Quote Originally Posted by Falconer_hopeful View Post
Ok so someone probably aready said this but I do t feel like finding it. Do you guys use clickers? I never herd of it. Again I have only trained one bird but is it better? Thank. Luke
A clicker is great if you are new to operant conditioning. The Conditioned Reinforcer should be something that is easily perceived by the animal as a unique signal in their environment and should last no more than a second, and if it is quicker than that even better. A click from a clicker meets both of those parameters quite well.

The reason why you want a unique signal should be quite obvious. But the reason for a quick signal as a CR is not so easy to grab if your a beginner. The CR is a way to mark a segment of time and say "YES! that is EXACTLY what I want." The shorter the CR is, the smaller that segment of time will be. Now, at any given moment in time, an animal is doing or thinking about doing lots of things. The longer that moment is, there more there is for them to sort through and figure out which one it can use to get you to give it the CR (which is what is happening from their point of view).

As an example, imagine trying to train a screaming hawk to shut up. If you have a CR that lasts 1/3 of a second, you can tag the moment of silence between squawks quite easily, and with careful practice, those moments will get longer and easier to tag with the CR. If your CR lasts for 5 seconds, your hawk will never even have a clue what you are trying to mark because it has already started screaming again before the CR finished.

I do want to note, that as projects go for operant conditioning training, training silence is quite possible, and has been successfully done, but it is also one of the most difficult things to do for a variety of reasons, and you are much more likely to encourage screaming than eliminate it.

Quote Originally Posted by Cuz View Post
Using a clicker can be a pia. You have to have it with you at all times around the animal you are training. Drop it, forget it or sit on it and you are sol. The clicker also must be in your hand to properly time your CR. Tough to do that with tidbits, hawk and whatever else you have in hand. You can simply click or cluck your tongue the millisecond the animal does what you want it to do. You will not lose, sit on it, nor forget it. Keep the sound consistent and it will have the same desired effect. Plus, you do not have to purchase anything.
It is particularly a PIA in falconry. We are already handicapped being one handed because we quite often have a glove on one of our hands. Its quite tough to also have a clicker in other hand at all times. I haven't figured out a good way to run the clicker well with the gloved hand.

However, once an animal understands once CR, its very easy to add others. Just takes about 2-3 minutes during one training session. So you can use a clicker as a CR for those times when it is not getting in the way. Although personally, I have a dozen or so sitting in a cabinet collecting dust. I just find it simpler to use the CR that I make with my mouth as a base routine.

Mark's other comments are right on the money as well.