I have some rats which stay at the side the whole time, using their forepaws to push themselves methodically and calmly around the inside of the tank. They are not climbing, but they are not horizontal and swimming either. They are definitely not just floating, it seems like purposeful behaviour. I'm unsure how to categorise this. Do I need to assign it to one of the three behaviours, or are those behaviours only scored when they are unambigious? Do the behaviours over the entire 5 minutes need to be categorised? Thanks.
Hello Tracey, to me it sounds like it may be considered an in between swimming and floating behaviour, although there's no such measure in the FST. Usually if the movements are only minimal (moving their paws just enough to float), that's considered floating. If the movement is any more energic than that, then you can consider it swimming. Maybe you could try and distinguish between those two parameters. Not sure about the "pushing themselves around" part. Maybe that could be floating (although if they consider it a playful activity, that would probably make the results a bit ambiguous)
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