Ms. Jingles vs. Sniffy

     While training a virtual rat and training a live rat are different, there were some similarities. For instance, the time it took to shape each of them was pretty close. Sniffy took about 60 minutes to shape, and it took us about 60 total minutes of training to shape Ms. Jingles.

     I think magazine training and shaping the virtual rat and lab rat were really similar. In order to get each of the rats to learn the behavior, a similar set up steps had to be followed.

     I learned a lot about training from each of the rats. Working with Sniffy taught me how to properly shape a live rat, and working with Ms. Jingles taught me about observing her behaviors carefully and making appropriate changes when necessary.

     I would highly recommend using both live and virtual rats in future classes. Training a virtual rat was a great introduction to working with and shaping live rats. However, there's no substitute for working with a live animal, because so many factors can have an impact on their performance.

     Hillary and I could not get a cumulative record to print out, however we did take specific notes on Ms. Jingles's number of responses for each training session. For example this is the breakdown of her second day on FR-12:

1 minutes: 12 presses
2 minutes: 36 presses
3 minutes: 61 presses
4 minutes: 86 presses
5 minutes: 110 presses
6 minutes: 146 presses
7 minutes: 158 presses
8 minutes: 182 presses
9 minutes: 218 presses
10 minutes: 230 presses
11 minutes: 254 presses
12 minutes: 290 presses
13 minutes: 314 presses
14 minutes: 338 presses
15 minutes: 374 presses
16 minutes: 398 presses
17 minutes: 434 presses
18 minutes: 446 presses
19 minutes: 458 presses
20 minutes: 482 presses
21 minutes: 482 presses