Continued Shaping

 On our second day of shaping, we saw improvements in Q-Tip's motivation. She was approaching the lever and investigating it more frequently. Since she was closer to the lever, we would reinforce behaviors such as putting one hand on the lever and then two hands on the lever. She still did not press the lever on her own, but we felt confident that she was almost to that point. Some tasks were learned more easily than others. For example, once we reinforced putting one hand on the lever, she would repeatedly do that. However, it took her a while after that to attempt other, new behaviors. As seen in the video, she began biting on the lever. We definitely did not want her to think that chewing the lever was the rewarding behavior, so we had to walk a fine line of when to reinforce her interest in the lever and when to wait.