ABA lab was very interesting today for Tinkerbell.  My lab partners, Lauren and Charlene,  and I decided that it was time to get our rats socialized.  We are working hard on the plans for our upcoming experiment, and socializing Rooth, Ambrosia and Tinkerbell is going to be a big priority.  We first placed Ambrosia and Rooth together in the animal room wooden box.  Ambrosia is much bigger then Rooth and Tink.  Charlene was worried that Ambrosia would misbehave, but the two of them “played” like rats are suppossed to play.  Rooth and Tink are around the same weight, so I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to tell the two apart.  Tomorrow we will mark their tails with  a washable marker to distinguish them from each other.  Because of this problem, I only let Tinkerbell socialize with Ambrosia today.  It was quite a comedic scene watching the girls prance about.  Tinkerbell is definitely the “runt” of the three and she kept running underneath Ambrosia. Our experiment is going to be social in nature and today we took the first step in a long process of organizing and getting things underway. 

       After social time, I worked on Tinkerbell’s conditioning.  She responded great again today, and really has mastered her bell ringing trick.  When I presented my diagram in class on Tuesday, I really should have gone into much more detail about how I shaped Tinkerbell to ring the bell.  I think I made it sound easy and it really wasn’t.  Yes, she did learn to ring the bell in an hour’s time, but, I worked very hard on shaping her to ring the bell correctly.  I wanted to make sure Tinkerbell didn’t just “bump” the bell with her nose without a jingle.  In order to receive her food morsel, Tink had to “ring” the bell, not just tap into it with her nose or her behind.  The video’s tell it all.
(Food weight – 20.9 grams – Body weight – 219 grams)