Rat Trainer

As a child, I loved animals. Growing up in rural Michigan, I was always playing with my pet cats and dogs, teaching our ducks tricks, and riding horses on farms nearby. I never thought that I was going to be a scientist living in Africa and working with giant rats. I just followed my passions and curiosity. In college, I studied psychology, the science of how organisms behave. I also studied neuroscience, or how the brain works. While working on my Ph.D., I conducted research on how animals, including rats, learn. So working at APOPO was a perfect fit.

We present the rats with new things that might trigger their reflexive, or automatic, fear response, which is to freeze and sit still. When rats are exposed to a trigger such as a loud noise repeatedly and nothing bad happens, the reflex lessens. This is called habituation. The rats become more courageous, and they also learn that people are their friends. Then we do reward training. We give the animal something positive, like a treat, and pair it with the sound of a click. The rat learns that the click means food is coming.

The next step is called shaping, when we use the click to tell the rat it has done something we want. We start with a behavior that a rat naturally does and reward it as it gets closer to the behavior that we want. For example, a rat might naturally use its paws to investigate a small ball that we attach to its harness. We click and reward the rat. Through shaping we can gradually train the rat to pull on the ball to activate a switch when it is near a person.

The rat wears a backpack with a camera so we can see the victim, and there’s a speaker and a microphone so we can communicate. We’re considering playing a message on repeat that would say “I’m a rescue rat. I’m here to help you.” When the rat pulls the ball on its backpack to tell us that it has found somebody, that recorded message would stop and allow us to talk to the person.

Many people see rats as vermin, or pests. Most people aren’t bothered by someone taking their dog on a plane, but airline staff and passengers might react very differently to someone traveling to a disaster site with a rescue rat. We need to change the world’s perception of these animals. They can be trained to do really important, lifesaving work. Not everyone realizes that, and it can complicate our efforts.

Don’t set limitations on yourself. It’s easy to make assumptions about what a scientist looks like. But no matter what your background is, you have a unique perspective that you bring. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t think you fit the mold. Just go for it.