Wednesday marked the first day of training for Despereaux! She made it down to her target weight (90% body weight- 205g) and seemed eager to begin learning.
Goal: The goal of these training sessions were to allow Despereaux to acclimate to the new environment of the conditioning box and to become familiar with the magazine where she will receive her rewards (pellets). Magazine training is a type of classical conditioning where the association between the light and sound in the box corresponds with receiving a pellet in the magazine.
Procedure: We placed Despereaux in the box and allowed her time to explore. After a few minutes we gave her one pellet in the magazine using a manual clicker. Once she ate it we gave her another immediately when she pulled her head out of the magazine. We continued to reinforce her with a pellet each time she would pull her head out, but still stay by the magazine.
Observations & Discussion: When we first placed her in the lab box, she sniffed around and explored ever crevice of the container before heading to the magazine. She immediately began licking the magazine to get all of the leftover chocolate flavored dust from the pellets. She then stuck her entire head in the magazine and continued this behavior several times. Logan and I became concerned with Despereaux's behavior about halfway through the training on Wednesday (Day 1) because she would not pull her head out and kept biting the metal surrounding the magazine. My first thought was that the pellets were not falling into the bottom, but we could see them dropping down through the clear part of the food apparatus. It was obvious that Des was highly frustrated and by the end of the 22 minute training session I was frustrated too because I thought this meant she would be a really hard rat to train and that we were going to have a lot of problems.
Since her frantic behaviors had increased so dramatically throughout the training, we (Maddie helped!) took apart the box and checked the pellet dispenser. We quickly realized that the pellets were being released and falling, but had been jammed at the top of the magazine. No wonder Despereaux was trying so hard to get her whole body in the magazine- the pellets were stuck at the top and she could smell them!! Relieved, we decided to try the training session again and it went so much better than before!! Despereaux did so well and within 9 minutes had already had 60+ pellets.
Overall it was a great training day for Despereaux. It was good for Logan and I to experience a problematic behavior from her early in training so we know how to fix it more time efficiently in the future.
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| Wednesday (9/18): Attempt 2- Des formed a strong association between the sound and food being dispensed. Each tick mark is where she was reinforced with a pellet. |
On Thursday we returned to train Despereaux and hoped to move on to shaping and eventually establish the FR1 schedule. However, our box was occupied and due to time constraints we had to use a different box. Despereaux did not have a productive day and did not improve during the session.
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| Thursday (9/19): Despereaux performed well at times, but was too distracted to call it a productive day. |
On Friday we returned hoping for a more productive day. Things were looking hopeful when she immediately went to the magazine; however, Despereaux quickly lost interest and began grooming in the back corner. She then took interest in sniffing the cage and became very distracted, so Logan and I removed the wood chip tray. Des's behavior changed and she just sat in the corner for the rest of the training session. We tried to get her back on track by giving pellets every few minutes, but that did not seem to help. At this point we contacted Dr. Trench and explained our situation and she recommended taking the weekend off from training and starting again on Monday with her guidance.
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| Friday (9/20): Despereaux was highly distracted and the tick marks seen were mainly to try to get her back on track. |
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