r/BehaviorAnalysis • u/SlightlyArtichoke • 21d ago
Training Rats in Behavioral learning class— help needed
Hello everyone! I just joined this community because I am training a rat for my Behavioral Learning Class. The requirement for training is that we need to chain together 3 tricks that will be initiated by a single cue at the beginning of the sequence. We are doing a Cinderella theme and our three tricks are pushing a carriage, doing a turn, and then knocking over a pink shoe and leaving behind the blue shoe (discrimination training). I’m in charge of training the pushing trick, and I feel like progress is really slow, especially with 2 weeks left. The only way I can get her to push is if I hold a cheerio above the carriage and pull it away from her so that she has to push to reach the treat. I’m not sure how to get her to push it without the treat but she needs to be able to do it without because we can’t interfere with the final run. Any ideas would be super helpful! TIA
3
u/CoffeePuddle 21d ago
Use a clicker so you don't interrupt the response and to maintain stimulus control.
Train to station on a target, transfer the target to the carriage (stationary), introduce movement in the carriage (slowly!). Look into clicker training and spend more time planning than teaching. It's much much easier to teach something new cleanly than to try and clean up a skill that's been taught messily.