A problem I've been running into in training Kili lately is that she will fly off during training sessions. I fully understand that this is something you have to deal with when working with a flighted bird but would like advice on how to handle it. Even if she seems motivated and training sometimes she'll fly off or fly past me on a recall. And I know that she is doing this intentionally.
The issue is not to reward this behavior of course but there is only so much I can do about ignoring it without jeopardizing training all together. If I ignore it, sometimes she comes back but a lot of the time she doesn't. If I go and manually fetch her, she will often continue her tricks so it is not that she is too tired or doesn't want to train absolutely. Sometimes this will happen right in the beginning of training session so I do not see a connection.
This is a dilemma. If I left her fly off and then walk over to get her, it's easy for her and reinforcing. If I don't get her but rather try to recall her back, that reinforces flying away to get recalled. If I do nothing, she may come back to me in 5 minutes but I don't have time to waste because I am usually training her in the evening and racing the clock. Because as soon as it hits 10, she hands in her workboots and goes to cage to eat. So I know that if too much time gets wasted, she will quit on me. Also, letting her get away with flying away then coming back, shows her that she can set the training schedule which clearly is out of the question.
Another option is that if she flies off, she gets put back in cage. The problem with continuing to negatively reinforce her by caging her for flying off will eventually teach her to try to fly away from me and make it all the harder to catch her. So in the long term that solution cannot work and can only cause problems.
As far as I can tell this leaves only two possible choices. Abandon training all together (or do the minimal amounts she'll participate in before getting annoying, but allowing that would make it worse) or to starve her. I exaggerate when I say starve of course but I guess it means I will have to go back to weight management for a while and see how that helps. Before I revert to that, anyone have a better solution???