Magazine Training

     Magazine training was the first thing we taught Q-Tip. She was magazined trained at ten minutes. We were training her that pellets come down when the light and sound go off. She loved it. Once she realized that food was available, she would try and stick her whole head in the drop box trying to find food. It really excited her that food pellets were available. This did take a little bit for her to get used to. When she first started she would sit in the corner and not respond to the sound and light. She would get in positive strides for a couple of seconds then go back to the corner and groom. I thought this was a little more difficult than what we discussed in class. Because it got really frustrating and difficult to grab her attention again. But, all it took was just some more patience and she was focusing on it more.

Our criteria for being magazined trained was that she would go to the food even if she was faced the other way and not waiting on it. We also wanted to make sure it was in less than three seconds. We made sure she would go for it no matter what she was doing in the moment. We wanted to make sure she recognized what the light and sound meant: food was in the box.