#aerial fetch

[flock-talk]

How do you teach aerial fetch ? Now that Luna knows fetch well, I like to give the next step a try but really don't know where to start off. Thank you!

You just lightly begin to raise your hand out of reach until she decides to jump up on to your hand to put the object in there, only rewarding when the object goes in your hand, if she has difficulty flying up you could also work on the edge of a table and just slowly move your hand farther from the edge so she goes from stretching to put it in, to hopping, then flying.  To get her to fly to the object you do the same thing in reverse, start her on your finger just a little bit above the table and put the object down so she has to step off to get it, then hop off, then flutter off, etc.

[flock-talk]

Mia had a little trouble figuring out the difference between a foot and a hand but she redeemed herself eventually!

[flock-talk]

Aerial Fetch

Your bird should already have a complete understanding of how to do ground fetch before moving on to this.

It's important to do a few rounds of regular ground fetch first, this helps get them in the correct mindset for what they're doing rather than trying to learn an entirely new concept, I cut that part out since it's a lot of repetition for you guys to sit and watch.  I start recording as soon as we start moving in to learning aerial fetch.

Basically you just hold your hand just above their heads so they have to stretch to get it in a few times then raise it a little higher so they can't reach, their instinct should be to fly up there and get it.  If they don't start flying the object you're using may be too heavy as you notice in the beginning both my birds refused to fly with the orange ball but when I switched to the lighter cardboard circle they took right off with it!  Gradually you raise your hand higher until they're comfortable flying with an object in their mouths.

To get them to fly to the object they need to understand and be motivated to play ground fetch.  Start them off just a little bit higher than ground level and throw the object, they should take off, if they don't you need to do more ground fetch practice!

As we progress we'll be refining it, only clicking when the object lands in my hand, increasing the height at which they need to fly for it and so on.