Trust. It's at the core of how I train all my animals. But unfortunately there are times when it is necessary to take a withdrawal from our trust account.
Last week it was time for Carson's medical check-up and beak trim. We had to restrain the hawk on the table while I checked her body condition and foot health, then trimmed overgrown talons and beak. It was over quickly but, as you might imagine, it was a stressful event for Carson.
The next day, I didn't ask her to step on my glove. I knew that her trust in me would be low after the exam so we kept things easy. Hop to the scale. Section of rat leg. Touch the target stick. Piece of liver. Jump to another perch. Chunk of muscle. With each tasty tidbit, I added a deposit back into our trust account.
Luckily our trust account before the exam was already quite high. It was so high, in fact, that the large withdrawal taken during the procedure did not put us into negative numbers. It only took a few days to rebuild the trust lost before Carson was willing to come outside with me. She was well-rewarded with lots a food and a good soak in the sun!
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