Target Training: An Overview

Target training: the skill of touching a specific body part to a specific object. It’s a form of communication between two species who cannot communicate. I’m working with Blue and Gold Merlin for him to touch his beak, tongue is also accepted, to the end of this target stick to promote movement.

Usually, with most birds, a basic target can be taught within a day or two. But some birds, like Merlin, have a different process. Merlin took two weeks of consistent training to get him to this point. Every bird learns differently and reacts differently to new stimuli. Merlin wasn’t very desensitized to many things, and he aggresses quick when he feels threatened.

Since the target stick was new, he was first showing signs of fear towards it which would very quickly escalate to aggression. First, we had to desensitize the stick. Even 5 feet back he still had an undesirable response to the stick when it was held up and shown. Slowly we worked through the desensitization process at his pace until I could get close to him with the stick and he was no longer fearful. Then, he was very strong with how he interacted with the stick. I wanted a gentle touch. With the repositioning of the stick further away, coming in slower, it improved but still wasn’t perfect. Then, I had introduced a lure to get him to want to interact calmly with the object, since he’s such a gentle eater. I slowly phased out the lure to get to this point. His first successful targets.

The size of the reinforcer was larger (about 5 pine nuts) in order to increase the likelihood of the desirable behavior. The size will go down once the skill is mastered and increased with every new task. Pine nuts are his most valued reinforcer, so once targeting is on a maintenance schedule, the value of the reinforcer will decrease as he already knows the task.