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Hopping & Recall Training an Adult Bird Who Won't "Take That Leap"

MrsPapiga

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For reference - My flock:
Main bird of interest: Merlin (10yo.)
The rest of the flock: Hera (7yo.), Ruto (1yo.), and Callisto (3 mo.).

Hello there!
I’m wanting to get some advice on convincing Merlin to hop with the end goal of getting him some experience with recall training, so when he does fly, he’ll do it intentionally and with good control. I’ve had him since he was a baby. He was recently in for a vet exam and he has a clean bill of health, and is 62 grams, so definitely not overweight. The vet also said he’s got really good muscles.
He steps up without using his beak (he leads with his feet), shakes “hands”, spins, understands “touch” (the target stick), “be calm,” and “gives kisses,” all very consistently. I’ve tried using both my hand and a second T perch to get him to the point of hopping, but if he deems my hand or the perch too far, he just gives up. He tries to reach out to them with his beak, or he’ll turn around and try to step up backwards. After those both fail, he’ll usually hunker down and flutter his shoulders (not his whole wings) but that’s as far as he’ll go. I’ve considered the possibility of clicking and rewarding when he gets into flying position, because it could be a gateway action to hopping or flying, but I haven’t managed to convince myself to do that in case it could be detrimental in the long run.
I have three other green cheeks who all fly very well and frequently, but he’s never shown any desire to fly with them. I’ve tried gently raising and lowering him on almost like a really slow and steady roller coaster ride around the room, and he just enjoys sitting contentedly on my finger and doesn’t flap at all. The same motions generally lead to my other birds doing a few laps around the room, and lets them know they don’t need to stay with/on me at this time. They generally wait for permission to know they’re allowed to flap about for fun.
He’s usually on my person for two or three hours a day, and during that time he’ll fly around the room a time or two for fun, and sometimes has “fright flights,” too. My reasoning behind wanting to work with him on hopping and flying intentionally is so that he’ll better understand how and what to land on. About 40% of the time, the flights he takes conclude with him flying into a wall and falling to the ground. I keep the curtains over the windows while he’s out, because they’re a soft and illuminated place he could land, but he generally crashes into the wall anyway. He’s managed to land on a door frame a couple of times as well, which is still a crash landing, but it’s at least not him falling onto the ground. The times he lands somewhere intentionally, it’s usually one of their cages.
Are there any other techniques or methods I should be utilizing with him? Is this something I shouldn’t even worry about? Hearing him thud into the wall isn’t a fun time. He seems to get discouraged whenever he can’t perform the action I request of him while we’re training, and I don’t want his “failure” to be a detriment to our bond. He clearly understands what I’m asking of him, because he gets in flying position and doesn’t put out any of the “I’m confused and don’t understand what you want from me” mannerisms. Thoughts or suggestions?
TIA for taking the time to read this!!
 

expressmailtome

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Tazlima

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If he lands successfully on the cage, why not start by having him hop from a perch or other stable surface to the cage?

My grey came to me with no idea how to fly. She still has a long way to go, but she can do the flap hops now, and the most important element for her is selecting a place she knows she can safely land. She won't jump between two perches, but she will jump/fly from the coffee table to the couch, so that's where we do flight training (my couch is covered with a blanket, so it's soft to land on and easily gripped). More recently she has also decided she feels safe jumping from my hand to her cage. Those are the only two scenarios where she'll voluntarily fly/hop for a treat so far, but that's massive progress for her.

Find where your bird feels most comfortable landing, and build from there. The most important thing at this point is designing the challenge so they're confident they can succeed easily and without injury.
 
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Fuzzy

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I’ve tried using both my hand and a second T perch to get him to the point of hopping, but if he deems my hand or the perch too far, he just gives up. He tries to reach out to them with his beak, or he’ll turn around and try to step up backwards. After those both fail, he’ll usually hunker down and flutter his shoulders (not his whole wings) but that’s as far as he’ll go.
Hi there!
So he steps up no problem. A good place to begin the shaping procedure. Have you tried breaking down the approximations/steps even smaller than they are now so that he is set up for success, and not moving to the next approximation until he's fluent in the previous? Even luring him with a special treat (which you can fade later)? Strange how he bumps into walls 40% of the time and it isn't improving. His eyesight is ok? If he can do an approximation, you could try using behaviour momentum which is cue-ing other easy-to-do behaviours first in quick fire succession and then immediately ask him for the more difficult behaviour (the hop)... and of course reinforce like mad!!
 

MrsPapiga

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Thanks so much for your responses, @Tazlima and @Fuzzy !
I'd asked this question a while back while we were living in an apartment, but we recently moved and my Merlin has been doing loads better with flight control here! I think this is partially due to the fact that we're now in a house with no noisy crashes happening from neighbor's kids and no dogs barking (sudden noises were a frequent trigger for his flights, although not the only one). He got startled the other day when Hera did a flock call from the bird room while he was in my room with me, so he did his frantic loop flight and found one of their play stands to land on, and immediately turned to me and flew back to my shoulder!

Regarding your insights, thank you so much! You've both mentioned wonderful things that I will be implementing with Merlin from now on. Again, thank you so much!
 

Fuzzy

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How wonderful that Merlin should safely fly to a playstand and then your shoulder! Glad things are much better in your new home.
Another way of encouraging him to fly in a controlled way could be to teach him how to target first (touching something like the end of a chopstick, with his beak, for a favourite treat). When the behaviour is smooth, begin holding the target (hold it still each time) at gradually increasingly further distances so that he has to travel (walk/hop/fly) to touch the target for his treat.
 

MrsPapiga

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Unfortunately, his targeting is already fabulous Targeting was where I began with training them a while back, and he picked up on it immediately, because he'd seen my other bird learn to do it first (like 10 whole minutes before), and he knew there'd be a pine nut for his efforts. It's been funny training them to do tricks and such, because the first bird I train the trick to gets a hefty amount more training on how to do the behaviour properly, and the other birds already have a clue what's going on by the time it's their turn and learn it significantly faster.
 
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