Training a kestrel to the hood

[barbedraptor]

The beauty and power of positive reinforcement: Operate conditioning model: The hawk freely operates on her environment using her behaviors to get rewarded. Your hawk is actively experimenting with new behaviors that cause the signal(CR). She is literally seeking out the hood and putting it on herself. Teacher: You set the rules of good behavior that the hawk uses to get the CR reward. Set your rules of behavior with easily recognized or measured behaviors to facilitate the effectiveness of the instant CR. Remember to ignore all wrong or bad behavior, put away the hood and let her "recover" from that trial. I use shaping and chaining techniques for all my falconry training. I used to think that the Kings, Queens, and Emperors flights were the hardest to train. By using these techniques any falcon can be taught to mount or ring its quarry (houbara, crane, heron, crow, seagull, and skylark) with simple backyard training! Tomorrow I will post a very short hooding model. Jim Fustos

[barbedraptor]

Training a hood-fearing hawk: Stop all other training goals and just concentrate on teaching good hooding behavior. Use about 3 training sessions each day with about 20 successful trials(CR, titbit) per session. Preparation: Pair the CR(I click my tongue on the roof of my mouth) with a titbit hidden under the gauntlet's thumb. First Trial: Start by exposing the hood at arms length(about 3 feet) away. If she sees the hood and stands still for 10 seconds, click, hide the hood and move your thumb to expose the titbit. Let the hawk "recover" for about 1 minute between all trials, successful and unsuccessful. Progressively Changing Objectives: When she accomplishes the objectives in about 50% of the trials, change the objectives for those good behaviors by bring the hood closer and closer to the hawk's head. Example: Good behavior is when the hawk stands still for 10 seconds when the hood is 3 feet away, 2 feet, 6 inches, 1 inch, 1 cm and under the beak. The objectives continually change to standing still with a steady head, closing the eyes and thrusting the beak forward when the hood is 1/4 on, 1/2 on, and completely on for 10 seconds. The final objective is a steady head with the braces closed for 1 minute. Generalize the good hooding behavior to include many different places and times when you need to hood her. Good hooding behavior is now habituated so no need to CR and titbit. Jim Fustos