Pixie The Rat

  Overall, I enjoyed the rat training experience. At first I was hesitant just because I had never done anything like this before. Handling the rat was scary for me. I could tell that Pixie sensed that I was nervous around her. Over time, I became less avoidant and interacted more. I was surprised at how fast she learned. She picked up on the different reinforcement schedules fairly quickly and did really well. We had some slow progression at the beginning of most sessions, but after the first 5 minutes or so she was progressing quickly. This was an experience that I will probably never forget! 

One problem that we had when it came to Pixies training was her slight "forgetfulness" over the weekend. We did not get to train most weekends, so she would go 2-3 days without having any type of training. Almost every following Monday, we would have a really slow start. It would take Pixie a good 5 minutes to get familiar with the box and remember what she needed to do. We tried to fix this problem by sometimes tapping on the right side of the box to help guide her attention back over to the lever. We did not do this every time, but it seemed to help. She would catch on eventually and always make progress! 

 On 10/4 and 10/5 we put Pixie through extinction so that she could go back on free feed. She did not do very well on extinction. On the first day of extinction we ran the program for about 26 minutes. Within those 26 minutes she pressed the lever a total of 307 times. This was a major decline from the previous FR schedules that we had been on. Pixie was really uninterested with being in the box and did alot of grooming both days. I would like to say that the second day of extinction was better, but it was not. She only pressed the bar 202 times for the second day. We could tell that because she was not getting rewarded that she was not interested in engaging with the lever. We did not see any spontaneous recovery or extinction burts within either training session. 

 On 10/3 we finished our last FR schedule. Pixie made it all the way to FR15. Although she may have not has as many responses as we'd hoped, she did do very well. For FR15 she had 642 responses. As the other schedules, this one may have been the hardest for her. It was difficult to keep her attention due to the fact that she was not being reinforced as frequently as she was used too. In order for her to get a pellet, she had to press the lever 15 times. This schedule the others were fixed, so it didnt matter how long it took for her to press the lever, as long as she pressed it 15 times. For this training session she weighed 210.2g and we fed her 8.1g. Now that our last schedule has been complete we can now start extinction! 

 On 9/30 we trained on FR12. Pixie has been making alot of progress. We trained for the full 3o minutes to ensure that she had plenty of time to get reinforced. She had 709 responses and that was all from her pressing the lever. It did take a little time to understand that she had to press the lever a lot of times before she would get a pellet. This happened almost every time we trained though. After the first couple of tries and no reinforcement she began to consistently press the lever, more than 12 times so she would get a pellet. At the end of the session we weighed her for the day. She weighed 216.2g and we fed her 5.9g. I hope we can get through a couple more successful FR schedules before training is over!

On 9/29 we trained on Fr10. Like the other days, we put Pixie in the box and let her do her thing. She did improve a bit from being on FR7, considering she did have some trouble at first. She had 771 responses for the FR10 schedule. We did not go the full 30 minutes, we only trained for 27 minutes. If we would have gone the full 30 minutes she would have pushed the lever an average of 856 times. She weighed 214.4g and we fed her 8.3g at the end of our training session. 

 On 9/28 we began training on FR7. We used the same technique as we have been doing to keep things the same. We do not want to confuse Pixie during any of our training sessions. For FR7 it did take her some time to push the lever. She started grooming herself a lot and seemed uninterested. It was almost like she did not really want to be in the box. We did have to slow the process down for FR7 because she wasn't getting it as fast as the others. She weighed 216.6g and we fed her 7.7g. For FR7, she had 705 responses for the full 30 minutes that we trained that day. 

 On 9/26 and 9/27 we trained Pixie on FR5. We decided to do 2 days on the FR5 schedule because we noticed that she was having a harder time understanding that she had to push the lever 5 times before a pellet would be delivered. This did slow her progress down some, but she still did fairly decent. Both days that she was on the FR5 schedule, the number of times that she pressed the lever were very close. On the first day (9/26) she pressed the lever a total of 623 times and on the second day of FR5 (9/27) she pressed it 639 times. Both training sessions we went the whole 30 minutes so it would give her plenty of time to be reinforced. I think she was used to getting a pellet after each time she pressed the lever that when she did it one time and nothing came out she became a little frustrated. Eventually she got the idea of what she was supposed to do and that if she pressed the lever 5 times or more that she'd get a pellet on that fifth press. At the end of the training sessions w...

 On 9/21 we moved Pixie up to FR2 since she did very well with FR1. We kept things the same in regards to our training techniques. We did not want to intervene much because we wanted to see how Pixie would react and do on her own. We trained for the whole 30 minutes. Pixie pressed the lever a total of 442 times and we only needed to use the hand switch 11 times. She received a total of 183 pellets for this training session. She weighed 220.5g's so we made sure to feed her 6.3g's for the day. Pixie is starting to figure out that she needs to stay on the right side of the box (where the lever is) that way she can get a pellet. 

 Yay!! We finally made it to the FR schedules. On 9/20/22 we started Pixie on FR1 which is very exciting. She weighed 214.5g's so we fed her 8.4g's. For the training there was not much for us to do. We still used the hand switch some, but mainly tried to let Pixie work on pressing the lever. She did very well for it to be her first day on the FR schedules. She did not get uninterested or satiated while she was in the training box.  We trained for a total of 30 minutes, basically until the program cut off. She pressed the lever a total of 219 times and we only used the hand switch 39 times. This was a big improvement for Pixie! 

 On 9/19, we still worked on shaping Pixies behavior and trying to get her familiar with pushing the lever. We didn't train over the weekend so at the beginning of the training session there was slow progression. Over the weekend she lost a little weight. She weighed 210.1g so we fed her 8.9g's. For training, we didnt do anything very different. We kept the techniques the same, only reinforcing her when she reared her paw down or around the lever. For this session we trained for a total of 30 minutes. The handswitch was pressed 86 times, and by the end of the session she had pressed the lever 13 times. A total of 93 pellets were delivered.  I would say although there was slow progression at the beginning, Pixie hit a major milestone by pushing the lever on only her "official" third training day.  Stay tuned for more progress as Pixie moves onto the FR schedules!

  On 9/15/22 we started shaping Pixies behavior to press the lever. This was our first day of shaping. We started off by using the handswitch only. For shaping day one we trained for about 22 minutes. DD and I realized that this was less than preferred time, but Pixie was becoming uninterested after the first 20ish minutes or so. To help train her to push the lever, we would reinforce her every time she went near the lever. Whether that be her sniffing on top of the lever, rearing her paw down or around the lever and etc. By doing this, it helped Pixie understand that in order to get a pellet she had to be around the lever. For shaping day1, she was reinforced 70 times (70 hand switches= 70 pellet deliveries). We used this same method over the course of the next few shaping days. She weighed 214.7g, which is a little over weight for her so we fed her 7.3g.  If we would have trained for the full 3o minutes, she would have had an average 100 responses.  Stay tuned for more ...