Clicker Training Rats
The idea of the clicker:
I have decided that I would like to clicker train my rats, Charlie and Sparticus. For the first day, I introduced the clicker and what it meant... treats. First day and first obsticle. The rats are afraid of the clicking sound! Click, and the rats run to the bottom of their four leveled cage. To overcome this particular chalange I showed them the treat and clicked when they took it. So the clicking sound would be associated with something positive right away. Sparticus understood rather quickly that the click meant something good was coming his way. Charlie, the more skiddish of the two, took a little bit more time, but he understands what the click means now. Now, I am able to click and then treat without either of them running away, and they even come to me for the treat. Success!!
Now, I would like to start training them outside their cage. Another day, another obsticle. Charlie will take treats outside the cage just fine. Sparticus, on the other hand, will not. I have tried with-holding food from Sparticus until the end of the day so he is hungry (no worries, he still gets all of his food and a small portion in the morning), but he still will not take his favorite treats outside the cage. I think the cage might have become a superstitious behavior for eating. 'What? Food outside my cage? Can't happen!' So, I am going to try bringing his food bowl out with him and putting food in that when he is nice and hungry. Maybe bringing a bit of his cage out with him will solve this particular puzzle. I might even try only feeding him food outside the cage, but if he still refuses to eat, I will give him food at the end of the day anyways. Poor confused rat, I don't want to starve him. Anyways, if anyone has any ideas on anything else that might work, please let me know.
I am going to continue the training with Charlie outside the cage, introducing the target tomorrow. I'm excited to see how he is going to react when he learns that offering specific behaviors will earn rewards. Inside the cage, I am going to teach them that when I am on different sides of the cage, I would like them to be on different levels of the cage. This will be useful for me because sometimes I need to reach them when they are at the bottom of the cage, which makes it nearly impossible for me to get them.
