
Kyle had the idea to train him to push a toy soccer ball into a toy goal and push a toy football, even "fetch" the ball to them from the floor. Now he gets fired up to play when placed in his performance tank, which they surrounded with green artificial turf.
Watch: After scoring another goal at Mr. Pomerleau's Richland office where the fish lives, Albert swims toward the surface, looking for his reward.
Albert Einstein, pushes a soccer ball toward a goal at Fish School in Pine.Click photo for larger image.
"You can see he clearly has something on his mind," Mr. Pomerleau says, wanding him another pellet of food.
It's something to see, agrees a chuckling Bill Huff, who owns the nearby Seahorse fish store that sold them the big goldfish. He's heard of fish learning simple behaviors like eating out of someone's hand, but "not to this scale," as he puts it. "I was pretty pleased with what he's accomplished."
Also impressed, as well as amused, after catching the videos, is Allan Marshall, curator of aquatic life at the Pittsburgh Zoo & Aquarium, where they also do some training or "enrichment" for creatures including octopi and sharks. "No, we do not make our charges push soccer balls or swim through hoops (flaming or otherwise), but we do work with behaviors such as target training, puzzle feeders (octopus) and operant conditioning to reduce stress levels for necessary handling" such as weighing in the case of the penguins.
The self-described mad scientists' success with Albert led them to not only train other fish (including a pair of oscars at home), but also launch the Web site to show others how to do it.
Since December, they've had more than 15,000 unique users. "We've had hits from every continent but Africa. And Antarctica," says Mr. Pomerleau, who saw spikes after an interview with him and his son aired on the Internet show, "Pet Fish Talk," and after other outlets picked up on that. They've sold some 50 downloadable books and kits -- from McCandless to Australia.
Besides sending video to Animal Planet and Letterman, they've applied to the Guinness Book of World Records to have Albert listed as the "World's Smartest Fish." Last week, someone from "Ripley's Believe It Or Not" called to ask for permission to run a photo of Isaac in a forthcoming children's book ("I encouraged them to use a picture of Albert," notes Mr. Pomerleau. "I think he's more photogenic, and certainly more talented!").
They hope to at least take their act to Richland Elementary and add new tricks, too, including basketball.
Mr. Pomerleau, who doesn't expect to give up his day job, says, "It's been a fun project for the two of us," but it's not just frivolous. He's a longtime vegan who doesn't eat any animal products. Kyle now doesn't eat fish.
They both believe that helping show that fish are sentient might help convince people to treat them better, a goal shared by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animal's Fish Empathy Project.
It bothers Kyle, too, that, "People fish for fun. They don't even necessarily eat them."
Mr. Pomerleau, who's contacted PETA about his research, also harbors a practical purpose for training fish to be more than just boring decorations:
Kyle and his sister, Kendall, have long wanted a dog, something Mr. Pomerleau and his wife are happy to keep putting off.
Kendall's hounding continues.
