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How to reward target flying away from you?

Discuss topics associated with teaching birds to fly. Training parrots recall flight, target flying, and other flying exercises.

How to reward target flying away from you?

Postby Michael » Thu Oct 01, 2009 2:58 pm

I'm starting to realize that recall flight and target flying toward you is actually fairly straightforward. it's the flying away that is much more difficult. Flying to you is twice rewarding, treat and attention. Flying away from you is negative reinforcement in itself (loss of attention/presence). Also it is very hard to administer positive reinforcement for flying away because the bird lands far away from you and by the time you could reach it with the treat it's long forgotten. And I'm talking about distances like 20-60 feet here, not a perch right next to you.
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Re: How to reward target flying away from you?

Postby Mona » Fri Oct 02, 2009 11:29 am

Hi Michael:

Yes, if the bird wants to be on you, it is hard to find a reinforcer for target flying away.

Conditioning is about training a behavior so that it is almost a habit. As you know from trick training, getting a behavior on cue is about conditioning the behavior.

One thing that you can do is target fly Kili (and I see you do this) between two people. This way, she gets reinforced by flying to people. In time, she will be conditioned to this sort of flying and then it will be easier to target fly her to a neutral location.

Good luck and keep us posted on your success.

Thanks

Mona
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Re: How to reward target flying away from you?

Postby Michael » Fri Oct 02, 2009 11:43 am

One thing I've been trying to do is this (and I might have a video up soon to demonstrate this):

I stand 30 feet away from where Kili is but 5 feet from another training stand. I recall her and give her some attention but no treat and take a pause. Then I target fly her to the perch near me and reward her for going to perch immediately. And on random occasion when I send her back on a long "back to perch" I'll try to get over there as quickly as possible and give her reward. Hopefully this will keep her optimistic about getting rewards for going back to perches. :senegal:
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Re: How to reward target flying away from you?

Postby Michael » Sat Oct 03, 2009 11:41 am

When Kathleen is around, I have her sit next to the return perch and randomly reward Kili with treats on her "back to perch" flights. So this way I can focus on recalling Kili and keep her going back to perch instead of clinging on to me! :)
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Michael
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Re: How to reward target flying away from you?

Postby Mona » Sat Oct 03, 2009 5:24 pm

Is Kathleen the one that is giving the treats? If so, you are getting two things out of this exercise. 1) You are helping Kili learn how to target away from you to a perch and 2) You are also teaching Kili that Kathleen is the bringer of good things which can only help Kili learn to see Kathleen as a positive member of the flock. Great idea and a great plan!

Mona
Mona in Seattle
Phinneous Fowl (aka Phinney) TAG
Babylon Sengal
Doug (spousal unit)
Jack and Bailey (Gremlins)
Kiri (CAG)
http://www.flyingparrotsinside.com

youtube: Avian Flyers
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Re: How to reward target flying away from you?

Postby Manziboy » Mon Nov 16, 2009 12:14 pm

With Manzi, I call him to me, give him a treat and then send him back to his perch to eat the treat. Now, he knows that he gets to eat his treat if he flies back to his perch. Now, when I am busy and he is following me around, I can give him a small treat and send him away and he is more than happy to leave and eat his treat (although he is also very happy to come back again and try to get another free treat). Because I sent him away so many times, he is now accustomed to me pointing somewhere and him flying to that place. I don't have to give him a treat. I can just point and he knows to fly there.
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Re: How to reward target flying away from you?

Postby Michael » Mon Nov 16, 2009 1:32 pm

Here's what I ended up doing and now Kili is great at going back to her perch after recalls



Basically I began a very low variable ratio of reinforcement for returning to the perch. To this day, I'll give her one treat for going back to perch every few days. It's not a major trick, she probably wants to go back to eat her treat anyway. BUT, this keeps her from flying back to her cage or other places because I established the perch as the designated place to return to after a recall.

Just a creative way to use positive reinforcement. Another technique I use to make going back more worthwhile is I will stand near a perch and recall her across the room and not reward her. Then I say go back to perch (to the perch nearby) and reward her for going to perch rather than the initial recall.

Now the "back to perch" behavior is close to automatic. However, it is cued. This is important because I don't want her always automatically flying away from me after getting the treat.
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Gender: This parrot forum member is male
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