Grimm's Behavior Paper

My goal behavior was to teach my rat, Grimm, to play fetch by bringing a ball to me. I created a training plan that involved a minimum of two training sessions per day for 30 days. Through my training plan she should complete this behavior on day 25. I planned to accomplish this behavior by using a clicker, treats and a target (ball). Through a training plan, positive reinforcement, dedication and modifications to the training plan, Grimm should have learned to play fetch. The training plan steps to teach Grimm to play fetch were pretty reasonable. By the first day of training, I predicted that she would sniff the ball. Since rats are typically very curious animals, she did this naturally on the first day. By the third day of training,
I hoped that she would touch the ball. She actually did this on day two. I was quite proud of her for this. By the fifth day of training I expected her to move the ball with any part of her body. However, she was not moving the ball more than once with her foot until the tenth day of training. By the eighth day of training I hoped that she would pick up the ball. She picked it up for the first time on the 12th day of training. She picked up the ball a total of seven times during training. By the 12th day of training I hoped that she would move the ball with her mouth at least one inch. On the 20th day of training she did this once. Ever since that day she has not done this behavior again. Grimm never accomplished the goal of retrieving the rolling ball and bringing it back to me.
Throughout this semester of training I encountered many issues with training Grimm.
For the first 14 days of her training, she would not eat a single reinforcer I gave her. This made it extremely difficult to reinforce her doing the right thing in training. She refused to eat a total of 24 different reinforcers out of the 28 I offered her. I tried sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, dried fruit, banana, apple and many more types of reinforcers. All four of the reinforcers that she would actually take and eat; I found during the last half of her training. On the ninth day of training I realized that Grimm worked a lot better when Cookies (my other rat) was present. So I would train Grimm with Cookies nearby. Doing this made Grimm a lot more confident, however, she would get distracted by Cookies and lose focus. Another issue is that I didn’t always train Grimm in the same place in my room. I tried my bathtub, bathroom floor, bedroom floor and her cage. This made her more curious to explore than to train. To reduce distractions I finally began training her in a glass aquarium that only contained her
ball.
Grimm will not play fetch on cue so the training was not a success. Grimm will not regularly pick up the ball. The most regular interaction that Grimm has with the ball is to lick it. She ignores the ball when it is rolled. If the ball is left in her cage, she will pick it up and play chase with Cookies.
I believe that the training was not successful for several reasons. I did not find a successful reinforcer until halfway into the training sessions. Another reason I believe the training was not successful was because both my rats were present. Instead of including Cookies, I should have worked to bond with Grimm so that I was what made her comfortable. I should have just stuck to training one rat. Ironically, Cookies has successfully played fetch several times. I should have been even more proactive about finding treats that Grimm would actually eat.
I gained a lot from the training experience.
I learned that every animal is trained a different way. I learned that some animals will be more difficult to train than others. Throughout the training, I noticed how much different training a bird is to training a rodent. I believe it is due to the intelligence and problem solving abilities of birds. In some ways, Grimm proved to be the exception to the common rat. Most rodents are very food motivated, however Grimm was not. She was not motivated by human interaction either. I am still struggling to find her motivation. The motivations of food and love were not strong enough motivators for her. I gathered more experience training animals. I will continue to train Grimm regardless of if the semester is over until she performs her
behavior.