# Training for flight around house



## Hemlock (Aug 1, 2010)

So, after much discussion, DH and I have decided that we're going to allow Littlefoot free flight around the house when the dog is crated, and the cats locked away. This wasn't an option with Rio, but we figure that with Littlefoot we might as well allow her to be a bird.

So, how exactly do we teach her Recall? I really don't want to have to chase her around the house once her wings come in. Now, when she's on her Pirate Ship (new playpen we got at the Bird Expo a couple of weeks ago), she does attempt to fly over to me when I'm on the computer... about 4-5 feet away. 
Her wings are growing in, but unevenly, though they've been trimmed evenly.
She doesn't have any lift or glide ability (they cut her wings too short IMO), so she just crash lands.

Anyways, back to the original topic, how do we go about training Recall?


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## MeanneyFids (Aug 24, 2010)

im doing the same exact thing with dally right now. what you do is find out a place she really wants to go. first start out very short distances. maybe a hop and flap sorta thing. to get her to take off, kinda rock your hand slightly so shes unbalanced. when she lands good on the target, move a little farther and do the same thing. once she gets far enough away to where she falls, go back to the step before that and keep practising. the next day try it all over again. reward her with her favourite treat and keep sessions short, no longer than 15 min at a time. try at first on something large, like the top of her cage. then work on narrower things when she learns to fly to the cage top no problem from a good distance. check out my "flying, finally" thread in the photo section. this should give some visual ideas. my dallys feathers arent all grown in yet so she cant get too far yet


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## Dave & Tito (Aug 1, 2010)

Tito's flight feathers grew in and we began letting him have free 'practice'; didn't matter where he was trying to fly, the point was that he was slowly learning to control himself in the air better. Once he could do that he would sometimes try to fly to us simply because he wanted to be with us. When he started this we began 'recall' training, you could see him bobbbing and posturing as though he was about to fly and when he'd do this we'd say "come!" and extend an arm out ro one side. He started flying to us and perching there, and we'd of course use the clicker, offer a treat and make a big deal of it. After about two days the clicker and treats were'nt needed, the treat seemed to be out company.

My point here I guess is that it's important to be sure birdy is capable, to discover what might motivate him to fly to you and then chose the right time to train (perhaps the birds chose the right time for us!).

If you have those bases covered the training seems to happen organically.

Good luck!


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