This is my male albino rat, Casper (the friendly ghost)! He is almost a year old – he will be on June 22nd, 2020 – and is one my first actual pets I have owned myself. Casper came into my life December 6, 2019. I adopted him from the rat lab conducted on campus involved with the animal behavior course Animal, Learning and Behavior. In this class, eight different groups were divided up with one rat per group, Casper being the rat in my group. We conditioned the rat’s in operant conditioning chambers – similar to what B.S. Skinner conducted in his studies – and trained our rats to press levers and retrieve a reinforcer for pressing the lever. This was done on multiple different levels, with Casper needing to press the lever once, twice, even five times, etc. to retrieve a reinforcer. Once this behavior was established, Casper was taught how to spin and receive a reinforcer for doing so. Once the class was completed, students had the opportunity to adopt rats to have as pets so they would not end up being euthanized. I felt an established bond with Casper while I was training him in class, and knew this was the rat for me to adopt. Casper definitely has grown and blossomed since I’ve had him, teaching me more about the bond between animals and humans too. Rats are able to bond with their humans through trusting them and eventually becoming accustomed to the way their human’s are and the way their human’s life is. Since I’ve adopted Casper, I’ve gained his trust and have been able to provide him a healthy and happy life, even teaching him some new tricks, too. Casper is definitely an animal I will always love, even after he’s gone, for the bond and connection I made with him.
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