by toyah Robson
Introduction
The obstacles
1. A bridge they
must climb across.
2. A pole weaving course.
3. Hoop jumping!
4. See Saw.
5. Tunnel
Introduction
Agility is not for every rat. If after a couple of
minutes she still doesn't want to get on the see saw, then she's probably not
going to. Go get another rat and try again with the first one some other time,
but it just might not be her cup of tea. Don't spend more than twenty minutes at
a time training. If before twenty minutes are up her attention starts to wander,
stop - she'll not learn anything if she’s forced.
Practice one obstacle at a time - don't try and make her do the whole course in
one go. Start with something easy (like the bridge) and work your way to the
weaving slowly. Once one obstacle is mastered, add another one, don't do the
next one separately. For example, once your rat will go over the bridge no
problem, make her go through the bridge then jump the hoop.
Once she gets to the end of the course, she should get a treat. If you've just
taught the first obstacle, and she does it, give a treat. Next time, she might
have to go a bit further for the treat, but she'll know it's coming, so
continue. Don't give a treat at the end of every obstacle.
Of course, you need to get her around the course to start with! Try a thin strip
of paper, and wave that at her nose, just brushing her whiskers with it, an
she'll probably follow it out of curiosity. Since each obstacle is quite short,
it'll not take her long to get to the end, at which point a yogurt drop or other
favorite treat should be waiting!
Alternatively, lead them round with a treat (I've had success with party rings).
Now we reach something you probably thought of at the beginning. You'd love to
do it, but don't have an agility course to hand. Well, I improvised! The NERS
and MRC agility courses consist of five obstacles, which can all be set up using
ordinary household objects, Blue Peter style!
Vary where you teach the agility. Remember at a show there is a lot of
commotion, and it's a strange place anyway, so anything she's used to doing in a
quiet corner of one room will be forgotten. Teach it somewhere quiet, and then
get her used to it in the sitting room with people round and the TV on.
Eventually, they'd be quite happy to perform their tricks in the middle of a
motorway - and seeing how busy last month's show was, they need to be that
confident doing it!
The obstacles, and extra hints
1. A bridge they
must climb across. Sellotape a sturdy 12"
ruler between two cups. The rat must learn to climb up onto one cup, across the
ruler-bridge, and off at the other end. This is training at its easiest - wave a
bit of food in front of her, she’ll run for it, then just make sure she gets
off the bridge before she gets a reward. The main sticking point here is the rat
who thinks "it'll be much easier just to walk on the floor", gets off
the bridge, and then still expects a treat. Making sure the treat isn't given
until she reaches the floor after the obstacle makes it much easier when you ask her to do the rest of the course.
Difficulty rating * - the easiest of the lot. Teach this one first, as once she
gets the hang of one obstacle and knows there is a treat at the end, she will be
more willing to learn the other obstacles.
2. A pole weaving course. To
make a home set, attach toilet roll tubes to a piece of wood or cardboard.
Stagger them slightly to the left and right - the agility sets the clubs use are
staggered, to make it a bit easier. If you can find something to put at the side
(a few cassette cases taped together) to make small walls, then she will understand what you want her to do
much more quickly. You need to keep darting the reward from side to side, and hopefully the rat will follow. This takes quite a while to teach compared to
some of the other tricks, but is work persevering. Once she has mastered it, it
does look quite impressive.
Difficulty rating ** - This one is a lot harder, and takes more time than the
bridge.
3. Hoop jumping! I
spent a while trying to find something suitable to use for this. Eventually I
settled on a big roll of sellotape (something like masking tape which usually
has a bigger central hole than normal tape) taped to the top of a cup standing up, to make a raised hoop. The rat doesn't actually have to
jump through the hoop, just drag herself through it, and like the bridge, the
treat shouldn't be given until all four paws are on the floor, as this makes
linking it to other obstacles much easier.
Difficulty rating * - they get the hang of this really quickly.
4. See Saw. Pretty
easy to make, harder to get the rats to do! I used a thin piece of chipboard
(the bottom out of one of the kitchen drawers, actually) balanced on a water
bottle, but I'm sure there are better ways. It needs to be able to tip back and
forth pretty easily. To start with, tip it yourself by hand, a bit slower then
it would move normally, and the rat will get used to the motion. Only once she's
happy with walking along a moving platform let the platform tip on its own, and
although again she will not like it very much, she will find it much less
disturbing than being thrown in at the deep end.
Difficulty *** - Surprisingly difficult. They tend to get scared off when it see
saws, as the change in angle confuses them.
5. Tunnel - again,
easy. If you've got a long, straight ferret tunnel, you're laughing. If not, a
long, wide piece of card rolled into a big tube works just as well. You need to
make sure the tube doesn't loll from side to side with a rat in, as this will freak her out. Just Sellotape it to the floor
if necessary. To start with, you'll probably have to almost push the rat through
the tube from behind. Once she's out, no matter how much pushing and pleading it took, she deserves a treat, a hug, and some kind words in a nice
tone of voice - her instinct tells her to stay inside the nice, dark, safe tube,
and she's overcome those with a bit of help, to make you happy. It takes a while - longer than the weaving - but eventually she'll run through the
tube no problems, and once this is mastered, you can basically teach your rat to
do anything!
Difficulty rating *** - for a few days at least, you'll lose the rat half way
through. He'll sit in the middle, have a wash, and refuse to come out!
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