What Does Behavioral Success Look Like?

What does behavior success look like for birds?

Well, it depends on the bird and the caretakers goals. I really like to focus on equipping the birds with the skills needed to better adapt with captive life. They didn’t ask to be here, so let’s give them the tools in order to feel safe in their environment, trust their handlers, decrease stress and anxieties, increase choice, and get educated to do best for them.

For Crazy Bird, my goal for him was to not feel the need to aggress and safe and reliable transportation. That was it. I kept it extremely broad with him because he had such severe behaviors that I had to work through.

So you think two goals, two behaviors to learn. Think again. There were a wide range of behaviors taught to CB:
Station training, target training, desensitizing my distance to his cage, towel desensitization, step up on the towel, take food out of my hand all in the cage… then retrain it for out of the cage because both environments were showing extreme behavior, of course starting behind protective contact in the cage then outside when he had more skills developed.

He has reached his initial behavioral goals. But, there are always new goals we can set for him. Behavior can always be modified and built up through progression. I’m not done with CB, I really want to push our training to see how much behavior I can undo after 35ish years of rehearsing. He can now do well in captive care, but I want to help him thrive!