Training Goldfish is a Sad, Sad Practice

Are you one of those lousy parents that won't buy a dog for your kids but try to pass off a goldfish as a pet that's just as good? Well, if you want to help your case that fish are just as fun as an adorable golden retriever, there's the R2 Fish School. It'll let you train a goldfish to do such tricks as play basketball and swim around objects in its tank. The excitement never ends, as the ridiculous instructional clip after the jump demonstrates.

Essentially, it looks like this is your basic reward system, with a special food wand making it easier to jam food right in your goldfish's face when it does something right. Of course, you can't scratch it behind the ears or take it for walks or go outside and play with it, but a coldhearted parent like you doesn't care about things like that, do you? [R2 Fish School]

5:00 PM on Fri Apr 25 2008
By Adam Frucci
9,227 views
47 comments

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--Tito-- at 05:05 PM on 04/25/08
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Reminds me of those "magic" marker pens. . .
Darrone at 05:06 PM on 04/25/08
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I once taught a goldfish a trick. It was called get swallowed whole at a frat party and thrown up alive.
TOWken22 at 05:06 PM on 04/25/08
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Too bad the training won't stick since goldfish have notoriously short attention spans.
TOWken22 at 05:06 PM on 04/25/08
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Too bad the training won't stick since goldfish have notoriously short attention spans.

Wait, what?
Ambigous Blob at 05:08 PM on 04/25/08
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I thought fish only had 3 second memories or something?.. Urban Myth? Where's the Myth Busters when we need them? I guess I could google it too... Soooo lazy....
bosskev at 05:10 PM on 04/25/08
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Cute. Here's a link to a video showing the other fishy tricks from the R2 Fish School.

+ Watch video
xcharliemx at 05:10 PM on 04/25/08
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Ok, I'm shutting off my computer. I have seen it all.
bosskev at 05:10 PM on 04/25/08
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@TOWken22: Nice.
xa3021 at 05:10 PM on 04/25/08
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2 seconds after video cut...Fish: WHERE THE F AM I AND WHY IS THERE SOMEONE WITH A HUGE STICK? CRAP!!!
bosskev at 05:10 PM on 04/25/08
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@TOWken22: Nice
themightykorean at 05:14 PM on 04/25/08
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Their memory span is even shorter.
ocdude at 05:17 PM on 04/25/08
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@Ambigous Blob: [mythbustersresults.com]
nystreetfilms at 05:18 PM on 04/25/08
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dont goldfish have a 3 second memory? so what you got to train this thing ever 3 seconds? WTF?

Doesnt goldfish have like a three second memory? It doesnt make sense, what do you have to do, teach it the same trick every three seconds?

What was I talking about?
iTheophilus at 05:23 PM on 04/25/08
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The short memory span thing is a myth. Some fish are pretty smart. Many cichlids recognise their owners, and Ron and Valerie Taylor used to train sharks for motion pictures.
graffiksguru at 05:24 PM on 04/25/08
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@Darrone: I think I was at that party.
iTheophilus at 05:24 PM on 04/25/08
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Video's shit, though.
Castle1914 at 05:28 PM on 04/25/08
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@Ambigous Blob: Yeah they did this myth. Fish can learn tricks and retain them. People tend to underestimate animal intelligence because it doesn't' relate to how we think.

I remember when the "experts" would say that animals (and infants) didn't feel pain or have emotions.
DeLarge at 05:30 PM on 04/25/08
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If this is school?, what's in this video? PhD training?

+ Watch video
Ambigous Blob at 05:36 PM on 04/25/08
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@ ocdude and Castle 1914, nice! Thanks. I was joking too. Leave it to those guys to bust EVERY urban myth!

@ Castle 1914 I try to not think about things that I eat thinking (i.e.: cows, chicken, and fish), cause it make them harder to eat.... How American am I right now? Sheeesh!...
nystreetfilms at 05:36 PM on 04/25/08
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@TOWken22:

sorry... beat me to it ;)

but I do have a question... can you mount lasers on the goldfish?
Castle1914 at 05:43 PM on 04/25/08
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@Ambigous Blob: I eat them anyway. Chickens are racist, domestic turkeys are so dumb that they'll drown themselves looking up at the rain (with their mouths open). Pigs will eat you given the chance. Cows, well I eat cows.
mxmarks at 05:55 PM on 04/25/08
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Yeah - I have a red tiger oscar cichlid who's an asshole. He recognizes me when I walk in the room, and will jump and smash the top hood of the tank if I start to leave and haven't fed him.
Whew at 05:57 PM on 04/25/08
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Yea but you don't have to poop an ' scoop for a damn fish either !
LA_Longhorn at 06:23 PM on 04/25/08
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"They say goldfish have no memory
I guess their lives are much like mine
And the little plastic castle
Is a surprise every time
And it's hard to say if they're happy
But they don't seem much to mind..."

Ani DiFranco
Little Plastic Castle
Curves at 06:28 PM on 04/25/08
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I think the "reward stick" had catfish cocaine in it judging from the way he squeezed his chubby little fins under that bar to get it.
rudeadly at 06:38 PM on 04/25/08
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killer tune
geekinky at 06:42 PM on 04/25/08
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Maybe you could teach them not to float sideways on the top of the water. We went through about 20 and finally gave up.
nobodyzhome at 06:59 PM on 04/25/08
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Is that the end of the internet? It has to be. Ok, can we turn around and go back now?
Ambigous Blob at 07:09 PM on 04/25/08
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@ Castle1914 LOL! Well. if that's the case, then I'll make the exception for peacocks! Add them to your list too, trust me! I can't stand them! When I was a kid one of our neighbors had one and it used to terrorize all of the kids on the block. One day it jumped out of nowhere and on to my shoulders and started to peck my head! Those things are worst than the velociraptors from Jurassic Park! I bet they're not too many steps below them on the evolutionary ladder too hmmmmm..... Well, whatever the case Peacock steaks ftw!

This thread btw, is officially priceless! Too funny that it's on a tech blog! TGIF indeed!

@ Adam Frucci, how does this relate to tech news btw?!?.... ;)~
FritzLaurel at 07:59 PM on 04/25/08
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Screw that, I just want to know where they got that feeding wand thing!

I have an underwater frog that I, well, "inherited" and he sucks at finding food. I have to aim little pellets at him and hope they accidentally hit him in the mouth.

If I could find one of those wand things, I could all but eat the crap for him.

Anyone know where I can get one of those gadgets??
sam1am at 08:18 PM on 04/25/08
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Well technically you CAN take it for a walk, it just won't be doing any tricks afterwards.
Kaiser-Machead at 08:20 PM on 04/25/08
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My goldfish was given the ultimate reward. He dodged three snappy, hungry terrapins for over a year, and now lives by himself in a big ass tank, over a half a foot long.
apeguero at 08:31 PM on 04/25/08
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@DeLarge: Microsoft Table Computer perhaps?
bosskev at 09:27 PM on 04/25/08
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@DeLarge: Thanks for the link. I am dumbfounded by the goldfish doing formations almost as well as my high school marching band did. Indeed, dress the goldfish in tiny polyester uniforms and I daresay it would have been hard to tell them apart. (Well, hard to distinguish, of course, until Marty Newcombe would trip over Lynette Dowdy tumbling them both onto the 40-yard line. Boy, you couldn't tell which wail was louder, Marty's tuba or Lynette's sideline mother. Anyway.)
DozeUser at 10:04 PM on 04/25/08
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@FritzLaurel: you could probably like rig one up yourself using a straw or something
DozeUser at 10:05 PM on 04/25/08
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@sam1am: what if you walked it in it's bowl in like a wagon or something?
GadgetPlay at 12:22 AM on 04/26/08
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Klaus on American Dad seems pretty bright.
FinalValgas at 03:46 AM on 04/26/08
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This disproves the fish racist theory that goldfishes have five second memory.
maximumleo at 05:53 AM on 04/26/08
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This saddens me ... the fact that anybody would pay for a product that allows you to train the most likely to die "pet" in existence just seems, well, a waste of free time. But hey, if you like the fishies go right ahead folks.
justajenn at 08:54 AM on 04/26/08
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Only most likely to die if you're a suck fishkeeper. Goldfish have lifespans of 20 years or more. World's oldest lived to be 42.
ManekiNeko at 08:55 AM on 04/26/08
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This is good news for Dr. Wernstrum and his fish thingy.

"Sit, Cinnamon! SIT!"

(flogs fish with a rolled up newspaper)

"Good girl."
FinalValgas at 02:25 PM on 04/26/08
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@ManekiNeko:

exactly what i thought when i saw this entry.@maximumleo: I thought common gold fish are hardy and could live a long time?
Odin at 03:14 AM on 04/27/08
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The Goldfish would so die from overfeeding though if you gave this to any relatively young child.
Candyman at 10:29 PM on 04/27/08
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@Castle1914:
Chickens are racist?
Candyman at 10:32 PM on 04/27/08
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@FinalValgas:

First chickens, now fish? It's a Racist Animal epidemic!!
bbfreak at 05:43 AM on 04/28/08
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Nah, that's a myth.

"IT IS time for the scales to fall from our eyes: scientists have claimed not only that goldfish have a memory span of up to three months, but that they can also tell the time."
iTheophilus at 06:21 PM on 04/28/08
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I have also seen a fish waiting in line. To get cleaned. A giant moray eel it was. Can't remember what sort of fish was in front of it in the line, though.