43rd Annual Xtreme Rat Challenge

The Xtreme Rat Challenge is back for it’s 43rd year.

Twenty-three students in a psychology class at Nebraska Wesleyan were given rats at only 4 weeks old at the beginning of the semester.

During that time, they used basic learning principles to train the rats to do obstacles such as climbing ropes, running hurdles and walking a tightrope.

One student said it’s amazing how simply using noises as commands actually works over time.

“We started by just associating food with like this click, I use my tongue just like this, every time she did something right and now she associates that click with good job,” said Nebraska Wesleyan student, Madison Sdeckelberg.

The competition rewarded winning rats with gold medals and treats while students were rewarded with good grades.

The professor, who has been teaching the course for 12 years, says each year is just as fun.

“It is a wonderful demonstration of how we like to have our students learn the basic knowledge and then apply it to real life situations,” said Nebraska Wesleyan professor, Marilyn Petro.

The psychology course at Nebraska Wesleyan is welcome to all majors. Petro added that not everyone was very fond of the rats from the start.

“I have students at the beginning who are like ‘ew rats, I really don’t want to touch them’ and now they are wanting to adopt them as pets,” said Petro.

Sdeckelberg says she will be using the basic skills she has learned to train her own dog at home.

“If you are interested in wanting to train something, read the books because it’s amazing what you can train animals to do, anything can be trained, literally it’s crazy and so I just say go for it,” said Sdeckelberg.

Each student will have the opportunity of adopting their rat at the end of the semester.