Farewell Penelope

This experience has been filled with excitement and frustration. I never knew how intense of a process it would be to train an animal to perform a task. From all the readings and practice with Sniffy, I thought it would be an easy process. I soon realized that not all rats like to cooperate. Even though Penelope and I did not have success, I still really enjoyed this experience. I was always hopeful that each new day would be the day that Penelope pressed the bar. Even though she never made it far, I do think I learned a lot about the process of training. It was helpful to see firsthand how they make the connection between food and the light/noise of the food magazine. It is really neat to know how many things could be accomplished if you are a good trainer. This process leaves me hopeful that I can use these techniques on my cat and possibly future roommates or spouse. The most surprising thing to learn was that not every rat is motivated by food. I thought I would automatically be able to train my rat to press the bar, but Penelope showed me that not all animals are the same. I overcame the perception that all rats are mindless creatures that only care about food. I saw a small, but stubborn, personality in Penelope. I really enjoyed spending time with my rat, and I would do this process all over again.

I believe this picture accurately shows how my time with Penelope went. I will miss this stubborn little rat.

Bar Presses

Here is a graph of Penelope's bar presses per 30 minute sessions. As you can see, this isn't a very interesting graph. This is for a Fixed Ratio 1 because she never made it past this.

Challenges.. There were many

Unfortunately, the entire experience of shaping was a challenge for me. I could never get Penelope to consistently press the bar. She was very interested in things occurring outside of the box, so I dealt with that by putting the cover on the box. This helped with the outside distractions, but it did not help in getting her attention on the bar. She did not seem interested in the chocolate food pellets, so I food derived her a little more until she was under her target weight. This worked for the first 10 minutes or so of each training session. After she had eaten about 20-30 pellets, she would not touch anymore. There would be a lot of pellets that stacked up in the food magazine that she didn't eat. I had a problem with her staying in the front left corner of the box, so I began reinforcing her anytime she was away from that corner. I also wiped down the cage and gave her fresh shavings before each session, so the operant box wouldn't smell like other rats. Nothing really worked. Penelope did not like to cooperate with me.

Still Trying to Shape Penelope...

It has been over a week of shaping Penelope, and frustration is setting in. I feel like I have tried everything that I could think of, and she isn't making very many improvements. She has pressed the bar on accident a couple of times, and it has been the highlight of my time. I thought I had a breakthrough one day when she pressed the bar 14 times. I was ecstatic. However, disappointment returned the next day when she was no longer interested in the bar or the food pellets.

I began reinforcing her any time she was away from the typical corner that she liked to chill in. I think this only confused her, but she did stay away from that corner for a few days. I think she is equally frustrated with me. On a bright note, every time I take her out of the operant box, she climbs up and sits on my shoulder. I then bend over, and she jumps from my shoulder into her cage. If all else fails, I think I have taught my rat how to do a cannonball into her cage. Pretty cool to me.

Here is a list of the schedule she was on and how many reinforcements/bar presses Penelope had in the course of her time training.

Day 1	2/22/16	Shaping 1 Lever	28.40 minutes	2 bar presses	45 reinforcements
Day 2	2/23/16	Shaping 1 Lever	29 minutes	0 bar presses	49 reinforcements
Day 3	2/24/16	Shaping 1 Lever	27.30 minutes	0 bar presses	39 reinforcements
Day 4	2/25/16	Shaping 1 Lever	30 minutes	1 bar press	47 reinforcements
Day 5	2/26/16	Shaping 1 Lever	30 minutes	3 bar presses	40 reinforcements
Day 6	2/29/16	Shaping 1 Lever	30 minutes	0 bar presses	46 reinforcements
Day 7	3/1/16	Shaping 1 Lever	30 minutes	0 bar presses	38 reinforcements
Day 8	3/2/16	Shaping 1 Lever	30 minutes	1 bar press	34 reinforcements
Day 9	3/3/16	Shaping 1 Lever	30 minutes	3 bar presses	43 reinforcements
Day 10	3/4/16	Shaping 1 Lever	30 minutes	0 bar presses	42 reinforcements
Day 11	3/7/16	Shaping 1 Lever	30 minutes	0 bar presses	47 reinforcements
Day 12	3/8/16	Shaping 1 Lever	30 minutes	0 bar presses	55 reinforcements
Day 13	3/9/16	Shaping 1 Lever	30 minutes	4 bar presses	52 reinforcements
Day 14	3/10/16	Shaping 1 Lever	30 minutes	14 bar presses	33 reinforcements
Day 15	3/11/16	Shaping 1 Lever	30 minutes	2 bar presses	36 reinforcements

As you can see, Penelope pressed the bar a total of 30 times in 15 training sessions. I believe that about half of those were accidents in which she had no idea that she was being rewarded for pressing the bar. For this reason, I did not put Penelope through extinction. I did not believe that this was necessary because there was not a learned behavior to extinct. I also do not have any cumulative records because for the most part, there was nothing to record. 

Here is a video of Penelope's typical activities in the operant box.

The Failure of Shaping Penelope

Goal: By using the cover on the operant box, I hope to eliminate any distractions and get Penelope closer to pressing the bar.

Results: The cover allowed Penelope to to focus more on the inside of the box, but she did not make any progress when it comes to pressing the bar. She consecutively turns her head to the left after eating, but she does not go any closer to the bar. After about 10 minutes in the box, she becomes completely disinterested in the food. The pellets would build up to where there are over 15 pellets in the food magazine.

Discussion: I still think that Penelope is being reinforced just by being out of her cage. She is not interested in the food pellets, so she is not working very hard to be rewarded. I might need to give her less food, so she will have more motivation to work for food.

Shaping Penelope

Today was Penelope's first day of shaping!

Goal: The goal for the next few days is to train Penelope to press the bar. She already knows that the light and sound of the food magazine means she gets food, but I will be trying to associate the bar with the delivery of the food.

Procedure: Before beginning, I played out a procedure of when exactly I would reinforce Penelope. To start, I would reinforce her any time she went to the right side of the box. Once I got her to stay on the right sight, I would then reinforce her in the back right corner. After that, I reinforced her once she pulled her head out of the food magazine and looked to the left. I thought this would be simple and easy for her to catch on to.

Results: Penelope cooperated with me until she started pulling her head out of the food magazine. After this, I lost her focus. She found a spot in the front left corner and did not move away from it. She did not even seem interested in the food pellets I was giving her.

Discussion: Since I do not believe Penelope is stupid, I will keep trying the plan that I have played out until she constantly turns her head to the left after being reinforced. It is very possible that just the act of being out of her cage is reinforcing enough to her. It is also possible that she is getting distracted by my presence while in the operant box. Over the next few days, I will put the cover/door on the operant box and hope that some of the outside distractions can be eliminated.

Sniffy the Virtual Rat

When I first opened the Sniffy program, I honestly thought it would be a waste of time. I was eager to dive right in to training my live rat that I didn't want to waste my time training a rat on my computer. Boy, I was wrong about that. Training sniffy really helped me have a visual of the training process of an animal. It helped me know what to look for in my live rat, and I actually really enjoyed seeing Sniffy progress through the shaping process.

Magazine training for Sniffy was very simple. It only took about 15 minutes to do before he had the association between the noise and the food.


Shaping Sniffy to press the bar took a lot longer than I thought it would. I started by reinforcing him every time he stood on his hind legs while facing the back wall. Eventually, I only reinforced that behavior when he was over the hopper. After a couple minutes of that, he started consistently pressing the bar. He would press it multiple times in a row, then he would rear up like he didn't completely know that he only has to press the bar. After reinforcing only the bar pressing, he got the hang of it. He got to where he would press the bar over 10 times in a row.


I then put Sniffy on a Variable Interval schedule to where he would only be reinforced once he pressed the bar after 5 seconds passed (VI5''). I could tell he didn't really like this very much. Toward the end, he would press the bar then walk around the cage before he pressed the bar again. He had a routine down, and he kept doing this for a while.


Sniffy did not like extinction at all. He was going crazy trying to press the bar and was getting agitated when nothing came out. After a while, he stopped pressing the bar as much. Eventually, he stopped the behavior altogether.