Steve Laymans method of imprinting.

[Goshawk65]

As I have read through past posts on imprinting on this site I have read several that reference Steve Layman. If anyone could post a book title or links to online articles where I could read Steve Laymans method of imprinting I would appreciate it.

[Saluqi]

Hi Terry,

I used Steve Layman's ideas and methods to imprint two gosses, there are no articles or books available on his methods. If you are truly interested, my suggestion to you would be to contact Steve first hand and talk to him about it. He is very open with information and will give ample warning that his way of doing things is not for everyone and the time proven methods of imprinting work just as well as his way. Are you familiar with the operant conditioning? Steve's method relies totally on it's application, and if you have not read Don't Shoot the Dog by Karen Pryor, you should. I'd be happy to try and answer your questions, but I'd rather not have to try and type out the answers.

[Goshawk65]

Thanks for the reply Paul.
I do have two quick questions for you...In conditioning a gos, what do you use for positive reinforcement? and what do you use as negative reinforcement?
Thanks,

[Saluqi]

Thanks for the reply Paul.
I do have two quick questions for you...In conditioning a gos, what do you use for positive reinforcement? and what do you use as negative reinforcement?
Thanks,

A lot of the methods Steve uses on raptors are derived from Karen Pyror's training of dolphins, there is no way to discipline, or admin negative reinforcement, to a dolphin, so you only reward the good behaviors. Food for positive reinforcement.

Check out this yahoo group

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OPC_Falconry

It's mostly about applying operant conditioning in falconry.

[Goshawk65]

Thanks for the link....looks like I have a lot more reading to do. :)

[SOF]

I would very much like this info on here as well and I think a lot of ther people would also. If and when you find it would you please post is. Thanks a million,

Cheers,

[goshawkr]

As I have read through past posts on imprinting on this site I have read several that reference Steve Layman. If anyone could post a book title or links to online articles where I could read Steve Laymans method of imprinting I would appreciate it.

Steve dosnt have a book put together, although there are several people - myself included - trying to get him to put one together. I think it would be particularly valuable considering the crap books that are flooding the market lately. Then again, he does have some minor reservations about just being lost in the flood of crap books.

He has written a few articles about his methods that have appeared in Hawk Chalks. I dont recall when those appeared though, and none of them are online.

As Paul mentioned, the very best resource for these training methods is the yahoo group he mentioned.

[goshawkr]

Thanks for the reply Paul.
I do have two quick questions for you...In conditioning a gos, what do you use for positive reinforcement? and what do you use as negative reinforcement?
Thanks,

Positive reinforcement is anything that the goshawk likes - this is usally food, but can also be very esoteric things. Sometimes the reward is to leave it alone and give it some solitude. Sometimes its flushing game. Sometimes it is to give it company.

In terms of negative reinforcement, its really best to get that out of your head. The answer Paul gave is just a bit overly simplistic in this regard, but it is acurate.

Goshawks are social creatures, although not nearly as social as most animals we are used to thinking of that way (like dogs and horses and Harris' hawks). They do understand dominance, and pecking orders, and discipline - but its not prominent in their mental make up.

The best ways to think about negative reinforcement is to simply remove the opportunity to earn a positive reinforcement. Thats usually as far as you want to go in punishing a goshawk. With understanding and experience you may realize some more direct times...but by that time I will be coming to you for advice. :D

[Saluqi]

Positive reinforcement can also mean the removal of a negative. For example, right now my tiercel gos is molting and free lofted. I can walk into his mews and he'll sit on his perch foot tucked up looking content. If I move in closer he may put his down and look to the side for an escape route, if I step back he will pick up his foot and look content again. If I mark, click, <CR>, whatever you prefer to call it, the second he looks content as I move away from him I have rewarded him with the removal of a negative - a positive in his mind. I can do this exercise moving in closer with each approximation, and over a 5 minute session, without any food reward, he will let me touch his feet. Layman's theory on this is that the bird *thinks* it is controlling your behavior, because every time it looks nervous it causes you to move back.

[RyanVZ]

The best ways to think about negative reinforcement is to simply remove the opportunity to earn a positive reinforcement. Thats usually as far as you want to go in punishing a goshawk. :D

Well put! amennn I would only change Goshawk to any raptor though.

[kitana]

I didn't want to chime in as I never imprinted a bird with any method (yet!), but I had to as something got on my nerves a little.

In fact negative reinforcement is used a lot in falconry, and it is NOT punishment. I think it is the most misused term in falconry. Negative reinforcement is simply the removal of an unpleasant thing to reward the behavior. It is still a reward, a reinforcement, not a punishment at all. Negative reinforcement is pleasant to the hawk, negative simply means "minus", "-", as in mathematics.

I use negative reinforcement a lot with my bird, more so when I first got him and he was mental. When a bird wants to be left alone, or is afraid of something, you can remove the thing he doesn't want to see when he calms down, thus rewarding the behavior of calming down. If you touch the bird's body to desensitize it to human touch, you know the bird doesn't like being touched at all. By stopping to touch it, you are rewarding whatever behavior was done at that moment, so if you choose to stop when the hawk calms down, you reward calm behaviors.

Positive reinforcement = adding something the hawks like to reward a behavior
Negative reinforcement = removing something the hawks dislike to reward a behavior.

[RyanVZ]

Yep on the money. I made an oops and read the above post to quickly and for some reason I read punishment is to remove the reinforcer when it clearly says negative reinforcement. There has been a lot of discussion in the ABMA in recent years to the claim that certain places only use positive reinforcement to train animals, but the act of taking away a reward is a form of punishment. Then you throw in negative punishment and positive punishment. Positive punishment sounds like a good thing but it is the application of an aversive stimulus, like smacking or shock. Negative punishment sounds worse but it is just the removal of something they want, like closing the window of opportunity of taking food from the glove.

[goshawkr]

Layman's theory on this is that the bird *thinks* it is controlling your behavior, because every time it looks nervous it causes you to move back.

Paul,

That is not a *thinks*. The bird is controlling your behavior, and that is empowering to the bird, and it engenders it to trust you, because it has some control over you.

The simplistic way to view animal training is that the trainer controls/directs/guides the animal. This mental model works, but its limiting.

The mental model Layman is describing is to view animal training as two way communication...two way manipulation. The trainer is communicating their desires to the animal through cues (commands), and manipulating the animal into playing along through response (rewards and punishments of various stripes). The animal is also communicating and manipulating the trainer though... by providing the behaviors to gain rewards and avoid punishments. Sometimes there are even more extreme cases of manipulation - like when a tiger tells his trainer to "stuff it" and bites them, or when a coopers hawk hangs off the nose of a falconer.

A lot of trainers realize this two way manipulation goes on very subconsiously and intuitively take advantage of it, but if you can apply concious thought to it you can really do some amazing things with the concept.

[kitana]

Yep on the money. I made an oops and read the above post to quickly and for some reason I read punishment is to remove the reinforcer when it clearly says negative reinforcement. There has been a lot of discussion in the ABMA in recent years to the claim that certain places only use positive reinforcement to train animals, but the act of taking away a reward is a form of punishment. Then you throw in negative punishment and positive punishment. Positive punishment sounds like a good thing but it is the application of an aversive stimulus, like smacking or shock. Negative punishment sounds worse but it is just the removal of something they want, like closing the window of opportunity of taking food from the glove.

I miss the ABMA, gotta go back to the annual conference again someday!

MOst competent trainers do realize that positive reinforcement goes hand in hand with negative punishment. If I don't reward you, then I punish you by not giving you the treat! If the trainer can't stay in positive reinforcement at least 80% of the time, then the animal will rebel and attack. That's how a trainer was killed at Sea World Orlando by a killer whale. That's why we always tell novice trainers to strat clicker training horses behind barriers. Negative punishment, removal of a reward, and positive punishment are very strong motivators for agression and that's why it is not advisable to use them more than needed, if an alternative exists.

Negative reinforcement on the other hand goes hand in hand with positive punishment, and it is more touchy to use since it involves the removal of an aversive. It means that you have to use an averive to make it work! So, it is advisable to use it only when the aversive can't be avoided: with the hawks, the best example of that is when the presence of the falconer is the aversive! Or when faced with phobias and fears. However, a trainer that wishes to use negative reinforcement has to be really in tune with the animal's mind, because if the animals freak out, it can make permanent consequences...

I'm really interested in imprinting a bird using clicker training at the very start of the relationship, just as it is done in the Cooper's thread. Of course you take the risk to get some noise and some agression, just like in most imprints, but I wonder about the quality of the communicaton that is established for the future.

[goshawkr]

I'm really interested in imprinting a bird using clicker training at the very start of the relationship, just as it is done in the Cooper's thread. Of course you take the risk to get some noise and some agression, just like in most imprints, but I wonder about the quality of the communicaton that is established for the future.

Audrey,

Your right in that there are some great potential risks involved with clicker training from the begining. However, using this method there is an inbuilt mechanism to spackle over those problems when they appear. You simply shape them away as part of a clicker exercise.

The quality of the communictaion that is established is dramatically improved, just as you suspect. I have seen a dramatic difference in how well they respond to training over all when compared to birds that were not raised with the clicker.