Nala vs Sniffy

Sniffy was much easier to train than a live rat. Sniffy's magazine training took about 15 minutes while Nala's training took 30 minutes. Sniffy's shaping took around an hour to complete. Nala did not complete shaping during thirteen 30 minute sessions. Magazine training went about the same for Sniffy and Nala. Nala would go near the magazine opening and be rewarded. She, like Sniffy, made the connection between the sound and the food. Shaping was very different for Nala. Sniffy's shaping did not take long. He went to the area with the bar much more frequently. Sniffy also immediately knew to press on the bar instead of just touching the bar. Nala did not go in the area with the bar a lot during the first half of training. She also did not rear up over the bar as much as Sniffy did. Once she learned to touch the bar, she did not know to press it like Sniffy did.

I think that I learned the basics of what training a rat in an operant box would be like from Sniffy. I think it was beneficial to practice timing reinforcements on Sniffy. The environment was also very controlled in the virtual world which allowed it to be easier to see what was happening. I learned a lot about how animals learn in different ways just like people do by training a live rat. You really get to see how much patience it takes to train someone/something a brand new behavior. I would recommend doing both the virtual rat training and the live rat training. They show both sides of the training experience, the perfect plan and the real world plan. I think that the two processes complimented each other and were mutually beneficial to me as a student.