#rattraining
Egg combining her weave skills with her basketball skills - she did a great job!
Trick tutorial on training rats to play basketball: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMf3wUl89nE
Trick tutorial on training rats to weave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bz4EXnFa78
Egg practicing some longer weaves - she’s really gaining confidence with weaves and soon we’ll be using these longer ones in her agility courses!
Trick tutorial on how to train a rat to weave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bz4EXnFa78
Donut working on a fun short agility course - agility courses are her favorite and so we practice various setups quite often!
Trick tutorial on training rats to fetch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNsALU4xbzo
Trick tutorial on training a rat agility: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5Q-vAIpNME
Olive practicing her double barrel roll - I use targets with yogurt smeared on them to encourage her to walk without any luring or targeting!
Trick tutorial on training a rat to walk on a barrel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KVjImgn0-c
Olive practicing the bowling trick - she’s pretty forceful with her pushes, so she often gets strikes!
Trick tutorial on training a rat to bowl: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uINkalAPa9I
Omelet is working on scent work - she’s slowly gaining confidence with the new scent work props, and is doing an amazing job!
Trick tutorial on training rats scent work (which this trick is a generalized form of): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Os7rOc7EOWI
Olive working on a new agility course that combines regular agility obstacles with walking on a barrel and spinning on cue!
Trick tutorial on training a rat to walk on a barrel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KVjImgn0-c
Trick tutorial on training rats to spin on cue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOefgE79rjM
Trick tutorial on training a rat agility: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5Q-vAIpNME
Donut working a fun new agility course with weaves and fetch. This course is particularly special because I’ve never had a rat do weaves at 2 separate points in an agility course - for some reason I thought it would trip Donut up, but she had no issues and found her entry both times! Very proud of this sweet girl and I’m also proud that she then was able to transfer her fetch trick to the course as well!
Trick tutorial on how to train a rat to weave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bz4EXnFa78
Trick tutorial on training rats to fetch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNsALU4xbzo
Trick tutorial on training a rat agility: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5Q-vAIpNME
Here’s a compilation of some of my favorite tricks that Pickle learned - she’s only been with me for a little over 13 months, but she’s always been so confident and sweet and she’s picked up so many tricks so quickly!
On Monday morning I will be taking Pickle in to be humanely euthanized - I’ve decided its not fair on her to keep putting her through procedures like tooth trimming when she has no hope of recovery. I want her to go when she still has a good quality of life, and that’s clearly starting to dip now. This is the part I hate about having such short lived pets like rats - nonetheless I don’t regret getting her or any of my rats, and I’m happy that she got to have a good and happy life, even if it is being cut way too short.
(Music credits: “Mischief Maker” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Olive working a new obstacle combo - we need to revisit walking on the barrel away from me, but she did pretty good for her first attempt at doing that with an item!
Trick tutorial on training a rat to walk on a barrel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KVjImgn0-c
Trick tutorial on training a rat basketball (which is part of the BBQ trick): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMf3wUl89nE
Trick tutorial on training a rat agility: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5Q-vAIpNME
Egg’s turn to learn to fetch the mail - Egg tends to be more wary around new props than her cagemates, so I’m always super proud when she masters a new prop-based trick!
Trick tutorial for the “fetch the mail” trick: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgpMg56ENJM
Donut weaving in a semi-circle while carrying a ball! One trick comes naturally to her (weaves, aka her favorite trick!), the other is the result of lots of practice (carrying an item, aka the hardest trick for Donut but one she’s learned amazingly well with practice!)
I like combining tricks that the rats both love from the start with tricks they need to work more on, because then they start to enjoy the tricks they need to put more effort into due to associating them with their favorite tricks!
Trick tutorial on how to train a rat to weave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bz4EXnFa78
Trick tutorial on training rats to fetch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNsALU4xbzo
This weeks ratty paw paintings! Everyone was super excited to paint & take photos again - we took a bit of a break last week, but we are now starting up again!
Pickle had her last photoshoot the day after her 1st vet visit, and she is no longer painting or training. She painted these 3 paintings seen here about 2 weeks back, but we hadn’t gotten pictures yet, and I was holding off until I knew she wasn’t in pain. She’s doing well so we snapped the last few photos of her with her final paintings, and she really enjoyed the yummy yogurt and photo session!
If you would like to commission a painting from Omelet, Olive, Egg, or Donut, you can do so on our Etsy shop (called “RatPaintings”) here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/RatPaintings
Olive’s turn to work fetch while walking backwards on two rolling barrels in a row - and yes she is walking backwards on them, watch her feet closely and you’ll see she has to backup on each barrel in order to move it forwards!
Trick tutorial on training a rat to walk on a barrel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KVjImgn0-c
Trick tutorial on training rats to fetch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNsALU4xbzo
Sweet Donut doing some fun scent work with the mini chests - she has to sniff out and tip chest 4!
Trick tutorial on training a rat scent work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Os7rOc7EOWI
Here was Pickle weaving with a ball from about a month back - present day Pickle is continuing to do well, although her facial abscess (which is on top of the tumor) did open up yesterday. It doesn’t smell bad, which is interesting because it smelled pretty nasty when it first leaked on Thursday - so hopefully that means the AB’s are doing their job. I’m kinda afraid to flush it due to the location, so we will see what my vet says when we meet up Wednesday for another checkup.
I’ll post some update pictures later showing the progression - thankfully Pickle herself seems to be unbothered and has no issue with me poking around the area either.
Trick tutorial on how to train a rat to weave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bz4EXnFa78
Trick tutorial on training rats to fetch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNsALU4xbzo
Pickle continues to do well, and she’s enjoying all the extra banana chips she could ask for! As for this clip, this is the last trick clip I recorded with Pickle from last Thursday - here she and Omelet were playing vs basketball, which is pretty much their signature trick because of how much they’ve practiced it (and yet Omelet still missed once lol - hey, she tries her best!)
Trick tutorial on training rats to play basketball: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMf3wUl89nE
Trick tutorial on training rats vs basketball: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHBaOt2K1hg
Pickle continues to do well, and she is not liking her training retirement much yet lol - she sees me training the other rats and she stares daggers at me for not giving her a turn! I’m giving her yummy treats to compensate though, and she’s enjoying several hours of free-range & foraging daily ❤
As for this clip, I took this back in February when I was teaching Pickle and Egg to wave - this was a clip from Pickles very first time training the wave trick, and she got it so quickly!
How to train a rat to wave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQFSrjemIug
So I’ve stopped training new tricks with Pickle because I don’t want to add any stress to her life right now, however I have some trick clips of her that I have yet to post from before, so I’m going to post those alongside updates.
As far as today’s update, its mainly good news - Pickle has responded really well to the metacam (although she HATES the taste lol), and is back to being 100% active and playful! Very happy to see her act this way, she really seems to be comfortable and doesn’t seem bugged by the tumor.
Another good thing is that Pickles ear infection has cleared up - the ear drops + antibiotics have done an amazing job, and while she’ll continue to be on them, I’m glad to see one issue resolved.
Then unfortunately we have some bad news, which is that the tumor is continuing to grow pretty quickly. In addition to that, it seems that she has an abscess on top of the tumor (common with these types of tumors :/ ), and I can see a scab forming on the lump. Once it opens up, we can flush it and treat it like a usual abscess, but in all likelihood it will never heal back up, because the growing tumor behind it will make that impossible.
Right now I’m just happy that Pickle is comfortable and active, and while I hate seeing this progress I’m glad to know that at least Pickle is continuing to do well and enjoy life <3
This weeks adorable rat paw paintings by my sweet ratty girls - they all did such a great job!
If you would like to commission your own rat paw painting, you can do so by going to our Etsy “RatPaintings” here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/RatPaintings
Omelet has taken on a new fun trick, that being bowling! Desktop bowling sets are the perfect size for rats, and I think mini bowling is just the cutest trick!
Trick tutorial on training a rat to bowl: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uINkalAPa9I
Olive (black self) and Egg (pink eyed white) practicing their vs basketball trick! Its been a bit since they worked this, but both girls did great!
Trick tutorial on training rats to play basketball: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMf3wUl89nE
Trick tutorial on training rats vs basketball: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHBaOt2K1hg
Pickle working on some scent work - here she has to find and fetch me the cinnamon scented ball!
Trick tutorial on training a rat scent work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Os7rOc7EOWI
Trick tutorial for training fetch (the indicator cue Olive is using here): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNsALU4xbzo
Doing some agility with Omelet and I wanted to try and include her ring toss trick…Omelet did pretty well considering its been a bit since we practiced this, and also considering she’s never done agility while carrying an item (other than flyball)! She’s such a awesome little rat! ❤️
Trick tutorial on training rats ring toss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwTicilZNuE
Trick tutorial on training rats basketball (prerequisite trick): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMf3wUl89nE
Trick tutorial on training rats agility: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5Q-vAIpNME
