Training your rats should be fun and rewarding for both of you. Never force your rats to do anything they do not want to do. Always use positive reinforcement to praise the actions that you want to see repeated. Stick to short, 10 minute sessions and always take time to review previously learned skills.

 

When selecting your preferred method of training, you'll have to take into consideration what pleases you and what encourages the rat to do what you are trying to teach.

 

CLICKER TRAINING

 

Clicker training pet rats is taken from the same technique used to train dogs. Every time you click, you give your rat a treat. Coco Krispies work very well! Your rat will begin to associate the click with a treat and when you begin training your rat to do various things, you rat will work for the click in order to get it's treat.

 

POINTER TRAINING

 

Pointer training is a spin off of clicker training. Basically, you use a pointing device, usually with the tip colored red and you encourage your rat to touch the tip of the pointer with the tip of its nose. When the rat does this, it gets a treat. Gradually, you will train the rat to follow the pointer in order to touch it to earn the treat. This technique is useful when intending to train your rat to go through an obstacle course because the rat will be trained to follow the pointer.

 

FINGER TRAINING

 

Finger training is pretty much the same as pointer training except you are using your finger as the pointer. I don't really like this particular method because you use your hands and fingers for many other interactions with your rats and you don't want them to think they can just touch your finger and get treats. Using this method would require that the rat understand that the finger = treats only during the training but many people still seem to have success utilizing this method.

 

TREAT TRAINING

 

I think treat training is the most difficult technique because it basically involves getting your rat to do something you want first and then rewarding it with a treat. Treat training tends to lend itself better when used for teaching specific tricks which do not neccessarily involve the rat doing several actions in a row. For example, The Wishing Well involves having the rat pull up a small basket with a treat in it. You can begin my showing your rat the basket with the treat inside and letting the rat take the treat out of the basket. Then you can gradually lower the basket so that the rat has to pull the string to bring the basket up and retrieve the treat.