Re: [Freeflight] Re: Recall Questions

[Nate Waddoups <thoughts@n...>]

On Mon, 1 Sep 2003, sophie_stamper wrote:

> With "in a session" i mean the 5-10 minutes where i put him on top of 
> his cage, me standing in front of him with reward visible and saying 
> the words "Bo, come". When he flies over, i click and reward him. 

How exactly do you think he knows it's not "session" time? Is it because
you don't put him down somewhere before calling him? Is it because you're
not showing him the reward (read: luring him) when you're not in a 
session? 

If the key thing is "put him on top of his cage" before calling him, try
waiting a minute after putting him on his cage, then call him. Hopefully
that way he'll associate the recall behavior less with being set down, so
it won't be "missing" from the out-of-session times.

If the key thing is luring him with food, try using the food lure at
random times outside of a session, and see if that helps. 

"In session" means something to you, but I would wager that it means
something different to him. You just need to figure out what it is he
notices about your sessions that makes him so much more interested in
coming to you. Then either fade that thing out of the sessions (slowly,
so he still maintains his good recall), or bring it into the non-session
times, to get him motivated.

He'll probably get better at it simply through practice. The fact that
you have him flying to you at all means that you've accomplished a huge
milestone, and he'll probably improve over time if you just keep doing
what you're doing. But, he'll improve faster if you can find out what it
is about sessions that motivates him, and do more of that, or find out
what it is about non-session times that de-motivates him, and do less of
that.

-- 

Nate Waddoups
Redmond WA USA
http://www.natew.com