Use Reinforcer Size and Type to Modify Behavior

Different behaviors have different weight. If your animal is learning something new, it’s efforts for doing the new thing, or the small approximations being shaped to achieve that behavior, should be rewarded higher than a behavior already learned.

So, let’s say we are teaching a bird to step up. When we put out hand up and the bird doesn’t bite, that is something possibly new. We would use a high valued treat the bird doesn’t get any other time, say a pine nut. After the bird knows to not bite the hand, we may drop it down to a sunflower seed for example. When the bird puts one foot up on the hand, back to pine nuts. When the bird is reliably doing this, back down to sunflower seeds. Putting your hand up and not biting is now really understood, so to reinforce that we may use a safflower seed.

Reinforcer importance is determined by the bird. Alfie’s favorite reinforcer is a pine nut. JoJo’s is a pumpkin seed. Munchkins is a sunflower seed. Rosie is a safflower seed. You don’t determine it, your bird does.

We can also modify the size of the reinforcer we use to reinforce behaviors as well as the different types of reinforcers. I’ll use size when the animal really goes above and beyond with a behavior we were struggling with to show them they’re really on the right track.

So much goes into training, which is why it’s important to have guidance and mentorship of a professional to help guide you for optimal success. Trail and error can work, but usually takes longer and may not be as effective as errorless learning.

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