"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." ~Albert Einstien
The small miracles, being able to share my home and job with reptiles, is what makes my heart sing. It's what makes me wake up in the morning with joy and purpose to keep me going all day. To a reptile in my home, a miracle may simply be the acceptance of a crunchy insect or the mental stimulation from a new behavior learned.
As an experiment in my own home, I decided to train one of my own pocket alligators, my Bearded Dragon (Pogona vitticeps) "Lola". Being that Lola is a member of the suborder Lacertilia, I know that her relatives and ancestors were shrewd hunters, capable of a vast array of social behaviors, communication through vocalization and behaviors, and even the occasional ability to build strong family bonds. Lola shares an ability with these ancestors to problem solve, and her personality is docile and attentive. She has exactly what it takes to be a good training subject.
The steps of training, or operant conditioning, are all the same with any species. Each week, while feeding Lola invertebrates, I would pull her to a small plastic storage bin away from her usual home. I began to slowly introduce her to a plastic pen. The end of this pen became her "target". Target training is a favorite tool of animal caretakers everywhere. It's a simple base line behavior that the animal can quickly relate to. Touch snout to target, receive reward. Lola at first eyed the pen as a food item. It took her a lick or two to realize that the pen did not produce the crickets. By the end of the first week, Lola learned to not lick the pen, but stare at it until a cricket was flicked into the bin with her. Week two was somewhat better in that she recognized that the bin was a feeding place. Lola eyed me expectantly, and ignored the target wholeheartedly while waiting for me to give her food. I took the target and touched her snout with it. I used the bridge "good girl" while flicking a cricket to her. Once two food items had been eaten, Lola was less excitable, and was able to stare at the target when I touched it to her nose. Three sessions later, Lola was allowing herself to walk to the target's vicinity and was waiting for crickets to fall in. This animal had learned to target less than three weeks after introducing her to it! Although it would take many more weeks to shape the behavior to a reliable one, Lola taught me, just as an Alligator or two had before, that reptiles are quick to learn.
Teaching the world how intelligent these animals are is my life goal. Every time I touch someone with a story of these animal's abilities or help someone to see that there is more to these animals than just instincts or pea brains, I witness a miracle.
