OC log

[gratefool1]

Hey all,

I was thinking I might start a thread about this new little guy I am manning and trying to train with OC techniques. Prior to this I used the standard manning and training of RTs exclusively, so I am just getting started with clicker training. Please excuse me if my lingo isn't quite correct. I am reading Karen P's book and have been following the threads in here for a while (thanks for setting this up as a separate forum Chris).

Anyway, I thought I would log my journey in case anyone was interested. I always value constructive criticism so please let me know what you think.

So far, we have established food as the positive reinforcer and a clicker as the conditioned reinforcer. He first ate on friday and each tidbit was associated with a click. I have to admit here that I was initially CRing multiple activities that I found desirable, prior to pairing the CR with food. As I understand more, I believe I should have stuck to only clicking with food in the beginning as I am sure he didn't know what the clicks were about.

Saturday, he began jumping to the fist. Monday he creanced indoors very well and has progressed to a variable food reward but still a consistant CR for each jump. Tuesday, I went back to CRing the other positive behaviors such as leaning forward for the hood, stepping to the fist out of the box, etc. Today I plan to creance outdoors.

I know that this is the easy stuff, but hopefully the log will get more interesteing as I condition more complex behaviors... we will see if I can do it =).

[PeteJ]

Just noting a couple of things though before you get too far along. First off...what is 'little guy'? Second, he clearly isn't an eyas so probably having this start under 'imprinting' might be a bit misleading, particularly if you are successful in this attempt. In other words, probably people flying passage birds would be more interested in your progress if they knew it was with a passage bird.
So, if you could clear these omissions up for us, we'll look forward to reading of your developing protocols and responses.
Best of luck!

[goshawkr]

Second, he clearly isn't an eyas so probably having this start under 'imprinting' might be a bit misleading, particularly if you are successful in this attempt.

The "little guy is a 17 weeks old CBMHH. Sorry for that =). I thought I was posting in the OC forum. Did not realize I posted it in Imprinting!!

When Chris set up the Operant Conditioning forum, he had a hard time deciding where to tuck it. He ended up putting it as a sub-forum underneath imprint, which is logical since most people using OC to train hawks are training imprints.

However, its not the ONLY time OC is used, and in fact there are several falconers I know that use a lot of OC on every hawk they touch, and a friend of mine teaches his apprentices OC and has them use it on their passage redtails.

[gratefool1]

Mario,

No I still use the Whistle as a call signal. The click and the food are reinforcers. The food is the positive reinforcer and the click is a bridge or conditional reinforcer.

In the beginning, I am using them together so the bird associates his positive reinforcement with the click, or CR. eventually the CR is used without the positive reinforcer every time. It is like a bridge signal telling the bird you like what he is doing and a reward is coming. As I understand it, this will allow for shaping more complex behaviors down the road. Instead of giving a positive reinforcement (food) for each step of 1) lean forward for hood, 2) step calmly on scale, 3) step back on glove, 4) lean forward for hood removal, you give the conditional reinforcer for each step and then the positive reinforcer at the end.

It is supposed to allow you to train complex behaviors faster by reinforcing each step until it is down, then moving on to the next step.

Once the bird associates positive reinforcement with the click, you have just gained a powerful tool to communicate with your bird.

Disclaimer, I am a novice at this and the above is just my simplified understanding of OC. I am probably butchering the semantics, but hopefully the concept is right.

[goshawkr]

In the beginning, I am using them together so the bird associates his positive reinforcement with the click, or CR. eventually the CR is used without the positive reinforcer every time. It is like a bridge signal telling the bird you like what he is doing and a reward is coming. As I understand it, this will allow for shaping more complex behaviors down the road. Instead of giving a positive reinforcement (food) for each step of 1) lean forward for hood, 2) step calmly on scale, 3) step back on glove, 4) lean forward for hood removal, you give the conditional reinforcer for each step and then the positive reinforcer at the end.

Thats close, but not quite right.

Once the animal has the CR down, they really get it, then just CR becomes a reward by itself, but a minor one. You still give a reward after the CR for any real progress that you want to have stick. Of course, the delima always is when are you offering encouragement and when are you spoiling (or bribing) the animal you are training.

Look at a CR that we all know very well - "Good dog". Thats a CR. A dog quickly learns that when you use that phrase your pleased with it - and this sometimes also includes a treat (attention, food, something). In training a dog you can do a lot with just a "good dog", but to really make a lesson stick you better back that up with something that gets the dog excited.

[andy hall]

Thats close, but not quite right.

Once the animal has the CR down, they really get it, then just CR becomes a reward by itself, but a minor one. You still give a reward after the CR for any real progress that you want to have stick. Of course, the delima always is when are you offering encouragement and when are you spoiling (or bribing) the animal you are training.

Look at a CR that we all know very well - "Good dog". Thats a CR. A dog quickly learns that when you use that phrase your pleased with it - and this sometimes also includes a treat (attention, food, something). In training a dog you can do a lot with just a "good dog", but to really make a lesson stick you better back that up with something that gets the dog excited.

This is a good point. Too often trainers have been lead to believe that the 'Click' or conditioned reinforcer is a replacement for a unconditioned or primary reinforcer like food. It is only a place holder and marker to communicate to the animal that the precise behavior occurred and another reinforcer will follow. Check out the last sentence before the Conclusion section in the article "Building Bridges: How to Select, Condition and Use a Bridging Stimulus" in this publication http://www.theabma.org/images/storie...%20v12.1_2.pdf

Steve Martin presented a paper with Dr Susan Friedman on 'Blazing Clickers' a practice of clicking without the followup reinforcer and had many examples of the breakdown of behavior and some aggression and other side effects. I spoke at the same conference so I should have the proceedings and may be able to post it here.

Also keep in mind that everyone uses 'clicks' or unconditioned reinforcers. Every animal will find something that you usually do right before delivering the food and will look to that as a bridge or marker. It can be a reach into the pocket, a nod or many other things. Check out this video I posted and you can find an example of an inadvertent unconditioned reinforcer (I am saying "good" even though there is now audio, but you don't need the audio to find my 'screwup') there is a spot where the bird gets confused and a little agitated that he didn't get his pellet for what he thought I 'clicked'. It happens around the 2:10 mark.

I like the idea of keeping a log...I know I am very bad about keeping records like this so it will be great to see what you accomplish

Andy Hall

[gratefool1]

You put it better, thanks Geoff. In the beginning you like the click to food nil the bird associates the lick with positive reinforcement and it actually becomes a positive reinforcer like Geoff said.

Well yesterday's creance was characterized by me trying to do too much too fast. Started off a bit slow with the bird distracted by all the stimuli. This was our second creance outside and only other stint outside since being pulled was a couple of hours weathering last weekend which seemed to be counterproductive to his manning.

After the first couple of flights where I had to bribe a response by showing the tidbit, he finally "got it" and started showing instant response to whistle. He even started flying back to perch which is always a good sign of eagerness to me. I started varying the reward and he did great.

I noticed him drop a piece of his tidbit and show no interst in going after it which bothered me a bit. He clearly is uncomfortable on the ground with me near. I began calling to the fist and tossing tidbits but he balked. I would have to lower him to the ground, wait until he was comfortable to hop off, then he would eyeball me and sun deny snatch the tidbit, turning away. I reinforced each tidbit this way with click, but it was slow going and he was clearly losing interest.

Okay so my next mistake. I thought that maybe a bigger reward would solidify the response so I moved to the lure with a big piece of rabbit. Problem one. He had only seen the lure twice previously and it was inside. Problem two, I introduced swinging it around as a call which he has never seen before. I also started a new whistle trill as the lure call. I totally forgot that while theses things were routine to me, he hadn't seen them yet.

To his credit he showed immediate interest and launched but then the newness of whistle, swing, and ground proved too much for him and he flared off. I had to coax him back on and reinforced with clicks once he started pulling bits. I did decide to pick him up on lure to finish the meal, which he did fairly well.

Lessons learned. I need to train myself a little better before training him. I need to break the lessons into separate stages for each goal and work on them separately. We will see what tomorrow brings.

[goshawkr]

Hey all,

I was thinking I might start a thread about this new little guy I am manning and trying to train with OC techniques. Prior to this I used the standard manning and training of RTs exclusively, so I am just getting started with clicker training. Please excuse me if my lingo isn't quite correct. I am reading Karen P's book and have been following the threads in here for a while (thanks for setting this up as a separate forum Chris).

Anyway, I thought I would log my journey in case anyone was interested. I always value constructive criticism so please let me know what you think.

So far, we have established food as the positive reinforcer and a clicker as the conditioned reinforcer. He first ate on friday and each tidbit was associated with a click. I have to admit here that I was initially CRing multiple activities that I found desirable, prior to pairing the CR with food. As I understand more, I believe I should have stuck to only clicking with food in the beginning as I am sure he didn't know what the clicks were about.

Saturday, he began jumping to the fist. Monday he creanced indoors very well and has progressed to a variable food reward but still a consistant CR for each jump. Tuesday, I went back to CRing the other positive behaviors such as leaning forward for the hood, stepping to the fist out of the box, etc. Today I plan to creance outdoors.

I know that this is the easy stuff, but hopefully the log will get more interesteing as I condition more complex behaviors... we will see if I can do it =).

This promises to be good.....

[tbality]

Hi Ab,
I've played around with clicker training some w/my horses...they love it... even my Italian Greyhound (she's a rescue) that is terrified of my husband, learned to jump in his lap with a couple rounds of clicker training. So my new RT of three weeks, I'm doing what you are and so far so good. She's flying free, at trapped weight, and doing really well, though need to cut her back a bit to hunt I think. I also clicker trained my ferret to ride on my shoulder, it's really cute when you see them "get it"...and repeat the behavior to do it again.

Side note, also working with RT to load in giant hood on her own with clicker...trained the HH to do that a year ago, made it less traumatic for them.

[gratefool1]

Oops!

The "little guy is a 17 weeks old CBMHH. Sorry for that =). I thought I was posting in the OC forum. Did not realize I posted it in Imprinting!! Sorry about that.

Creanced outside for the first time yesterday. The wind was insane but the sun was going down and it was my only chance for outdoor training. He was definitely distracted at first. I would not say that he was as totally focused on me as I am used to seeing in a RT at this point, but he had never been outside without a roof of some sort before.

The good news was he was almost perfect. We started small and went back to consistent positive reinforcement for each flight with both food and click. He did not miss a beat until his tenth flight where we had moved up to sixty feet. He was halfway to me when a burst of wind sent him slightly off course. That distraction caused him to seek a perch in a nearby Crepe Myrtle. He came back down but not to the fist. Called back to fist and started over at a shorter distance. A few more good flights around forty to fifty feet and then he purposefully tried to fly to a different perch and I knew we were done. One more short flight to end on a good note and we were done.

All reinforcement that day was with both food and click and every flight was rewarded. Plan to do the same with variable food rewards today but continue to click. Next day will vary both, but always click with food. I am hoping to fade tidbits out a bit over the following two days and move more and more of his portion to the lure, as long as he is sufficiently reinforced by the clicker. I will continue to reinforce the tangentials such as hopping to the scale and GH, and bending for the hood.

Depending on responses this week, we may be out hunting by the end of the weekend if he is well wed to the lure by then.

I am starting to make some tentative plans for shaping. There are several behaviors I am looking for long term. First, I want to teach the bird to scout a field, circling out in front. I plan to start this behavior by modelling some of Lydia Ash's games progressing from jumpups to remote jumpups and finally to circles.

Secondly, I want to avoid carrying anywhere but back to the fist. I have chased an unruly FHH for a mile through neighborhoods carrying a quail and I do not want a repeat of that ever again. I am amazed by the Troy Moritz article where his MHH returns with kills to the glove. He apparently acheives this by only feeding on the kill from the glove. I am considering some reinforcement with the lure by picking it up with him on it to possibly ready him for the same event in the field. Any input appreciated.

[gratefool1]

Tammy,
Would love to hear more of your training with your FHH =). I think i will start letting Ender front load in to the hood if he can turn around in it. I have been backing him in until now.

[gratefool1]

Regrding the Imprinting forum issue, it appears that all posts in OC are copied in Imprinting. Might be that this is a subforum. Should I move this?

[Dirthawking]

I am trying to follow along at home. Dumbbell question I know but... did you just replace a whistle for food/fist with a clicker?

[tbality]

Sorry to delay in responding! holiday season and all. I've ready Karen's book, some chapters several times and have taken a BOP OC class thru Andy Hall in Colorado; and then just done a lot of experimenting on my own. My horses love it and get very animated about it so does our Italian Greyhound rescued dog that has some "issues" from prevoius owner. My ferret loved it as did a kestrel I fostered, my FHH and my newly trapped RT respond well too.

When you click, you MUST treat...always. Just remember that. Karen's book didn't get that home to meet the first time I read it....and I tried to replace treat with the click or just clicked for what I liked and didn't always treat, so that doesn't work. You can up the anty and increase the behavior by withholding the click, and you will see them try different behaviors searching for that click. The click MARKS the thing you want exactly when they do it. Then you can get the treat out and they will wait for it, but know what the treat is for. For instance, when I was working on lead changes on my horse, I would click at the moment he changed leads, then he would stop and get his treat. He knew he was being rewarded for the action in which I clicked, but not for stopping to get the treat. That was key for me...I click when my RT or HH take off quickly at a distance to come to me...that in my thinking tells them taking off NOW is what I want. Or I click just when she hits the lure...then she gets the meat off of it. Don't do too many things at once, get a behavior down, then move on, they get bored doing the same thing over and over. And you can increase the effort when they "have it down" by withholding the click, to increase speed or distance.

It's really fun to see the "get it"...when they understand what that click is, they really show it and it brings out a cute, playful side of the personality of every animal I've tried it on at home.

[James Idi]

A clicker is a BRIDGE (bridging stimulus) - NOT a conditioned reinforcer. A conditioned reinforcer is a learned reinforcer, or what we professional trainers call a "secondary reinforcer"

In clicker training the terms are often used synonymously.

From Karen Pryor's web page:

Conditioned reinforcer

A neutral stimulus paired with a primary reinforcer until the neutral stimulus takes on the reinforcing properties of the primary. A clicker, after being repeatedly associated with a food treat or other reinforcer, becomes a conditioned reinforcer.

Bridging stimulus

An event marker that identifies the desired response and “bridges” the time between the response and the delivery of the primary reinforcer. The clicker is a bridging stimulus.

The clicker is first paired with a primary reinforcer, and becomes a conditioned/secondary reinforcer by association in the classical sense. This conditioned / secondary reinforcer is then used as a bridge / event marker to shape behaviors.

[Harris C]

Hey all,

I was thinking I might start a thread about this new little guy I am manning and trying to train with OC techniques. Prior to this I used the standard manning and training of RTs exclusively, so I am just getting started with clicker training. Please excuse me if my lingo isn't quite correct. I am reading Karen P's book and have been following the threads in here for a while (thanks for setting this up as a separate forum Chris).

Anyway, I thought I would log my journey in case anyone was interested. I always value constructive criticism so please let me know what you think.

So far, we have established food as the positive reinforcer and a clicker as the conditioned reinforcer. He first ate on friday and each tidbit was associated with a click. I have to admit here that I was initially CRing multiple activities that I found desirable, prior to pairing the CR with food. As I understand more, I believe I should have stuck to only clicking with food in the beginning as I am sure he didn't know what the clicks were about.

Saturday, he began jumping to the fist. Monday he creanced indoors very well and has progressed to a variable food reward but still a consistant CR for each jump. Tuesday, I went back to CRing the other positive behaviors such as leaning forward for the hood, stepping to the fist out of the box, etc. Today I plan to creance outdoors.

I know that this is the easy stuff, but hopefully the log will get more interesteing as I condition more complex behaviors... we will see if I can do it =).

In the 3rd paragraph of the first post there is a HUGE problem that is going to cripple your attempts right off the bat... but with a little insight from a professional trainer (me) hopefully I can help you understand what it is exactly that you need to know. A clicker is a BRIDGE (bridging stimulus) - NOT a conditioned reinforcer. A conditioned reinforcer is a learned reinforcer, or what we professional trainers call a "secondary reinforcer". A good example of secondary reinforcers for different animals are head scratches, praise etc. Humans are also motivated by Secondary Reinforcers such as money. We did not evolve needing money to survive, the dog did not evolve to need head scratches, therefore these are just conditioned stimuli that the amimal has come to view as pleasant or desireable. With a BOP you should just stick to Primary Reinforcers (actually, just 1 Primary Reinforcer - food) because these "play/social interests" that comprise every secondary reinforcer under the sun are not going to motivate a raptor the same way it would motivate a parrot for example. I suggest you try joining the IAATE (International Association of Avian Trainers & Educators) and furthering your training knowledge. I'm a professional-level-member now and it has been very informative and it is definitely worth the $40 or so dollars per year membership. Good luck with your training, I only read the one post so far and thought this was important to clarify for you so I will comment if I see any other issues when I read the rest.