Training Despereaux over the last few weeks had its ups and downs. There were definitely some days that I did not want to have to watch her push a bar for 30 minutes and other times where I realized how smart of an animal she really is. Overall, I enjoyed this project a lot. It was neat to see how Despereaux learned over time and I became quit attached to her without even realizing it! I really enjoyed working with a live animal rather than virtual programs because it gave be a better sense of how learning works by using a hands on method. I learned so much from manually shaping Despereaux and watching her learn to press the bar multiple times as we increased the schedules. I also enjoyed having the responsibility to take care of her throughout the weeks of the project.
One aspect of this project I did not enjoy was Sniffy. I did not learn much from the program in comparison to live rat training. It was time consuming and felt more like busy work than a beneficial assignment. In the future I do not think it is worth the money for students to buy the software and complete the trainings using Sniffy.
One misconception I had going into the project was that my rat would completely comply to everything I wanted her to do and would always be focused and on task. I quickly realized that she was an animal and would learn at her own pace rather than my own. I became frustrated when she was falling behind the other rats and even did extra training sessions to try to catch her up and increase the schedules as far as I could.
Overall this was one of my favorite assignments I have had in any class at BSC. I learned a lot and enjoyed playing with Despereaux! I am already looking forward to starting the next project of training Des!
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| Enjoying her treat! |
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