Shaping: Day 1

Once Li'l Swanson learned to associate the noise of the food hopper with food, I was able to start shaping her with the end goal of her pressing the lever for a reward. My first step was to train Swanson to turn her head left (towards the bar) when at the food hopper. Getting her to the hopper was easy enough--because of the magazine training, she knew that the hopper was her new food source. Every time she turned her head left when facing the hopper, I rewarded her; every time she turned her head right or backed away, I did not reward her. After about 15 minutes of this, Swanson had learned that turning towards the bar resulted in food.