Magazine Training

The goal was to magazine train Jubilee to the sounds and actions that cause the release of food from the hopper.

Previous to magazine training we deprived Jubilee to 85% percent of their original weight and two days before the first training session we introduced sugar pellets into their diet. Both of these steps were taken in order to insure motivation and that the reward would be familiar and recognized as normal food.

DAY 1 
The first day we (Dr. Trench and I) sat and slowly magazine trained Jubilee so that every time she went near the particular corner or the lever, i manually pushed the button and a reward released. We magazine trained for about 22 minutes and during that time I pressed the lever 40 times and she did not self reward at all.

She seemed to be very interested in the parts of the cage and in particular one corner of the floor. She spent a lot of time focused in and biting on the metal wires of the floor. This is what prevented from more continuous shaping although she was giving a decent amount of other behavior.