When I stand outside in the rain with Carson the Red-tailed Hawk, she loves to take a bath. Her wings flutter and body shakes just like when she takes a bath in her water pan. But if I try to replicate that shower with a spray bottle, she's out.
Spray bottles are one of the common tools in a raptor trainer's kit. An on-call misting is useful for cooling birds on a hot day, assisting with beak and talon maintenance, and providing enrichment. Birds usually love it. But whenever Carson even sees a mister, she runs to the opposite side of her mew.
Since I knew Carson liked taking a bath in the rain, I decided to see if I could help her enjoy a mist bath. I started by replacing the spray bottle. Instead of the standard sprayer with a squeaky plastic handle, I purchased a pressurized mister. It has a pump that I can charge before entering her mew and just have to press and hold a button to release up to 20 seconds of a fine mist. I was hoping the quieter tool would do the trick, but Carson still ran from it.
It was time to try some counterconditioning. That's a fancy term for pairing something scary (the spray bottle) with something exciting (food). It is a type of training that doesn't teach a behavior; it changes the animal's emotional state. In this case, I hoped to change Carson's fear into excitement at the sight of the mister.
I started easy. I held the sprayer where she could just see it at a distance. I quickly delivered a rat tidbit and hid the sprayer behind my back. We repeated that several times so she began to learn that the bottle predicts that food is coming. Instead of thinking, "oh no, the bottle is going to do something scary," she began to get the idea that, "hey, that bottle means something good is going to happen."
Once she was comfortable with that, I showed the bottle, pressed the spray button for one second (sending the mist away from Carson), and quickly delivered a treat. Now we repeated that over and over. Spray, treat. Spray, treat. Spray, treat. She started to pay less attention to the spraying and spent more time anticipating her food.
Through more repetitions, I gradually increased the time I pressed the button and slowly inched the spray path closer to Carson. Finally I aimed the mist at Carson's back for one second. She flinched at the new sensation but quickly looked to my right hand for her treat.
As of now, we've worked up to a 4 second mist bath. We still have a ways to go, but considering I've been trying unsuccessfully for years to mist her, I'd say the counterconditioning is working!
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