Okay. I seem to have a better grasp on the basics now and I believe my hawk does as well. We are creancing extremely well and responding to rewards both from the fist and tossed. Rewards are hidden and varied in size. I started incorporating jackpot rewards and I have added steps to the typical creance. Step one was flight to the fist = reward. Step two was thrown tidbits and return. Step three was combining these into a four step chain where he flies to fist, flies to thrown tidbit, flies back to fist, and then flies back to perch. The second two steps are not rewarded, but they are prerequisites to the "important" steps (to him) of fly to fist and fly to tossed tidbit.

I have two more behaviors I hope to start shaping now. Number one and easiest is hooding (I hope). I plan to reward first for sitting the fist and not shying away as the hood nears position. Once he is calm for this, I plan to reward not moving when i put the beak barely into the beak opening and progress until i have the hood on un-braced. Once he is doing this steadily, I will start to tighten and reward acceptance. I imagine he will regress during this stage and an accelerated repeat of the earlier steps will be needed.

Does this sound like a reasonable plan?

My next behavior is much more complex and needs much refining. I am looking for the perfect tradeoff and a stepwise plan to acheive this. No big.

I actually started this last night by allowing Flick to kill a quail in the dark in an enclosed environment, untethered. I used a flashlight to highlight the quail and once he launched and struck I made in. He did try to move away and mantle initially, but could not move far. I pushed his wings back and spoke while soothing him a bit and secured the quail with the glove. I then tossed the lure with two bloody legs (a huge portion for him) beside him and moved the flashlight to this. Took him a minute to let go and hit the lure. I clicked and let him eat. Pocketed the quail and made in low with soothing talk and gentle moving of the wings to correct the mantelling response. I once again clicked when he relaxed enough to bend down and eat, but I will stop doing that in the future.

When he was finished, he hopped right to the glove held low in front of him and I put him up in mews (he is free lofted). Biggest crop with me so far and he had the satisfaction of a kill (I know, baggie but still...), so I hope his reinforcement in this was strong. I plan to do this several more times to reinforce the tradeoff concept before shaping the behavior to tradeoffs during the day and in a hunting environment. Not sure if I will always use the lure either, but for now it is a huge motivator and I want to make sure he does not feel robbed early on. I don't plan on shaping this until after probably three more sessions like the above or until he jumps immediately and willingly to the lure over the kill.