Quote Originally Posted by Lynckmob25 View Post
One of my initial issues was that my bird was hanging out +50 yards behind me. After speaking with someone from this site, this person quickly realized my problem. Every time I walked and the bird lagged behind, I would hold up my glove and give him a tidbit. I now realized that I trained him that if he lags behind, he will get a tidbit off my glove. I created that behavior. Now, I am creating scenarios where the bird with have to fly past me to get to the next tree or post. My plan is now to tidbit my bird only when he is front of me and/or to release baggies only when he is in front of me.
Just understanding that scenario, helped me understand more about OC.
One key to training, any kind of training, not just OC, is to pay close attention to the signals you are giving both consciously and sub-conciosly.

Reward the behaviors you want to see more of. Even if that means blowing a chance to catch something. If your a trap-hunt-release kind of guy, it might not be worth as much to get the behaviors you want, but if you spend several seasons with your hawk then the short term loss is worth it in the long run. By short term loss I mean this - if you see your hawk do something really cool, and you give them the lure to encourage more of it at the expense of being to hunt more that day, you have sacrificed short terms gains for the long term goal.

I keep my hawks as long term projects, so for me it is easy to see where the priority is an that is always in my mind.

Don't shoot the dog is a great start. Should be required reading.