Last night, I learned that I need to be more flexible in my target training. Lately, I've been pretty rigid. My thinking has been that Wiggles knows that if he touches the target he gets fed. He needs to learn that, if he doesn't touch the target, he doesn't get fed. For you logicians out there, he knows that touching the target is sufficient to get fed. He needs to learn that it's also necessary. So, lately, if Wiggles didn't touch the target, he didn't get fed. That's what happened last week, and if I stayed rigid, it would have happened again this week.
Last night, when I presented the target, he showed some interest, but didn't move toward it and didn't touch it. I became concerned that he was going to miss another meal. He's healthy enough to do it, but I started to wonder if it was my training and not Wiggles's appetite that was the problem. I decided to compromise on the goal. I cut off the mouse's tail and simply presented it with the target. This is stage 1 stuff. Wiggles is supposed to be at stage 7, so this is a big compromise. It worked. He ate the tail. When I presented the target again, he quickly and confidently moved out of his enclosure onto the station (stage 7), just like he's supposed to. I'm not entirely sure why Wiggles needed to take that step back to move forward, but I'm glad to worked.
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