mouse learns a dog trick: roll over

Sophie learning a new trick. Visit her and her smart little friends on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/smartmice

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• mouse
• mice
• trick
• tricks
• training
• clickertraining
• cute
• ASF
• rat
• trained
• maus
• mäuse

[BigmouseBud]

thats a cute but chubby mouse!

[MouseAgility]

@BigmouseBud Hi! She's not chubby, this is just another species (Mastomys coucha). They have a different shape that pet mice (Mus musculus).

[Spottedstar12225]

@MouseAgility I was wondering, did the stick that you used have anything on it? Or do your mice know to follow it from previous training sessions?

Spottedstar :P

[MouseAgility]

@Spottedstar12225 No, it has nothing on it. This is a so called target stick, Sophie was trained to touch it with her nose before. But by now I trust her a little more and use my finger instead (she's quite bitey).

[happydoggy101]

um how do you train mice???

[MouseAgility]

@happydoggy101 It's clickertraining, the same method dogs, horses, dolphins etc, are trained.

[flickafaida]

I love it. Clever little mouse. That is a complex trick. :-)

[Spottedstar12225]

@MouseAgility Oh, cool.

Spottedstar :P

[poetdragon]

so cuttte!

[MouseAgility]

@AlestroBakai Mice need permanent access to food - so you can't feed them less! It's not always easy to find the right treats. Usually, mice aren't very crazy about treats. Later in training, they will even work for their normal food to which they have free access, that phenomenon is called contrafreeloading. But in the beginning, you have to find special treats, and that can be difficult with mice.

Another possiblility is that your mice are distressed in the training situation.

[AlestroBakai]

I've tried training my mice with treats, but maybe I'm overfeeding them, but whenever I offer them treats they don't care. Do I need to feed them less for this to work?