Ally, I admire your willingness to try the oc training route and also your willingness to share the journey. I have to check myself every now and then when I display the old man behaviors like "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" syndrome. It drives my wife nuts. I'm sure there are better ways to skin the cat so to speak and I really need to be more open to those methods.
Here's what I've leaned about goshawks and aggression. As we all know they are very aggressive by nature. Agreed?? My first imprint female that I pulled from a nest in 91 taught me what aggression was all about. Shortly after penning I started to cut her weight, went out to the mews one day were I had her tethered and picked her up on a leather glove (not a gauntlet) She bound one foot to the glove and the other on my bare wrist. Scared the hell out of me. I called my sponsor and he said, "get a welding glove, and get her killing stuff". Agression towards me went away and she was one of the best game hawks I've flown. I learned that if their natural aggression can be directed at a very young age to game they won't be aggressive to the handler. It's a very direct approach that worked very well on the next two imprints I flew and also on the current imprint.
As far as the dispersal mode, I'm sure it exists but I've never had to worry about it. When growing up if they are not killing baggies they are fed on the lure and jumped to the glove for feeding and eventually directly to the glove. I can honestly say I've never had an issue with field control during the dispersal stage. Granted I have had situations of reluctance but always felt like I had control. He is around 90 days now and shows that reckless abandon towards quarry that we all love about goshawks. He's caught two mice (whooo-hoo), chased several bunnies, and caught pretty much every baggie quail in everyway imaginable including penetrating some very think cover for them. He hasn't had a break away yet but he looks for me to finish the kill and transfers to the glove willingly.
I am very fortunate to have access to meadows, grassy fields, and woodlots all within 15 minutes so I haven't had to do those things like jump ups and rp's to muscle up the bird. Which is a good thing as I am probably not smart enough to do anything that complicated. But I admire anyone who will go to those lengths to condition a bird if other more natural sources are not available.
Sorry, went on a rant there.