Take any living mammal and put it in a box. Keep it in that box for 8-10 hours a day. You can let it out for an hour in that time period, if you choose but, what will most likely happen is it will decide to stay in the box and “relax”.
Give it some kind of task that needs to be done in that 8-10 hour period. Not something physically taxing, just repetitive and mind numbing. If it’s physically taxing, make sure it only challenges one part of their physique…lower back is a good one…maybe knees.
Once the 8-10 hours is complete, take the animal to another box, give it some food and give it another box to look at. This isn’t just any box, it’s a magical box that will entertain your mammal with stories and scenes of other mammals like itself doing really cool things, or fun things or dangerous things (you can find these boxes online…just search “magic boxes”). Some of the magic boxes will even make the mammal feel like it’s in the magic box without having to put in the physical (hard) work (pricey though). It will trigger the chemicals in its brain and make it feel good for the evening.
Once exhausted, put it on a comfy box inside another box to sleep.
When the sun comes up…repeat…and repeat…and repeat. Do this for 5-6 days out of the week (you can do all 7 if you really want to get great results but it’s not recommended if you want it to live a decent amount of years).
At the end of those 5-6 days you get to start experimenting…put it in it’s feeding box that contains the magic box (or boxes, if you have the money to spend) but leave the door open. Let it know that it can roam free outside of the box if it chooses OR it can stay in the feeding box and “relax” with the magic boxes until it has to start the process over again.
Keep track of how many times it leaves the box and how many times it stays.
Oh…almost forgot something crucial. Don’t give it whole food. The food has to be laced with processed sugars and oils. Without this, they may revolt early into the experiment. As far as the duration of the experiment, it depends on the mammal but make it at least 70-80% of his lifespan. Another keypoint is to somehow convey to the mammal that what it’s doing is important and meaningful and that it’s how most of it’s kind lives.
“Normal” is a good way of putting it.
Just is.
The way it goes.
That’s life.
The way the cookie crumbles.
And it should feel fortunate because it has shelter, “food”, daily tasks for the bigger picture and some free time.
Some items to track will be mood, physical appearance, appetite, physical ability, reaction time, desire to do anything outside of the box, sleep patterns or lack of. Use your imagination.
Best of luck and please share your results.