Final Comments

I really enjoyed this training experience. I think that it was a fun and informative way to put what you learn in lecture to practical use. I am a very visual learner and therefore this training experience helped me better grasp the concepts that we were tested on and learning throughout. I think it is always good to see for yourself what you learn about training animals actually occurs. I really do not have anything that I did not like. I thought that the amount of time that this project took was reasonable and having a lab partner made it easier on conflicts if they occurred during your training time. I thoroughly enjoyed being able to work with an animal and found it to be a good experience all around. I think the most surprising thing to learn was how difficult completely extinguishing a behavior is. Shirley was put on minimum VR schedules and her bar pressing was not completely extinct by the time we were through. On the second day of extinction she still pressed the bar a good bit even though it was reduced. I guess I did not realize at the beginning how strong the association is after being placed on a variable ratio schedule. I think the only misconception I had before learning about training was how much time the process actually took. Before this I thought that behaviors took less time to train, and also once the animal was trained they knew it forever. Working with Shirley showed that the process is back and forth and it takes time and dedication to train an animal properly!