Recall

["Douglas Delgado" <Dougandmona@m...>]

Thanks Katy for bringing this question to the list.

Nate has written about training recall to his older pionus Phoebe and he has 
done a great job. I have seen him recall Phoebe at the fly building and she 
is pretty responsive.

Having said that, it is a lot easier to teach a younger bird to recall. 
You can teach recall to an older bird but it just takes more patience and 
more "arranging the antecedents"......anyway, that's my opinion.

I had 100% recall out of my Senegal but I started when she was about six 
months old. She wanted to be with me or on me all of the time so I just 
took advantage of that and treated her. It did not take long for her to 
get the idea and than, all I had to do was apply a cue to it. She still 
has good recall but not 100% at the fly building any more. That is 
because she has figured out that if she lands on somebody else....she can 
get lots of treats.....so, she isn't working as hard to find me. She is 
no longer intimidated by strange people.....

I have recall out of my timneh, Phinney but it took several years to get to 
that point. I probably started training her for recall when she was about 
six years old. I think the biggest reason why she didn't recall easily was 
because she was not a proficient or comfortable flyer. She has become 
proficient in time. The day that she figured recall out was the day that 
she was leaning off her cage door. I was in the kitchen (highly motivated 
area for her to fly to) calling "Come here. Come here" and Babylon (the 
Senegal) flew behind Phinney and I swear, she pushed her. That was about 
it. The light bulb went off for Phinney and I now have a pretty good recall 
from my timneh.

Please take some time to look up the "Link" section in yahoogroups and read 
about Nate's technique for training Phoebe. I think he was much more 
systematic with his explanation than I have been.

I do have to say, with my Timneh, even though I have a pretty reliable and 
predictable recall.....I still have to work around the times when she is 
motivated to come to me. If she isn't in the mood, she just sits on her 
perch. The best times are feeding time......highly motivated....and if I 
have both birds in the aviary and it starts raining....again very highly 
motivated.

As a matter of fact, last Sunday at the fly building.....Jackie and Reggie 
(Timneh) completely showed Phinney up......Reggie was doing wonderful 
recalls and point to point flying. I know you are new to the list Katy but 
last week Jackie was making it sound like Phinney was the better trained 
bird......Not so at all.

Good luck.

Mona in Seattle
Phinneus Fowl (aka Phinney) TAG
Pretty Rita Cockatiel
Babylon (Senegal Poicephalus)
Doug (spousal unit)

>From: "Katy" <brietta_aithne@y...>
>Reply-To: Freeflight@yahoogroups.com
>To: Freeflight@yahoogroups.com
>Subject: [Freeflight] Intro, and qeustion.
>Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 19:26:34 -0000
>

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