Hooding your bird
There might be another discussion about this somewhere, so if there is please point me in that direction and forgive my redundancy. I come from a very new school of training background. Most of my training experience also comes with training animals that are much bigger and stronger than a person. Not only are they bigger and stronger, but when you are training marine mammals you are also in their element. The ability to manipulate them for different circumstances is minimal. With my background being what it is, there are many things within falconry that I sometimes have a hard time getting my head around.
When an action isn't done often with an individual, there is definitely a need to manipulate the situation so that things are done safely and stress is eliminated, or minimal. There is definitely a need to give me medication to put my big butt to sleep if I were ever to need an operation. However, if it's something that is done often, should we not as trainers do our best to desense that action?
I guess there are many different instances where this is my questions, but the one that pops up is in using a hood. Unless it is a situation that isn't common, what is the need to hood the bird? I understand that the hood should be trained for these rare occasions which it could help keep stress to a minimum, I'm not trying to say the hood is all bad or shouldn't be trained.
-Oliver Connor
"Live a life uncommon."