PixieDust the Rat

  Time well spent.   I had a wonderful time training Pixie Dust the Rat, she was excellent to work with. The more I trained the more I learned that rats are more than what they seem. I was usually the one that held her, spent time holding her, and carrying back and forth from the box to the cage. And I believe it was bonding, she never tried to run away from me, even when she jumped from my arms at one point.  The learning took some time and patience, but it was wel worth it watching her become what we hoped. She is very intelligent and i wanted to continue the process to see if we could reach the highest FR but perhaps one day I’ll get the opportunity again. 

 

  I would say that the problems my partner and I had with Pixie was her short attention span. She would repeatedly press the lever in a sequence and then stop anywhere from 1 to 2 minutes to groom or check out other areas of the box.  We were really able to train her on the weekends, due to both of our busy schedules, which made it a bit complicated with the beginnings on Mondays, Pixie would have to take time to figure out what to do at the beginning.  We attempted to regain her attention by tapping on the food dispenser or on the glass a bit, and that worked most times.  She made very good progress and we are proud her.

  Extinction  October 4th - 5th, 2022 Putting Pixie through the Extinction process was interesting, I have never trained an animal to u learn something once taught. Once completed she was put on free feed. Day 1 Pixie was a bit finicky with the lack of rewards, losing interest very easily. We were only able to gather her attention for about 26 minutes, and within in that time she managed to press the lever 307 times, in stop and start spirts. Day 2 Continuing her behavior the second day, she managed to press the lever 202 times.  A major decline in her responses from the FR training, Pixie did very well both days and the whole time training over September. There was no inclination of spontaneous recovery or extinction bursts in both sessions.

  FR 15 October 3rd, 2022 The final session in training for Pixie. She struggled a little bit with this session, with the heavy increase in lever presses, this was probably the toughest one for her. With lack of focus on the lever, and more on her grooming, Pixie didn’t reach the amount of presses that my partner and I were hoping for. However, she still did very well.  She pressed the lever 642 times, only receiving 42 pellets. She might not have been to inclined since the rewards were low.  Weighing in at 210.2 grams by the end of the session, she fed 8.1 grams of food.  The next session will begin the extinction, and this I believe will be the more interesting part.   

  FR 12 September 30, 2022 For the increase in Lever presses each session, Pixie has been excelling in her amount of responses. The training session for FR 12 was great, she managed to stay focused and push for the pellets.  At the beginning of each training session we usually starts out rough, and this time was no different. However, when she got started she didn’t stop.  Weighing in at 216.2 grams, we fed her 5.9 grams of food. 

  FR 10 September 29th, 2022 Their wasn’t much change today in the training session, without intervention. Pixie did very well on her training, pressing the lever 771 times, a gradual increase from the last training session, receiving 77 pellets.  We only trained for 27 minutes out of the 30. If we had trained the whole time the average amount of responses she might have gotten averaged out to 856 times.  Weighing in a 214.4 grams, we fed her 8.3 grams of food.

  FR 7  September 28th, 2022 In the process of starting FR 7 we decided t keep the same training technique, which inclined that we sit and watch her work without intervention.  Pixie took her time on figuring out that she had to push the lever more to receive the reward. However, she caught on relatively quickly. She repeatedly stopped for an amount of time to groom herself, as if she was losing interest.  She pressed the lever a total of 705 times, receiving 100 pellets. The most lever pushes she has had so far. Weighing in at 216 grams by the end, she was fed 7.7 grams of food.   

  FR 5 September 26th - 27th, 2022 Pixie was excellent acting a bit slow, thus my partner and I decided it would be best to continue on FR 5 two day sin a row. The reason for the continuation into the second day was because Pixie didn’t seem to understand that the lever press was increased to 5, and it took longer for her to get the reward, she didn’t seem to like that too much. But this allowed her more time to gain the knowledge that the pellet would be delivered if she didn’t give up. On day one of FR5 Pixie pressed the lever a total of 623 times for the total 30 minutes, leaving the pellet delivery at 124. Weighing in at 215.9 grams on the 26th an fed 8.3 grams. The second day, Pixie pressed the lever 639 times for the whole 30 minutes, there wasn’t much of an increase. Weighing in at 216.2 grams on the 27th and fed 7.8 grams. Eventually learning the routine she began to push the lever faster and gained the reward quicker, to her liking.  Pixie in her cage, after weighing....

  FR 2 September 21st, 2022 The level up now, FR 2 was the next step taken with Pixie Dust the rat, considering she did exceptionally well on FR 1. We didn't interviewed during her training session and see where she would take herself.  With the training session of 30 minutes, Pixie pressed the lever a total of 442 times receiving ring 183 treats.  Weighing in at 220.5 grams, she was slightly over he target weight, and this reduced her feeding amount to 6.3 grams of food.  Pixie is doing very well, with her steady increase in lever pressing, it was all very exciting to see the training we planned for coming to life.  The “Let me give you a pose.” type of pose.

  The Beginning! FR 1 September 20th, 2022 Her first day to show her stuff. Pixie did very well on her first day, she was after the treats. Weighing in at hefty 214.5 grams, she as 7 grams over her goal and fed 8.4 grams at the end of her session.  During her time in the training box, my partner and I decided that there wasn’t much that we going and didn’t intervene much, she did very well on her own.  She clicked the lever over a 30 minutes at an average of 319 times, with a little assistance of 39 times on the left hand switch. Loving the improvement,  we looked forward to the next training session. 

  Shaping Day Two September 19th 2022 the first day of shaping went very well, and today was even better. The work to continue Pixies understanding of pushing the lever for her treats was quick, even without training over the weekend. With a decrease in weight over the Weekend her food had to be slightly increased, but that isn’t take away her taste for the rewards. She weighed in at 210.1 grams and we increased her feed to 8.9 grams. The techniques in training remained the same, without much intervention, she caught on quickly. With the hand-switch being pressed 86 times, by the end of the session she had pushed the lever 13 times.  The next session of training Pixie will move on to fixed reinforcement 1, it should all be very exciting. I know she will keep up the good work. She has the “Everyone look at me!” Eye for photos. 

  Shaping Day One September 15th, 2022 The beginning of the shaping process was interesting, Pixie started pressing the lever. Pixie is used to pushing the lever and collecting some tasty treats. September 15th was the first day of shaping for her. My partner and I, started out by pushing the hand-switch, but it didn't take long for her to catch on. With rewards each time he made her way by the lever, he caught on fairly quick, but was slow at understanding. With a reinforcement 70 times (70 pellets delivered), the same method was used in this trainings session as it was in the next few days of shaping.  Weighing in at 214.7 grams, she was over her weight by a little over 7 grams.  She was not trained for the whole 30 minutes, but if she had gone the whole 30 minutes she would have had a response average of 100. 

  Magazine Training Day  November 14, 2022 Pixie the rat was excellent to work with, she managed to catch on pretty quick in training, with 10 minutes being her time. This was estimated by watching the time on the computer and watching for when the lever was pressed. Excellent timing, she was intrigued with taste of the pellets, they were chocolate flavored, and defiantly wanted more after the first taste. Way to go Pixie!  (The whole scene, Pixie the rat training for them treats.)