Animal Training Academy

Short windows of opportunity (owl training)

In this video I discuss using short windows of opportunity. The utilisation of short windows of opportunity has been a crucial ingredient in the success of many of my training endeavors. In this lesson you can see how I employ short windows of opportunity in owl training.

This is the basic method I would use when employing short windows of opportunity in my training.

1. Ask for a behaviour from my animal
2. Give my animal 3 seconds to behave.
3. If animal behaves desirably then offer reinforcement.
4. If animal doesn’t behave or behaves undesirably then pause for three seconds.
5. After a three second pause present my animal with another opportunity to behave and repeat above steps.

I normally give my animal three attempts at behaving. If after three attempts I don’t get the behavior I was aiming for then I normally take a time out.

(Note: General rule of thumb, each situation is unique and sometimes this necessitates a different approach. Also in early stages of training I give much longer opportunities to offer behavior, but generally try to shorten them nice and quick).

If I think the animal might be successful if presented with another opportunity I will wait 30 seconds and then re-engage in the training employing the above method. If I however think that maybe the animal doesn’t have a high probability of doing the desirable behavior I will pause for a little bit longer. If this is the case I have a few options. For example.

• Take some steps back in my training plan to a behavior my animal knows and has a strong history of reinforcement with.
• Examine the environment and see if I can make the right behavior easier to perform.
• Leave the training until a later time in the day.
• Sit down and brainstorm other ideas.

I hope you have enjoyed this quick little video on owl training. There is one more video in this series and it’s about the final stage of Molly’s training where we get her ready to free fly in an education show.