Positive Reinforcement Backfiring? Need some assistance!

[colorado4bjh]

Hello to everyone and thanks to any suggestions!

So my Senegal Kaylee is now just shy of her 2 year birthday! (whoo-hoo) She is definitely an opinionated bird. Based on my research and assistance from fellow bird guardians, it's pretty obvious she is in her "Terrible Two's". Also too smart for her own good!

I have been doing positive reinforcement training with her on a daily basis which certainly helps. I can get her to speak on cue now. The main problem I am having now is when I don't happen to pay attention. After just 10 seconds she attempts to bite me because I am not giving her a treat. This bird really knows what she wants and is impatient for it.

Do you have any suggestions? Training her to wait, perhaps?

[captwest]

Hey Colorado, I've found that with my pet birds , who are demanding my attention, that if i give them a little more than what they want they are good for a few minutes. An example of this is when i'm petting the dogs and Jake is jealous of the dogs getting her attention she will try and bite at the dogs to run them off. SO i stop and play with her, a LITTLE rougher than she wants, til she's had enough and backs off. I then can play with the dogs and she's find with that. The draw back is that if i'm not careful i'm PRT(positive reinforcement training) her to bite at the dogs for attention. I'm not a senegal owner but there are many here who might offer better advice.I would browse around here as they're many good topics/post dealing with these same issues. As for PRT you might find this link helpful i know i did, good luck, Richard viewtopic.php?f=11&t=3940

[Mona]

Hi Colorado:

Senegals are high energy little birds and it sounds like you have a smart cookie!

I have had the same experience with Babylon. She will do tricks for anybody but if I let kids work with her (which is fun and works fine with my greys), the children eventually become hesitant and treat too slow and I have had her fly and nip their ears. This was disappointing but since I can't control how fast the kids treat her....I just have to resign myself that I really have to keep an eye on her if she is doing tricks for kids.

I strongly believe in keeping the integrity of the cue. That means, once you get the behavior and bridge....you keep your promise and reinforce the behavior. This builds trust. Building trust is important at this stage. If the bird is nipping, they are most likely insecure about getting that reinforcement. I can't always reinforce instantly but I want the bird to know that they WILL get reinforced. This takes time and practice. The more you reinforce, the more the bird trusts reinforcement will come and the more secure they become. The more secure, the less nips and the less you have to worry about being immediate with the reinforcement. In other words, right now - you are building that trust so go ahead and treat quickly. Later, when the trust is established, you can slow down how fast you treat.

Nips are communication to you. Are you reinforcing 1:1. At this stage, you should be. You really want to avoid nips because you do not want to inadvertantly reinforce a nip. It is always easier to get ahead of a potentially difficult behavior and prevent it than it is to untrain it. Once a nip happens, a lot of things that you do may be unintentional reinforcement for the nip (from the birds' perspective)....so, extinguishing the behavior can be really tricky. I am a big believer that preventing the behavior is always the best remedy.

You might also look at the time of day you are working on training. Is there a better time of day to train? It may be that the bird is amped up too much when you are doing your training so you might want to work when the bird is less "amped up". Are you withholding food before training? Honestly, I know that Michael has had success by withholding food before training but I do not do that with Babylon Senegal for two reasons:

1) She is so highly motivated and smart that I don't need to.
2) Withholding food will "amp" her up and increase the odds of aggression (nips).

I have worked with Babylon for 9 years now and she is so fast, I swear that sometimes she reads my mind and will get ahead of the cue. I find my Senegals to be very easy to train but the other side of that is I have to think a little harder about managing aggression. In temperament, they remind me of fox terriers....quick, smart, easy to amp up. They are very fun and rewarding and amazing companions but keep in mind that they will read cues that you do not intend and they will get ahead of you.

Michael has a lot of good videos and ideas. Everybody trains a little different and here's a video of me working with Babylon on her tricks:

http://www.youtube.com/user/AvianFlyers ... R7uTA6mxu8

Alot of small training setbacks go away with time and practice. I wouldn't worry about it too much except to think about how you can make your bird more secure and get ahead of the nipping. If you reinforce the behaviors you want and get ahead of the possibility of nipping, for the most part, the nipping behavior will probably extinguish (or go away). If it doesn't extinguish, the nipping will lessen so that you can be confident about 95% of the time the bird won't nip. That's progress.

I watch my African birds interact among themselves and they do nip at each other. It's no big deal between birds because birds have down feathers and the nip doesn't hurt them. Our problem is that we don't have down feathers - We just have skin so a nip can be painful to a human. I think that nipping is one way that the birds communicate as a species. So, I have to say that I really doubt that you can completely eliminate nipping as a behavior but you certainly can greatly lessen it so that it happens rarely by teaching the bird to communicate to you using acceptable behaviors (like maybe a wave...or another little trick) rather than nipping.

One other modification that wouldn't apply to trick training but might apply to behavior management is to reinforce very soft beaks or soft nips rather than bites. ...I know that my hen usually has a very soft nip so when she gives me a soft nip, I pay attention to her so she knows gentle beaks are an effective communication so we can avoid the really hard BITE which is NEVER a good way to communicate.

Have fun. I wouldn't worry too much about the nip because it is unlikely to be consistent if you continue your practice.

Thanks!

[colorado4bjh]

Thank you so much for your thoughtful replies! Her terrible two's have been trying at best.

With regards to the nipping, I ask her to "be gentle" and she has learned to be softer. I also do the "earth quake" when she tries to bite hard.

I guess what I meant about her impatience is in between training. When in training I do give the cue, bridge and also treat. She is happy how quickly I treat during training. It's just when there is a break in the sessions where she doesn't like that I have stopped the training (i.e.-the treat).

I am basically trying to allow her out of her bedroom more often. I guess maybe the problem has been that I only have her out of her birdy bedroom for just training so that is all she expects. Any ideas how to help her understand when training is complete and not to expect that treat.

Once again, I can't thank you enough for the help!

[Mona]

I have to repost your questions or I forget the specifics:

You wrote: "I guess what I meant about her impatience is in between training. When in training I do give the cue, bridge and also treat. She is happy how quickly I treat during training. It's just when there is a break in the sessions where she doesn't like that I have stopped the training (i.e.-the treat). I am basically trying to allow her out of her bedroom more often. I guess maybe the problem has been that I only have her out of her birdy bedroom for just training so that is all she expects. Any ideas how to help her understand when training is complete and not to expect that treat."

I get that kindof eagerness with Babylon. I honestly think we could do tricks for hours. I get tired of doing tricks before she does.

As far as nippiness after stopping a training session....hmmm....I don't get that but I think you have the right idea.

One idea is after the training session, target her back into her cage and give her a treat for that. All of my birds LOVE to be targeted back into the perches in their cages because they get reinforcement for that. My Timneh grey even says, "Go to your perch" when she knows I am ready to put them away.

Also, from what you write, it sounds like your bird has to learn that other "reinforcing" things happen in the "training location" that don't involve treats. Does she like cuddles? Maybe quit the training session and end it with a cuddle session. Does she like to chew on certain toys? Why not give her something to occupy her time with in the training location - a towel to chew, a leather toy to chew, a mitten to dig into, etc.. It sounds like she expects training and when it doesn't happen, she becomes insecure. Treats are good reinforcers because they are discrete; however, Senegals are highly intelligent and many, many more things are reinforcing for their behaviors than treats. It sounds like you need to study your individual bird and come up with some other reinforcers for her. You can then use those reinforcers to make her more secure in your training environment.

If you are worried that she will lose her training attention if you reinforce other things besides training behaviors.....don't worry. My experience with Senegals is that they have amazing memories and don't forget the behaviors you train. Their enthusiasm for the tricks is usually very good over the long term as well. I think they find "attention" as reinforcing as "the treats".

I also think it's very good to vary environments. If you think about it, in the wild....these animals would be flying great distances and would have a lot of different stimulus all day. We can never duplicate that but I do think that its a good idea not to have them entrenched in one place. I move my birds around all of the time....in and out of their cages. Your little girl may be starting to get a little "entrenched" so I do think that getting her out of the bedroom is a great idea!

Believe me, a well socialized Senegal is a lot of fun if you open up their world. A Senegal that does not get a lot of stimulus can become "phobic". By that, I mean that they will startle fly at unusual things and can become fearful. Since your bird is still young, this is the time to make sure she is SAFELY exposed to lots of sights and sounds and is comfortable in different environments. It is a lot harder to socialize older birds once they get habituated and entrenched. You don't want to frighten or startle her or let her come to any harm and you want to be careful that she is in "safe" locations but the more she gets out, the better long term companion she will be and the better she will be at handling changes in her life as she matures. (Life is about change after all)

Good luck and keep us posted!

Mona