My Final Post

Although training Peaches was a lot of work and took a good amount of time I really did enjoy it.  When her training was finished I had this huge sense of accomplishment, she was so successful with her training reaching FR10 in the fixed ratio schedule of reinforcement and VR10 in the variable ratio schedule of reinforcement.  As she accomplished each level I realized that the reason she was so successful was because of the foundation we created during shaping.  Pryor explains how important shaping is with her rules, but I was really able to see this by training Peaches.  I wasn't just reading about how reinforcements affect an animal's behavior, I was able to see if first hand through Peaches.  By going through this experience I felt that I got a full understanding of what I was learning by being able to relate the information back to examples with Peaches' training.  I also really liked working with a partner, if I had questions I had someone that was there to help me understand the situation.  If Peaches did something crazy I had a person who was there to witness it.  Megan made an awesome partner and trainer, it was a give and take partnership that ultimately led to the successful training of Peaches.

This experience did take a lot of time, but it was more of a benefit to my learning than a negative one.  The most surprising part of this experience was how far Peaches was able to go in both of her reinforcement schedules.  I never imagined that I would be so proud of a little rat!  Even though we had to spend two days on a couple of levels, Peaches never fell behind in her training. She even showed new behaviors towards the end of her VR reinforcement schedule like rolling over and climbing and hanging on the house light of the operant box.  This experience is the best way to really understand what this class is about and shows us the best way to train an animal, not to mention it gives you a great sense of achievement!  I'm going to miss working with Peaches!