Overview of Daily Procedure Involved in Training Ruby

Below is a picture of where Ruby stays when I am not training her, so a little over 23 hours a day. She stays on a shelf with 20 other rats.


When it is time to train, I take her from the shelf and bring her to a separate room filled with operant boxes. A picture of Ruby's operant box (image 1) is listed below. The operant box, also called the Skinner box as it was created and made famous by behaviorist B.F. Skinner, is fairly straightforward and simple. It consists of a pellet dispenser (image 3) that can be programed to be dispensed by me manually by pressing a button on a handheld device (image 4) but can also be programed to dispense pellets once Ruby presses the bar (image 5).

Ruby's Home 

 Operant Box 

Food Dispenser

Manual Food Dispenser

Food Dispenser Bar and Food Magazine

 Before every session, I'll wipe down the operant box with soap and water to remove the smell of any other rat that trained previously. I also change the bedding before starting Ruby's training as sniffing other rat waste can be distracting for Ruby as well. The first couple of training sessions with Ruby consisted of me manually dispensing pellets to Ruby every time she was near the food magazine. Gradually, I reinforced Ruby with a pellet when she would get closer to the bar, then every time she would rear up over the bar, then every time she touched the bar, then finally she was pressing the bar all by herself! I used Karen Pryor's 10 laws of shaping to help train Ruby. Here is a link to the 10 rules in case anyone is inspired to successfully train their pet after reading this blog! http://www.clickertraining.com/node/299

After 30 minutes of training is complete, I'll take Ruby back to the rat holding area and weigh her in the scale pictured below, then I'll document her weight (we want her to be as close to 185grams as possible) feed her, and put her up.