Instructions
Fill a large bucket with fresh fruit and vegetables. Choose those that are your gorilla's favorites. Gorillas are vegetarians although mountain gorillas will sometimes eat grubs and bugs as well. Generally their favorite foods will be types of fruit.
Prime the clicker. This means that you must get your gorilla to understand that when she hears the clicker, a treat will immediately follow the click. Clickers work better than the human voice because they have a consistent sound and you want your gorilla to think she is causing the click because it is a separate entity to the handler. Choose a time when the gorilla is a little bit hungry so she will be eager for the treats. Click and reward her immediately. By the time you get to the end of your twenty treats, you will see that your gorilla is focusing on the clicker, not on the treats. This means she understands that the click equals a treat for her.
Train your gorilla to turn her head in a certain direction. This has no real use except being a rather cute trick when coupled with a command like "which way is north" but it teaches the gorilla to shape behaviors and makes more complex training easier. Stand in front of the gorilla with the clicker in one hand and a treat in the other. Do nothing. At some point she will turn her head just the tiniest bit. Immediately click and treat. Click and treat only for head turns in that direction. It will usually take just one short session for your gorilla to understand that when she turns her head just so, she gets a treat.
Continue this but as you progress, only click and treat when your gorilla turns her head fully away, instead of just a tiny movement. Then start clicking and treating only when she hold his head in that direction for several seconds. You will be amazed at how quickly your gorilla catches on and starts "offering" the head turns to get a treat. At this point you can start adding a voice command. Keep your training sessions short and fun. Gorillas are very intelligent animals and get bored easily.
Pick another behavior you would like to train. By now your gorilla understands the concept of clicker training and further training will be quite easy. Perhaps you want to teach her to come when called. Call her name. When she makes even the smallest move towards you, click and throw her a treat. Just as with the head turning, she will soon realise that when she makes a certain movement, she gets rewarded. Gradually escalate this training until you are only clicking and treating for her coming to you.
As your gorilla fully understands each thing you are teaching her, you can fade out use of the clicker and treats for that behavior. At first, just start rewarding her intermittently. After a while she will comply with your commands without even expecting a click and a treat. Go back to square one with each new command you are teaching her as this will keep her interest and make it a fun game.
How to Train a Gorilla
Should you ever have a gorilla as a pet or Vegas act, you need to know how to effectively train one. Although gorillas do not make great pets or stage actors (this is why you don't see them in circuses or on stage) they can be trained as long as they are a willing participant in the training and you are consistent with your commands and rewards. Clicker training works very well with gorillas, just as is does with large marine mammals like killer whales.