Clicker can stop screaming

[Sean]

Just got this of a clicker training site...
what do use think

''
What about screaming? That's a behavior that infuriates the owners of lots of birds, not just raptors. It's hard to get rid of because, to the bird, screaming brings food. Every time the bird perceives a sign that food is coming -- the door opening, your shadow, your footstep, the car engine, etc., -- and the bird happens to be screaming at that time, bingo! the screaming is reinforced. If these signs do not ALWAYS mean food, but only sometimes, guess what: the screaming is variably reinforced, and the behavior intensifies because variable reinforcement has a stronger effect than reinforcement every time. Some behaviors "extinguish" if they are not reinforced, but just trying to wait the bird out, so the screaming stops by itself, is not very efficient because of all the accidentally conditioned cues (same thing with dogs barking in the kennels; it's often an accidentally but very strongly conditioned behavior.) So use your new CR. Take a moment when the bird is not screaming -when it has just eaten, perhaps, or when you are cleaning the cage -- and click. Treat. Click. Treat. Build on this. (The bird has to breathe; if you are quick, you can click between screams.) Your aim is to teach the bird that all those OTHER cues are not meaningful. The meaningful information is the click, and it can make you click by silence. Don't worry if it screams right after you click, and before it eats; that will stop as it discovers that clicks, not yells, mean food, and that silence makes clicks happen. ''

[Jack Merlin]

.... or when you are cleaning the cage...... ''

Keep a falconry bird in a cage and it has a RIGHT to scream!!<g>

[Sean]

didnt even see that lol, but what do you think about the article?

[Kitana]

The text is from Karen Pryor (I think...), a pioneer in adapting clicker training to almost all animal species. She is not in falconry, but she can offers solutions to problems encountered by falconers... here are her website:

http://www.clickertraining.com/training/birds/index.htm?loaditem=falconryiupdated&itemnumber=3

I have not used clicker training on BoP myself, but I plan to and theoretically it should work. Its works with almost all species, feathered or fured, including marine mammals, so why not BoP? I've stopped some barking dogs using exactly the same technic described for screaming BoP. I've worked with many exotic animals while I was taking an animal training course in a zoo and it did marvelous things with lions, tigers, hyenas, bears, monkeys, lamas, horses and the like, the list is looooong... But before trying that, you have to be fully comfortable about operant conditionning and bridge principles.

[Sean]

What would be the differenece between it and a whistle?

[MattSpar]

The text is from Karen Pryor (I think...), a pioneer in adapting clicker training to almost all animal species. She is not in falconry......

.....and that may be the most telling satement.

[Kitana]

Maybe, but there are many falconers who integrated clicker training with their birds with great results, based upon Karen's suggestions. In falconry we have the chance to be already using operant conditioning and positive reinforcement (as opposed with most dog and horses trainers who are still using punitive and aversive training), we only lack the bridge that can link the accomplishment of a desired behavior with a reward... The clicker (or whistle, or flahs of light...) is that bridge, it helps the bird understand the exact reason why he gets a reward... It's easier to teach a bird to come back, to wait on or to climb when you use a bridge because without any bridge, it's really difficult to time the delivery of the reward exactly with the behavior we want to reward... and with animals, the timing has to be very short and perfect for them to understand.
She may not be in falconry, but animal psycholgy is animal psychology, whatever specie you work with... Even humans...

[MattSpar]

Yes, I do see that, but it's far better surely, to train the thing correctly from the start. A non-imprint, properley handled should not scream. Anyone opting for an imprint (and even most social imprints scream to a certain extent) will presumably be willing to accept their bird will be noisy. If not, well, steer clear of imprints.

[Kitana]

Of course, prevention is always better that cure! But i believe that we are never perfectly protected against something that may go wrong, and it's wonderful to have some tools in our bag to modify a behavior rather than having to sell the bird as many do! :(

[MattSpar]

Yes, you have a point there. Being the original Doubting Thomas, I'd need evidence.

[Kitana]

Of course it's normal to doubt about a «new» technic when you already use one that works wonders! Although clicker training is not exactly what we could call a new technic... lol
What I like about clicker training, is that every people that attend to a seminar (or read) about the technic is enthousiast at trying it, and everybody can have fast results with that technic. It gives us an insight on how it works in those little brains, and how we can use this knowledge to communicate in a clear way with them. Be they falcons, hawks, dogs or dolphins...

[MattSpar]

It gives us an insight on how it works in those little brains, ...


God, I wish I'd known about this when my kids were small, never mind hawks.

[Ben C]

I personally don't want my hawk to stop screaming. He is creche reared and the various noises he makes are him displaying his natural behaviour. Something I am previlidged and honoured to witness.

However in a PR I do not see why it couldn't work with a rigorous and prolonged approach. Nice idea.:supz: :supz: :supz:

[MattSpar]

I personally don't want my hawk to stop screaming. He is creche reared and the various noises he makes are him displaying his natural behaviour. Something I am previlidged and honoured to witness.

However in a PR I do not see why it couldn't work with a rigorous and prolonged approach. Nice idea.:supz: :supz: :supz:

In past years, before anyone had heard of social imprinting, I would deliberately imprint any eyass spar I flew (this would be food imprinting). This made it somewhat easier to locate the bird when out flying, by the sound of its voice. Of course, spars have only puny voices.

[Kitana]

I do not see why it couldn't work with a rigorous and prolonged approach.

You would be surprised at how fast you can obtain results using CT. Usually 1 hour of training, divided in 2 to 5 minutes seances upon a week or two, is all it takes to train a new and complex behavior. I can give you examples of groups of pigs learning to voluntarily give their blood by being punctured in the vena cava (1 inch from the heart) with a 5 inch needle in 1 hour of training... Or tigers, monkeys or elephants trained to accept venipuncture... Wild horses accepting physical contact all over them including the ears and eyes... It's amazing how fast it goes with CT cmpared to other technics, and it all relies on the bridge effect: the animal undersand faster what brings the reward...

http://www.aasv.org/news/story.php?id=360

[MattSpar]

You would be surprised at how fast you can obtain results using CT. Usually 1 hour of training, divided in 2 to 5 minutes seances upon a week or two, is all it takes to train a new and complex behavior. I can give you examples of groups of pigs learning to voluntarily give their blood by being punctured in the vena cava (1 inch from the heart) with a 5 inch needle in 1 hour of training... Or tigers, monkeys or elephants trained to accept venipuncture... Wild horses accepting physical contact all over them including the ears and eyes... It's amazing how fast it goes with CT cmpared to other technics, and it all relies on the bridge effect: the animal undersand faster what brings the reward...

http://www.aasv.org/news/story.php?id=360

Do you know of any actual cases of screaming hawks being permanently stopped this way?

[Kitana]

I don't, but I have not searched for it! You can find many falconers on the net who uses OC, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OPC_Falconry/, http://www.themodernapprentice.com/training.htm it's just an example thereare many others out there. OC falconers tend to keep a low profile because they fall victim to skepticism, but they are there.

[Roo]

I can see this now, the harris stops screaming and starts making clicking noised whenever it hears you :)

Seriously though, sounds interesing - wouldn't mind seeing it in practice.

[Ben C]

For clarification: Cody only screams around the weathering and a bit in the morning, and at night, and near other people. He is silent where it counts....in the field.

[Sean]

Would really like to here of any cases where it quieted the hawk, i would certainly put the time into it.

[Bird_Dog]

The one overriding charateristic about sceaming is how resistant to extinction it is. Screaming may have a food related assocaition component, but it is also fundamentally a developmental phenomena. That is, screaming seems to develop during sensitive phases and persist long afterwards without further learning. An imprinted chick for instance will "cheep" incesently for hours when separated from it's imprinted object. Operant learning theory has had little to say about imprinting which was an area of interest for Ethologists such as Konrad Lorenz. Why does a wild hawk stop screaming and a captive one doesn't not.... positive reinforcement??? In the wild the young birds pester their parents until a point where the adults will force their offspring to dispurse. To continue to scream out your own seems like it would increase the risk of predation for the young hawks. Maybe to stop screaming avoidance learning makes more sense?? The point is falconry relying solely on positive reinforcement only scratches the surface of the possible forms of animal learning.

--BIRD_DOG

[Kitana]

I agree completely. Extinction is not a technic recommanded for screaming problems as it is an extremely difficult technic to master (even for other problems!) and it can lead to the «construction» of a mater screamer if by error the bird is reinforced in his extinction peak. Conter-conditioning works better, or for those really skilled in clicker training putting the screaming on cue (but it has to be perfectly on cue, meaning that if you don't offer the cue, the bird doesn't scream. Difficult if done by an inexperienced clicker trainer and not recommanded).

[Dan Paradis]

Raptors have very primitive brains and not as large as lions, horses or whatever other species trained with CR. In traditional falconry we train passage birds with traditional technics, when properly applied, you will make visual and sound associations always related with food (equipment, lure and quarry) and a precise behavior you want to shape in your bird. Apetite and food is the only control you'll have over a bop no matter what, insure success when training be consistent with signals (cues), reward the behavior you want to reinforce but above all learn to read your bird to bring it to do exactly what you want it to do.That is the art of falconry. Operant conditioning is already part of the traditional practice of falconry.

To train an eyass or an imprinted bird we don't use traditional method, because eyasses are not used in traditional falconry but modern practice, we just don't make associations in the same places then traditional ways and it is not the same dynamic too... Briefly, initially we bring the bird to its food instead of the bird coming to us for food...

You can use or try any technics you want, but for myself after twenty plus years in training bop it always came down to basics found in traditional ways of training and hunting with falconry birds that were the most successfull and safest as well...

Dan Paradis

[Kitana]

Of course, everyone makes its own choices! Luring the bird to come for the food is an option, and it works well enough to be the basis of the falconry for centuries!

But I am interested in applying modern psychology principles to animal training, and learning the reasons why a technic works, how it works, is interesting per se. Being animal trainers, we all should be interested in improving the quality of our work, of our relation with the animals we train. It's not about using the «right» or «wrong» technic, there is no right nor wrong, there is just human beings learning how to efficiently train animals. We are all in the process of learning, and the day we stop learning, we let no place for improvement...

And by the way, training has nothing to do with the size or the «primitivity» of the brain, it's not even about intelligence, it's about how learning takes place in brain, how neurological connections occur, and it occurs teh same way in all vertebrate animals, even humans can be clicker trained. I have seen clicker trained chickens and fish, if you want videos I got them. But I feel like not many people here really knows what exactly is clicker training am I wrong? Because before judging a technic and saying that it wont works, it's better to learn what exactly it consists of!

[Dan Paradis]

This is what we call a five minutes expert...

[GregMik]

You all should e-mail Steve Layman. He has been working with operant conditioning for a few yrs now with amazing results. I have seen a video of him working with his Goshawk. The bird will do just about anything to get the "bridge" and then the reward. He told me a story once about a couple of imprint falcons that he was raising for a freind. They were the worst of screamers. He could not figure out how to condition the non-screaming. He desided to condition the screaming on command. He got it so that the pair would scream when he would raise his arms over his head. The freind came over to get his birds and could not beleive how quiet they were. Steve said "Oh Ya? Listen to this". He prceeded to raise his arms and the noise started immediately. I do beleive him as if you met him he is a very honest man. He did a demonstration at the NAFA meet that everybody was impressed with. He also is a firm beleiver that the basic traditional training technics are a must before you can start with operant conditioning. I hope I didn't muck it up too much.

Greg

[Ben C]

You can use or try any technics you want, but for myself after twenty plus years in training bop it always came down to basics found in traditional ways of training and hunting with falconry birds that were the most successfull and safest as well...

Dan Paradis


This is a very interesting thread: But the above quote is about spot on. If it ain't broke don't fix it. I am in no way an expert but this rings true on all levels for me.

[Kitana]

This is what we call a five minutes expert...

By no way I wanted to sound harsh or insult you Dan, that's not the point, and excuse me if you felt threatened. I have no bird as everyone know, but as this thread was about using a tool I know very well, I thought I could bring in my 2 cents.

Falconers have a huge amount of knowledge in the field of traditionnal training and I have an immense respect for that. On the other hand I have knowledge in a parallel field of animal training that is not very well knowned by falconers in general. I learned the technic with friends who have used clicker training for over 25 years now with formidable success with over 30 animal species including chicken and fish so I wanted to communicate this knowledge with others. Isn't it the purpose of an internet discussion forum...
So rest assured, I don't claim to be a master falconer, I don't even claim to be a falconer yet. But a 5 minutes expert? That's insulting, considering the amount of scientific formations I followed just to be able to learn the technic... Please verify your informations before insulting someone.

Thanks GregMik for your comment. By the way, what is the traditionnal way to stop a bird from screaming? Extinction technics? It would be interesting to compare some different solutions to the same problem!

[Dan Paradis]

Sorry for the blast Kitana;

If you refer to what I wrote, I'm saying that falconers who end-up with a screaming bird is merely because they use the wrong technic for the wrong bird. Traditional technic is primarily focus to train passagers and haggards. Eyasses and imprints are to be trained in a completely different manner i.e;no food association with humans, glove and territory ect... avoiding aggression as well. But all that, if done properly.

But in all technics, if one understands clearly what he is doing when training you will find all elements from OC and the bridge principal. Its all about it !

I know of some falconers who will take up to three years to acheive the waiting on flight while another falconer will take a completely wild falcon chamber raised and get to waiting on and catching quarry within 7 weeks...nothing to do with pedigree lineage...

Best regards

Dan

[Kitana]

The point is falconry relying solely on positive reinforcement only scratches the surface of the possible forms of animal learning.
--BIRD_DOG

Can I ask you what you mean by that statement? Usually trainers agree that R+ is the most effective and less hazardous way of training an animal, paired with les than 20% of P-. The other forms of animal learning left are R- and P+ which I think are not applicable with birds. And of course classical conditionning which is pretty limited when used alone.

What learning mechanism are you talking about?

[Bird_Dog]

Hi Kitana,

Perhaps if I explain some of my professional experiences with Skinnerians folks. Among the subfield within Animal Learning, the followers of Skinner, such as in the experimental analysis of behavior or those that argue radical behaviorism paradigms have surrounded themselves in a particular idiology that I don't follow. You get a sense of "you're either with or against us" in the experimental analysis of behavior crowd. It's not say that there aren't other subgroups that present scientific views which are perfect. The atheoretical approach of Skinner isn't how I was taught. I believe there is a transfer of some of the self-righteous views from radical behaviorism to the advocates of positive reinforcement in animal training... the so called "clicker" people who feel that they are revolutionizing dog training for example. Here's a real world comparison to consider: a local rescue dog training club must meet a strict criterion of competency for their dogs to be certified for rescue work. Over the years, to pass the test, several training techniques have been used. Surpisingly, the positive reinforced "clicker" trained dogs have fail at a much higher rate than the avoidance trained dogs using the dreaded shock collar. The point I'm making is for falconry purposes we don't need to adopt an animal learning idiology, instead we hunters that's our idiology. At some point, stemming from my philosophy and education in animal cognition, learning only goes so far. Think of this... clicker training is all about conditioned stimuli/reinforcers, yet who cares about secondary when the goal is to obtain the primary reinforcer - the quarry itself. Why reduce falconry from a field sport to a training exercise?


This said, you asked what other of the 4 categories of operant conditioning besides positive reinforcement could be used. It would be great if you could punish pole sitting. I thought of suggesting the use of taste aversion learning to train hawks from hunting rats. This has been done in captive Red-tailed Hawks. The use of observational learning when training a young hawk with the aid of a knowledgeable "Made" hawk. Many things in the field are frustrating to the hawk (e.g., the prey successful avoided being caught), so why not use frustration theory at some point. If a falcon misses an easy kill then next time give it a difficult setup to frustrate the falcon then fly a second time over previous easy kill pond. You usually catch something on the second flight using this technique.

Our training techniques have been altered by technology, so perhaps new technology can be implemented to take advantage of other forms of animal... then not so politically correct ones

-- BIRD_DOG

[Kitana]

This said, you asked what other of the 4 categories of operant conditioning besides positive reinforcement could be used. -- BIRD_DOG

OK now I understand what you wanted to say, I thought you were refferring to learning principles others than classical and operant conditionning...?!? Yes of course we could apply P+, R- or P- to our birds, and we do use P- in fact caused it's always paired with R+. But after talking much with diffrent animal trainers, behaviorists and vet. behaviorits about P+R-, it appears that when you use these, you also stimulates/creates in the animal some strong negatiev feelings that are difficult to part with, such as angriness and fear. The animal in training stops learning if these emotions grow past a certain point and begin making «wrong» associations of there negative feeling with surounding things: the trainer, the perch, a noise he heard, etc... And then the possibility of creating behavior problems arises. I know of a professionnal dog trainer who is perfectly trained in OC and have decided to work with P+ and R- with police dogs. He uses this system perfectly and assumes the consequences. But his dogs could never be placed as pets and he knows it. Pat Parelli also use pure P+R- training with horses. With BoP, I don't know what would happen, as we want the birds to fly free and return to us... The P+R- trained animals usually start to lose reliability when you add distance between them and their trainer, they tend to become «ring-wise» and understand that if the person who gives the punition is away then it is no more aversive enough to make them obey. But it could be tried of course.

Why reduce falconry from a field sport to a training exercise?BIRD_DOG

I answer that way: why not using animal psychology to help us train good hunting birds? As yousaid, the ultimate goal is to hunt with the bird... :)

Great input! :)

[Monti]

You all should e-mail Steve Layman. He has been working with operant conditioning for a few yrs now with amazing results. I have seen a video of him working with his Goshawk. The bird will do just about anything to get the "bridge" and then the reward. He told me a story once about a couple of imprint falcons that he was raising for a freind. They were the worst of screamers. He could not figure out how to condition the non-screaming. He desided to condition the screaming on command. He got it so that the pair would scream when he would raise his arms over his head. The freind came over to get his birds and could not beleive how quiet they were. Steve said "Oh Ya? Listen to this". He prceeded to raise his arms and the noise started immediately. I do beleive him as if you met him he is a very honest man. He did a demonstration at the NAFA meet that everybody was impressed with. He also is a firm beleiver that the basic traditional training technics are a must before you can start with operant conditioning. I hope I didn't muck it up too much.
Greg

Thanks Greg! I'm looking for articles from Steve Layman. Do you have any idea where I can get something from this guy - he seems to be famous for his training techniques. Especially this "anti-screaming-treatment" and thoughts on fitness training would be great! Hope you can help me!

[Harrisii]

What would be the differenece between it and a whistle?

the ice-cream van doesnt use a clicker. lol.
imagine everytime the ice-cream van arrived your bird would scream its head off, for some ice-cream i presume. lol


another potential problem, how could you teach your BOP the clicker method, within in ear shot of your dog, or ferrets presuming you teach them this method also.

[Kitana]

Another potential problem, how could you teach your BOP the clicker method, within in ear shot of your dog, or ferrets presuming you teach them this method also.

That's actually not a problem, you can train multiple animals at the same time in the same space with only 1 clicker or whistle and you won't face any problem. Group dog clicker classes or marine mammal training are good examples that it works well, and in zoos they usually cannot separate the animals for training sessions. But you have to try to believe I guess. The animals know which one of them is being trained.

[GregMik]

Thanks Greg! I'm looking for articles from Steve Layman. Do you have any idea where I can get something from this guy - he seems to be famous for his training techniques. Especially this "anti-screaming-treatment" and thoughts on fitness training would be great! Hope you can help me!


Monti,
Steve Layman has written a couple articles for the NAFA Hawkchalk. Lydia Ash was Steve's apprentice and has a wonderful website. http://www.themodernapprentice.com/ . If you want Steve's e-mail PM me.


Greg

[Isaac]

On that OPC_Falconry yahoo group that was mentioned earlier they have some really cool stories about using OPC to train hawks.

One where the guy (I think it was Steve?) had a great coopers that he turned into a psycho and then back again just to prove that he could with OPC (he specifically suggests AGAINST doing that though :)).

Apparently OPC can be a pretty powerful training tool. Check out the group, it's well worth it.

[Hacker]

Try this.

http://www.falconryforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=10710&highlight=conditioned+reinforcement

[Kitana]

Apparently OPC can be a pretty powerful training tool. Check out the group, it's well worth it.

What is funny is that people don't realize that OC and CC are almost the only way for bird of preys to learn, and even if they think they don't use OC in their training, they do, they don't have the choice actually... Even if you don't want to use OC, the birds themselves will learn many things that way, like screaming when hungry jut because they were once fed when the screamed, or acting agressive because that darn human moved away once when he acted agressive... Understanding OC principles and seeing how they apply in everyday life, let alone training, leads to a better relationship with the bird...

[Bird_Dog]

Kitana,
An experience falconer asked why he should specifically use a conditioned rienforcer to train a raptor to the lure or to fly to the fist instead of the traditional way presenting a food garnished lure... especially if the result is the same (i.e., the bird comes back). The scientific jargon really turned him off to the whole subject. Basically he wants to keep the art of falconry pure of science. I told him that principles of learning are at work regardless of tradition. However, I failed to convence him of anything related to operant conditioning. Was it faster to use OC?... well no. Do they come back faster? ... well no. So why do it? I tried to say that mentally the task is learned as being contingent upon thier behavior not as a simple elicited response to a unconditioned reinforcer. So Kitana, how do you think a traditional falconer could be persuaded? On a side note. Clicker training my Coopers lead to an unexpected negative consequence. My Coopers "wanted" to attack the sound of the clicker which was being held in my non-gloved hand. It was sort of a painful "instinctive drift" phenomenon. Longwings don't or at least the ones I clicker trained didn't try to eat my hand. The devil appears to be in the details when applying OC to falconry as a whole.

-- BIRD_DOG

[Kitana]

There is a dark side to the clicker, as there is a dark side to every training technic... Good trainers know what to do to adapt to each situation and to avoid falling victim of the dark side... As you know frustration plays a big part in clicker training, we surf on the limit of learning vs frustration agression, and results often depend on how good we are at managing this frustration and at detecting it, reading body lanauage... A frustrated BoP may harm you, a frustrated killer whale or horse may kill you... Being aware of that, the trainer takes care not to reinforce any agressive behavior and usually, when introduced to a system of variable rewards and variable ratio of reinforcement, the animals understand how to receive the conditionned reinforcer and calm down their frustration. But yes, most animals go through a phase where they want to eat the clicker, because obviously the clicker brings the food... lol

You know, I am not into convincing anyone. Clicker training is a philosophy by itself, not just a training technic. As long as your own philosophy is showing results and is satisfying to you, you don't want to change. You don't need to. In fact, you may even see the people who try to introduce you to a new technic as people that tell you your own technic is not good, and you can become quite agressive and close-minded about this new technic, even if the technic is really better than yours! Convincing people that are not interested may become insulting to them, and I do not want to insult anyone. Most clicker trainers have come to clicker training due to an insatisfaction with available training technics, not because someone convinced them... However, to me, using food as a bribe in any specie has 1 main downfall: you don't train the animal to do a task, you train it to follow the food, and the day the animal do not want the food offered, it does not obey. If I put 100$ bills on a table again and again, I do not train you to put your hand on the table, I train you to take 100$ bills... A good falconer will fade it's food bribe quickly using the variable reward system and the variable ratio of reinforcement by instinct, and won't have to how food each time he wants the bird to come, but it's rare and most falconers relie on food as a bribe. Conditionning is about that, putting a behavior on cue without having to bribe the animal with food. Wether you use a bridge or not depends on the precision of the behavior you want to teach, it's not a religion... Well, it's my opinion...

[Bird_Dog]

Good points Kitana. Following food is simply goal-tracking. I do have to say that over time many traditional falconers fade food from the lure to the point food is no longer present. Maybe coming to the lure is due to habit strenght or perhaps it becomes a second order reinforcer. In the long run same behavior occurs. I feel it helps later on to have used operant conditioning in the early stages of training when transfering the hawk off of a kill. We tend to try to trade a small tidbit for its kill and hope it won't develop bad behaviors like manteling or carrying. Your bird is trained to jump off a kill to an ungarnished lure then receive a condition reinforcer ('click') it will then jump to the fist for a tidbit. Possessiveness over the kill seems less becasue of the intermediate step of the ungarnished lure. Of course, for years I didn't really care about trying for multiple kills. One rabbit with my RT was fine. There's more of a competition now to out do one another's total take. Opps I digressed.

Bird_Dog

[Puzo]

This is a very interesting thread: But the above quote is about spot on. If it ain't broke don't fix it. I am in no way an expert but this rings true on all levels for me.
Falconry has probably changed little in 12,000 years apart from certain superficial things like a better underatanding of nutritian, better veterinary skills, equipment & the invenntion of telemetry. But the basic training techniques will have changed very little, if at all, for the very good reason THEY WORK. Maybe I'm being overly sentimental but I dislike the idea of reducing a bird I love to a statistical specimen in a cold impersonal experimental training regime. I like the ancient links, the arcane terminology & yes even the anphropomorphism. I would not want to reduce falconry to a series of statistical probabilities. I like my birds to have individual personalities. If an imprint screams, well it's just being an imprint, if you don't like it why did you imprint in the first place?? It's the nature of the beast!

[Kitana]

But the basic training techniques will have changed very little, if at all, for the very good reason THEY WORK.

If an imprint screams, well it's just being an imprint, if you don't like it why did you imprint in the first place?? It's the nature of the beast!

Yes they do work, of course! If they didn't we wouldn't be here talking about falconry... But there will always be some little things that can be changed, and some individuals are interested in different things, which is great.

Your imprint example made me think about dog training. Traditionnal dog training with the choke collar and the voice rewards work and has worked for hundreds of years. However, it had its limitations, only some breeds of dogs like german shepherds, dobermann or belgian shepherds could be trained to high levels of obedience and when an individual turned out to bite his trainer or didn't responded to training, the answer was put him down or put him out of competition. If an afghan hound didn't obey, well it,s an afghan hound, don't expect it to obey! It's a basset hound, you can't train them not to bark it's in them! It's a cat, you can't train a cat!

Nowadays with clicker trainings, these animals can be trained with success, we can even train afghan and chow chow or other non-traditional breeds to high levels of obedience... The responsibility of success or failure of training now lies on the trainer shoulders, not on the breed/specie/bloodline/instrument used. And THAT is interesting, for trainers that want to take that responsibility. For those who prefer to put the blame on the animal, clicker training has nothing to offer...

[Bird_Dog]

Falconry has probably changed little in 12,000 years apart from certain superficial things like a better underatanding of nutritian, better veterinary skills, equipment & the invenntion of telemetry. But the basic training techniques will have changed very little, if at all, for the very good reason THEY WORK. Maybe I'm being overly sentimental but I dislike the idea of reducing a bird I love to a statistical specimen in a cold impersonal experimental training regime. I like the ancient links, the arcane terminology & yes even the anphropomorphism. I would not want to reduce falconry to a series of statistical probabilities. I like my birds to have individual personalities. If an imprint screams, well it's just being an imprint, if you don't like it why did you imprint in the first place?? It's the nature of the beast!

Interesting to think how things might of changed. I suspect that because we are not subsistance falconers anymore our attitudes are really not traditional ones at all. If a falconer catches 100 starlings with their eyas whatever are they going to eat any of them?! I don't think we diminish modern falconry with scientific approaches. McDermont's book on solving behavior problems is as close to a scientific study in falconry as there is... except for the study of fist jumping by Laymann and Riddle published in the Hawk Chawk. It had behavioral and physiological measures, but it was intended for technique of raptor rehabilitation. So there really isn't much of a science of falconry at all.

The debate continues because "clicker" dog trainers are very much animal lovers. They reject strict complusion methods. They tend to confuse positive reinforcement with positive emotions such as training with love not pain. There's a vast area of research on avoidance learning that's not applied to falconry , but it's one of the most powerful forms of learning becasue of it relevance to survival. Animals must learn to avoid hazzards and predators just as much as they must learn to aquire food. Raptors are very capable of learning taste aversions for example. A lot of falconry bird avoid a certain type of prey after a "bad" expereince. Having knowledge of how animals learning can't be bad?

-- BIRD_DOG

[legin]

Yes, I do see that, but it's far better surely, to train the thing correctly from the start. A non-imprint, properley handled should not scream. Anyone opting for an imprint (and even most social imprints scream to a certain extent) will presumably be willing to accept their bird will be noisy. If not, well, steer clear of imprints.hello all my names legin and im new to the forum , i have con ciderable falconry experiences mainly with hawks so i guess really im an austringer spending my of my time working with the harris hawk but also the gos and redtails etc, i agree with this statement from mattspar, many bop are imprinted and become screamers because of bad early training or incorectly socially imprinting, not enough care is taken to avoid re-establising parent dependencies,how did i do

[Pharoah]

Can anyone give me some advice on how to stop a harris hawk to stop screaming

[BuzzBee]

Can anyone give me some advice on how to stop a harris hawk to stop screaming

Start your own thread mate.

[Matthew Patching]

this is all very interesting,i have been using clickers to train specific behaviours in Bop for about 5 years now. I use them while manning birds and find that this works better than using a tiring as there is no boney remnant that will eventualy need removing (stealing) from your charge.

I have used this method on various birds from goldies right the way through to spars. It definatly works and can get you from purchase to free flight with only a couple of bates, and no need to hood and possibly make a young frightened bird hood shy, you can hood train birds at any point in there life using clickers, or voice bridges.

These are wonderful training techniques that people should be open to. in every day use they are important, but try training a bop a paterned behaviour without using clickers or voice bridges and watch everything fall apart.

[legin]

Falconry has probably changed little in 12,000 years apart from certain superficial things like a better underatanding of nutritian, better veterinary skills, equipment & the invenntion of telemetry. But the basic training techniques will have changed very little, if at all, for the very good reason THEY WORK. Maybe I'm being overly sentimental but I dislike the idea of reducing a bird I love to a statistical specimen in a cold impersonal experimental training regime. I like the ancient links, the arcane terminology & yes even the anphropomorphism. I would not want to reduce falconry to a series of statistical probabilities. I like my birds to have individual personalities. If an imprint screams, well it's just being an imprint, if you don't like it why did you imprint in the first place?? It's the nature of the beast!12,000 years, 12,000 years 12,000 years, what planet you from mate

[FlameHairedFalconer]

12,000 years, 12,000 years 12,000 years, what planet you from mate

This is not a sensible or constructive response to this thread. Are you going out of your way to drag up old threads and add one liners slagging other members off?

FHF

[legin]

Can anyone give me some advice on how to stop a harris hawk to stop screamingyes feed it right up and never leave it without food and if you can hack the bird out for 3 day periods, pm me for more info on how to do this, if your serious about solving this problem

[legin]

This is not a sensible or constructive response to this thread. Are you going out of your way to drag up old threads and add one liners slagging other members off?

FHFnot at all it was ment as a joke and nothing more, sorry if i offended anyone, and no to the last part of your thread, im on my best behavior-honest

[FlameHairedFalconer]

not at all it was ment as a joke and nothing more, sorry if i offended anyone, and no to the last part of your thread, im on my best behavior-honest

lol :lol: Thats OK then :yawinkle:

FHF

[Puzo]

12,000 years, 12,000 years 12,000 years, what planet you from mate


The planet fat fingers which have a habit of catching the adjacent key when typing. It could just have easily been 23,000, rather than the intended 2,000. Actually not a million miles from the planet pedantic.....

[IsmaelVC]

Hi everyone!!!

I am new to this forum, but I have some experience with OC with a lot of animals including BOP, and I have also been in the same situation as Kitana, when only trying to help.

It seems to me that some people are overprotective of their methods, as far as I can see nobody is trying to change your methods, Kitana was just explaining a little of OC, in orther to help.

So it doesn’t seems right to me to “attack” Kitana like that when she is only trying to help, and unfortunately she seems to be the one of the few people with mayor experience of OC around here, and the only thing you (*not everybody) are doing is conditioning her not to help anymore, when this is supposed to be a forum to help each others.

And it seems to me that some people talk about “the art of falconry”, without knowing the meaning of art, those people that become rude with others only because of the mention of some “new stuff” are not true artists, if I were to describe “art” with a word it would be “creativity”, and “science” would be “methodical”, but there is something art and science share in common; they are antidogmatic, so in essence science is an art because it feeds on the creativity of scientists that try to explain nature in order to “evolve” (and I don’t see why falconry can’t evolve in the training aspect, when it has evolved in other aspects, and it’s only natural that it does), what some of you are talking about must be in fact called “the religion of orthodox falconry” or something like that LOL!, that is for people intolerant to other methods and techniques that can be helpful to falconry. If we where in the middle ages I wouldn’t be impressed of meeting people with thoughts like yours, it would be normal to think like you do (remember the thing called obscurantism that happened during the middle age), what I can believe is that there are still people that act like that on these days.

I mean what is the point in posting against OC, if you are not interested in the subject and you are not going to make positive critics just don’t post spam (you are just wasting the cache memory of the server), rest assured that nobody is trying to oblige anyone to change their ways of training or anything like that.

So if you are true artists of the science of falconry (LOL!) remember to “open your minds” like Neo (or maybe Morpheus) said once: (or something like that LOL!), oh! and…. “there is no spoon”….. wait, that was the spoon boy, never mind.

One last thing, to the people interested in OC or clicker training whit BOP for falconry, read “Don’t shoot the dog” by Karen Pryor, at least that is my advise, I know it isn’t about falconry, but it can be applied to train many animals, BOP included, and then you’ll understand what people that practice clicker training is talking about, but if you still have questions after reading that feel free to ask me, and I will try to help you.

Oh and one last thing (this is really the last, I promise, LOL!), forgive me for any mistake I might have done, while writing this post, I speak Spanish, and I’m not really that good at English, so I really, really hope you can understand what I’m trying to express.

*When I mean “you” I don’t mean everybody, I hope you understand who I’m talking about, it’s just that the meaning of “you” is very broad and I have problems to express properly who I mean LOL, I’ll better stop writing nonsense now before it’s to late LOL.

[Jack]

If a bird is actually food begging this clicker thingy might work. I have my doubts. But most screamers do not scream for food as such. Proof of this is to give them food and see their response. If they sit and hold the food while contunueing to scream, or if they eat it and continue to scream, then food is not the focus. So then how does this work for the habitual screamer. The neurotic screamer.

Jack

[IsmaelVC]

If a bird is actually food begging this clicker thingy might work. I have my doubts. But most screamers do not scream for food as such. Proof of this is to give them food and see their response. If they sit and hold the food while continuing to scream, or if they eat it and continue to scream, then food is not the focus. So then how does this work for the habitual screamer. The neurotic screamer.

Jack

Hi Jack: I am going to try to explain the best I can why does that happen and what can be done.

The bird screams>>>>>receives food>>>>>the act of "scream" is reinforced

That's why it keeps screaming even if it has already food, it knows it works, so it continues to scream.

what I would do is this: (I must assume you have already read a clicker training-operant conditioning book (the one recommended or any other), because explaining everything here wouldn't work for me, as I don’t have time to write a book, and so you understand the principles of clicker training)

1) Train an incompatible behavior, the bird can't scream while it is silent, right!

so instead of reinforcing for "screaming", wait until it has become silent, even if it is for a moment, and use your clicker in the exact time, you have to have a perfect timing (I recommend you to practice first), if not, the bird won´t understand (oh! and of course you have to load the clicker first!), so:

Scream, scream, scream, silence (Click! and then treat), scream, scream

with this you have to understand that at the beginning the bird will continue to scream, because, well you are just beginning, you have to give it time to understand, of course if you keep going for a month and you don’t see any changes, then something is wrong, perhaps your timing is not perfect, or the treat is not reinforcing (Example: IF you are treating it with food and but it has already eaten, then food will no longer be reinforcing until it is hungry again)

Train in small sessions, 5-10min, two or three times a day, whit this you will usually have results within two weeks or less at least.

Now the sequence is this: you show up at the mews>>>>>the bird is silent>>>>>Click!>>>>>treat

The bird is silent>>>>>receives food>>>>>the act of "silence" is reinforced

Once the bird understand that screaming leads nowhere and that silence is the key, you won't have to use your clicker(conditioned reinforcer) anymore, but never again treat it if it is screaming, or the behavior could reappear.

2) Put the behavior on cue

This is what I do, I keep reinforcing the behavior of "scream", until it is on cue, that is for example: I raise both my hands, like I read Steve Layman does, but it can be any sort of sign, sound, etc.

So: I raise my hands>>>>>scream (Click and treat!)>>>>>screaming is reinforced.

Now what you can do is: a)never give the cue again, or (what I prefer) B)Use the new trick to locate your friend, whenever you lose track of it, this is what I do when I can´t see him in the woods, believe me you can lose track of the bird but he always seems to know what I am doing and where I am (my Harris hawk), so if I lose him and I can’t hear his bells, I rise my hands and he let me know where he is with one scream!!!

I have also used this approach with a parrot, she loved to speak, but then a friend of mine taught her by accident to say "Pendejo" (it means something like assho...) so she was very talkative and my mother was really annoyed because of the bad word, I didn't want her to become totally silent, so I just started reinforcing that word until I got it on cue, then I never gave the cue again!!!

One word of advice, watch your mouth when you are near a parrot!!!

I hope this is understandable, I know I kind of suck at English, but believe I do my best, so once again, sorry for any mistake.

[PrinceOfTheWesternDesert]

the clicker training, leads to understanding some behaviour reinforcement,which is not the same as positive reinforcement that most animal trainers are not traditionally familiar with,,
i attended a seminar of a genius goshawker, named steve laymen, and he touches alot of this kind of training/comunication/behaviour interpretation,,
he doesnt use a clicker, he clucks to his bird, and gets the same results,,,
its very amazing,and honestly a little beyond me,,perhaps after ive had it explained to me a few more times,(ill listen to this guy speak any time i get the chance),,
i dont doubt for a minute that sombody well versed in this type of training could curb a behaviour like screamimg,, a bold statement,, but ive seen enough to know better than to doubt them

now,, does that sound like me?

[PrinceOfTheWesternDesert]

Hi Jack: I am going to try to explain the best I can why does that happen and what can be done.

The bird screams>>>>>receives food>>>>>the act of "scream" is reinforced

That's why it keeps screaming even if it has already food, it knows it works, so it continues to scream.

what I would do is this: (I must assume you have already read a clicker training-operant conditioning book (the one recommended or any other), because explaining everything here wouldn't work for me, as I don’t have time to write a book, and so you understand the principles of clicker training)

1) Train an incompatible behavior, the bird can't scream while it is silent, right!

so instead of reinforcing for "screaming", wait until it has become silent, even if it is for a moment, and use your clicker in the exact time, you have to have a perfect timing (I recommend you to practice first), if not, the bird won´t understand (oh! and of course you have to load the clicker first!), so:

Scream, scream, scream, silence (Click! and then treat), scream, scream

with this you have to understand that at the beginning the bird will continue to scream, because, well you are just beginning, you have to give it time to understand, of course if you keep going for a month and you don’t see any changes, then something is wrong, perhaps your timing is not perfect, or the treat is not reinforcing (Example: IF you are treating it with food and but it has already eaten, then food will no longer be reinforcing until it is hungry again)

Train in small sessions, 5-10min, two or three times a day, whit this you will usually have results within two weeks or less at least.

Now the sequence is this: you show up at the mews>>>>>the bird is silent>>>>>Click!>>>>>treat

The bird is silent>>>>>receives food>>>>>the act of "silence" is reinforced

Once the bird understand that screaming leads nowhere and that silence is the key, you won't have to use your clicker(conditioned reinforcer) anymore, but never again treat it if it is screaming, or the behavior could reappear.

2) Put the behavior on cue

This is what I do, I keep reinforcing the behavior of "scream", until it is on cue, that is for example: I raise both my hands, like I read Steve Layman does, but it can be any sort of sign, sound, etc.

So: I raise my hands>>>>>scream (Click and treat!)>>>>>screaming is reinforced.

Now what you can do is: a)never give the cue again, or (what I prefer) B)Use the new trick to locate your friend, whenever you lose track of it, this is what I do when I can´t see him in the woods, believe me you can lose track of the bird but he always seems to know what I am doing and where I am (my Harris hawk), so if I lose him and I can’t hear his bells, I rise my hands and he let me know where he is with one scream!!!

I have also used this approach with a parrot, she loved to speak, but then a friend of mine taught her by accident to say "Pendejo" (it means something like assho...) so she was very talkative and my mother was really annoyed because of the bad word, I didn't want her to become totally silent, so I just started reinforcing that word until I got it on cue, then I never gave the cue again!!!

One word of advice, watch your mouth when you are near a parrot!!!

I hope this is understandable, I know I kind of suck at English, but believe I do my best, so once again, sorry for any mistake.

i thought all parrots in mexico were born saying pendejo,,
and the women too,,
and i thought it means good lookin white guy,, right?LOL

[IsmaelVC]

the clicker training, leads to understanding some behaviour reinforcement,which is not the same as positive reinforcement that most animal trainers are not traditionally familiar with,,
i attended a seminar of a genius goshawker, named steve laymen, and he touches alot of this kind of training/comunication/behaviour interpretation,,
he doesnt use a clicker, he clucks to his bird, and gets the same results,,,
its very amazing,and honestly a little beyond me,,perhaps after ive had it explained to me a few more times,(ill listen to this guy speak any time i get the chance),,
i dont doubt for a minute that sombody well versed in this type of training could curb a behaviour like screamimg,, a bold statement,, but ive seen enough to know better than to doubt them

now,, does that sound like me?

True, behavior reinforcement is not the same as positive reinforcement (the term behavior reinforcement means that you are reinforcing a behavior using a primary reinforcer), and there are also other terms used in operant conditioning that can reinforce or modify a behavior like negative reinforcement, negative punishment, positive punishment, extinction, bribery and other "tools" like the conditioned reinforcer, shaping, jackpots, schedules of reinforcements, etc. all of these form the principles of operant conditioning.

As Karen Pryor says: all of these principles are laws, like the laws of physics. They underline all teaching situations as surely as the law of gravity underlies the falling of an apple. Whenever we attempt to change behavior, in ourselves or in others, we are using these laws, whether we know it or not.

It seems that the problem is that a lot of people use these principles of operant conditioning without knowing, like the people that for many centuries knew that everything that goes up, eventually has to go down, but didn’t know why.

So they critic the method, without understanding it or even knowing a thing of it at all.

So clicker training technically is not something new, the description of operant conditioning principles is relatively new, but all of them have always existed, even in nature, it is not something “man made”.

What clicker training is, is a training method based on the study of which of this principles works better, faster and are less stressful (for both).

Clicker training use principally positive reinforcement, to reinforce a behavior and a conditioned reinforce to mark the behavior wanted (basically), but I also usually use little amounts of negative reinforcement (in some cases only in the first two or three sessions for example (sessions of 5 min), even a more little amount of bribery (one or three times the first session), if ever, and then only positive reinforcement, variable schedules of reinforcement and shaping.

What falconers traditionally use is some positive reinforcement, a lot of bribery and habituation, hope that extinction works in some cases and that the bird gets what it is supposed to do, and commonly reinforce unintentionally undesired behavior believing that they are reinforcing they behavior they want, but eventually all this works, that’s why falconry exist today, but it is slow and stressful (for both the falconer and the bird, but mostly for the bird especially in the early stages of training) most of the times.

The major difference between traditional falconry training, or traditional animal training in general, and modern animal training, is the use of a conditioned reinforcer, that is the clicker, in clicker training (but it can be any kind of thing, as long as it is arbitrary (that it doesn’t mean already something to the animal), short, constant and easily noticed).

Oh! And sorry, but I don’t understand what you mean by “bold statement”, does that means you doubt the method works or not, believe me I have my dictionary besides me, but I don’t know what you are talking about in that sentence.

i thought all parrots in mexico were born saying pendejo,,
and the women too,,
and i thought it means good lookin white guy,, right?LOL

LOL! I think you've been living a lie! :lol:

[PrinceOfTheWesternDesert]

[Oh! And sorry, but I don’t understand what you mean by “bold statement”, does that means you doubt the method works or not, believe me I have my dictionary besides me, but I don’t know what you are talking about in that sentence.
"bold statement" would be equated,with,, "its hard to believe" "it sounds incredible"
no i do not doubt the method,
i said, "bold statement" becausei consider screaming, an all but unfixable problem