charmedbyekkie
New member
Summary: I think Cairo has trained us, and I need to check how much I should push back on doing it 'the human way'.
Since Cairo was free-flight trained, he was accustomed to landing directly on an outstretched hand. I quickly noticed he didn't like the (in)stability of a hand and preferred landing on our forearms. It was to the point of he would consistently recall to the forearm, but less than half of the time recall to the hand. So we switched our recall training to landing on our arms. And he's quite good about it at home - all I have to do is gesture, and he goes immediately for my arm. But..... when he's flying on his harness in the park, he's a head lander. And for my partner at home, it's really a coin toss between heads or arms.
For me, I've been viewing recall training as retrieval if he gets into a dangerous situation, gets lost, etc. So at this point, I've been thinking that head landing is ok because the whole point is returning to us. And for Cairo, it's really more of a comfort thing - we chill out together with him preening and sleeping on my head since shoulders tend to move up and down and side to side when walking. And whenever he gets nervous about strangers, he flees from my shoulder to my head. I'm cool with it because it's him getting braver, from initially just flying off to now just going to my head.
That being said, it is a bit strange for many people to see him consistently landing on our heads. And for my partner, as any guy in his 30s, he's getting a bit concerned about hair loss
And I think he does compare us to the free flyers (I know he would love it if I gave the green light for Cairo to free fly again).
So he's been asking me to not give treats to Cairo if he lands on our heads during recall training. But I'm really not sure how to go about this. Any thoughts or advice?
Since Cairo was free-flight trained, he was accustomed to landing directly on an outstretched hand. I quickly noticed he didn't like the (in)stability of a hand and preferred landing on our forearms. It was to the point of he would consistently recall to the forearm, but less than half of the time recall to the hand. So we switched our recall training to landing on our arms. And he's quite good about it at home - all I have to do is gesture, and he goes immediately for my arm. But..... when he's flying on his harness in the park, he's a head lander. And for my partner at home, it's really a coin toss between heads or arms.
For me, I've been viewing recall training as retrieval if he gets into a dangerous situation, gets lost, etc. So at this point, I've been thinking that head landing is ok because the whole point is returning to us. And for Cairo, it's really more of a comfort thing - we chill out together with him preening and sleeping on my head since shoulders tend to move up and down and side to side when walking. And whenever he gets nervous about strangers, he flees from my shoulder to my head. I'm cool with it because it's him getting braver, from initially just flying off to now just going to my head.
That being said, it is a bit strange for many people to see him consistently landing on our heads. And for my partner, as any guy in his 30s, he's getting a bit concerned about hair loss
And I think he does compare us to the free flyers (I know he would love it if I gave the green light for Cairo to free fly again).So he's been asking me to not give treats to Cairo if he lands on our heads during recall training. But I'm really not sure how to go about this. Any thoughts or advice?
