05 Dec When Differential Reinforcement Fails: A Constructional Approach to Vulture Weighing
Every trainer has faced it: a behavior that should work on paper but falls apart in practice. You’ve done everything right: high rate of reinforcement, clear criteria, incompatible behaviors. And yet the problem persists or even worsens. This is where the constructional approach reveals something essential about behavior change: sometimes we’re solving for the wrong behavior entirely.
This case study follows Dallas, a Turkey vulture, and her trainer Noelle through a weighing protocol that went sideways—and how rethinking the actual behavior challenge transformed the outcome.
The Problem: More Than Just “Bad” Scale Behavior
Turkey vultures do what Turkey vultures do: they grab, pull, and rip with their whole body engaged. It’s natural species behavior—feet on something, beak pulling hard. Most of the time, this behavior is just part of working with the bird. But on a turf scale? That grabbing and pulling becomes problematic. The scale can tip, creating an aversive experience that poisons the behavior. The bird learns the scale is unstable and dangerous.
When Noelle began working with Dallas in April, we saw the early signs: air snapping, grabbing at the scale wires, reluctance to leave the scale once she was there. The sessions were okay, not great, but manageable. We could work around the behavior to some degree. But as any trainer knows, “manageable” has a way of deteriorating without intervention.
Why Differential Reinforcement Didn’t Work
The obvious solution seemed straightforward: use differential reinforcement. If the problem was beak-down-on-scale, then reinforce the incompatible behavior: beak-up-off-scale. High rate of reinforcement for the desired topography, short intervals to prevent the problem behavior from occurring.
Here’s what that looked like in practice: Noelle reinforced heavily for Dallas keeping her beak up off the scale. Good rate, good timing. But when it came time to ask Dallas off the scale? She didn’t want to leave. She’d received so much reinforcement history in that one location that the scale became something to guard, something to protect.
With a Turkey vulture, high rates of reinforcement in one location can actually amplify resource guarding and competitive behaviors. We inadvertently created more problems than we started with. The scale became hyper-valuable, but not in a way that supported the behavior we actually needed: smooth, calm weighing with easy entry and exit.
We put the training on pause. This wasn’t a high-stakes behavior. Dallas doesn’t free fly or work offsite programs, so daily weighing isn’t mission-critical. We manage her weight for health (preventing bumblefoot, cardiovascular issues), but it’s not intensive. The training could wait until we had the time and clarity to approach it differently.
Developing a Looping Pattern: Solving for the Actual Behavior Challenge
A few months later, we revisited the behavior with fresh eyes and a different question: What behavior were we actually trying to solve for?
Most trainers would say: “I’m solving for calm behavior on the scale.” But here’s where the constructional approach shifts the frame entirely. We weren’t solving for calm-on-scale. We were solving for getting off the scale smoothly.
Think about it: if getting off the scale is highly reinforcing—if that’s the behavior the bird is looking forward to—then by proxy, you’re training for riding on the scale. The bird learns the scale is simply the path to what comes next. You eliminate the opportunity for problem behaviors to even occur because the bird is oriented toward the next reinforcement opportunity, not stuck guarding the current one.
This is the same principle we use when a parrot bites on the arm. We’re not solving for “not biting the arm.” We’re solving for getting off the arm smoothly. Make that transition valuable, and suddenly the bird is shaping itself toward smooth departures rather than defensive behaviors.
So we built a looping pattern: on the scale, off the scale. On, off. On, off. That was it. We didn’t care about her weight. We didn’t care about the topography. We didn’t care if it looked messy, and it did look messy at first.
In the first session after the restart, Dallas was rough. She grabbed, she pulled, we tossed food off the scale to get her moving. In hindsight, we probably didn’t even need to feed on the scale at all—the reinforcement was in the smooth exit, the crater, the next opportunity. But we got what we needed: a couple of sessions of on-off, on-off, building that pattern without the pressure of perfect form.
Not every step needs to be picture-perfect. Sometimes the behavior has to dip down and look messy before it can look calm and tidy. That’s exactly what this was.
Offering Genuine Choice: Degrees of Freedom in Action
As the looping pattern stabilized, we introduced degrees of freedom—genuine choice about where to access value. Dallas could:
- Come off the scale
- Go into the crate
- Stay on the scale briefly (but the reinforcement was elsewhere)
She wasn’t locked into one path to reinforcement. This is what true choice looks like in a training plan: multiple behaviors that all lead to value, rather than one narrow corridor where the bird either succeeds or fails.
Noelle began using a target fist: clear information about where the beak should be. Not rigidly enforced, but offered as a guide. Dallas could nibble the wires a bit, shift her weight, resettle. Those weren’t behaviors we punished or blocked. They were simply less valuable than the smooth transitions we were building.
And here’s what happened: behaviors we never directly addressed started to fade. In early sessions, Dallas would grab and snap when Noelle was setting up the crate, leaning down to prop the door. We didn’t train that away. We didn’t use differential reinforcement for calm-during-setup. But as the overall confidence in the session built—as Dallas learned the pattern and the reliability of reinforcement—those grabby, anxious behaviors diminished on their own.
This is what happens when you build resiliency and relationship rather than micromanaging every piece of topography. The bird learns to recover from small disruptions. The foundation strengthens, and the rough edges smooth out without targeted intervention.
The Actual Behavior Challenge: Understanding What You’re Really Training
This is where the constructional approach diverges from linear, pathological thinking. We often believe we have clear information: a clear antecedent, a clear behavior, a clear consequence. But we don’t always know what that consequence actually is for the bird. We don’t know what’s maintaining the problem behavior.
So instead of trying to suppress or replace the problem behavior directly, we provide far more valuable consequences for other behaviors. We uplift the foundation. We give the bird more to do, more ways to succeed, more opportunities to access reinforcement.
In Dallas’s case, we weren’t solving for “don’t grab the scale.” We were solving for “get off the scale smoothly.” That reframe changed everything.
When we change which behavior we actually want to be valuable—when we shift what we’re truly reinforcing—we can see rapid and sustainable behavior change.
Calm on the Scale: What Success Actually Looks Like
By the time we filmed the final sessions, Dallas looked like a different bird. Noelle would set up, and Dallas would wait, not perfectly still, but without the frantic grabbing. She’d step on the scale, Noelle would use the target fist to guide her beak position, and Dallas would offer a moment of stillness. Bridge, reinforce, off the scale. Into the crate. Done.
Was it flawless? No. We still saw some wire nibbling. We still had moments where the mechanics weren’t perfectly smooth. But it was functional. It was sustainable. And most importantly, Dallas had learned a pattern she could succeed in—one that didn’t require her to suppress natural species behaviors or guard a hyper-valuable location.
Progress is not linear. There were sessions that looked messier than the one before. But the trajectory was clear: Dallas was learning that value existed in movement, in transitions, in the flow between behaviors rather than in defending a single high-value spot.
Sustainability and Transfer: The Real Test
The final test came at an Alberta Prey training workshop, where Dallas worked with a completely new trainer, someone she’d never met, someone with different mechanics and timing. If the behavior was simply locked to Noelle, we’d see a reset. We’d be starting from scratch.
Instead, we saw something remarkable: the skills transferred. Dallas created calmly. She stepped onto the scale. She responded to the target fist. There was some recalibration, some adjustments as the new trainer found the rhythm, but the foundation held.
This is what the constructional approach builds: not behavior locked to one trainer or one rigid set of conditions, but adaptable skills that transfer across contexts. When you solve for the actual behavior challenge—when you give the bird genuine choice and multiple pathways to reinforcement—you’re not training a trick. You’re building capacity.
What This Means for Your Training
When you’re facing a persistent behavior problem, ask yourself:
What behavior am I actually solving for?
Not “what behavior do I want to stop,” but “what behavior do I want to become so valuable that the problem behavior becomes irrelevant?”
If you’re working on a parrot that bites the arm, you’re not solving for “not biting.” You’re solving for smooth transitions off the arm.
If you’re working on a bird that resource-guards a perch, you’re not solving for “stay calm on the perch.” You’re solving for easy departures to the next valuable thing.
If you’re working on crate training, you’re not solving for “tolerate the crate.” You’re solving for smooth exits that make the crate just one step in a reinforcing loop.
This shift in thinking, from suppressing problem behavior to building valuable alternative behaviors, is the heart of the constructional approach. It’s not about controlling the bird. It’s about giving the bird so many good options that the problem behavior simply doesn’t make sense anymore.
And when you do that, you don’t just get compliance. You get a bird that’s confident, resilient, and genuinely engaged in the work, because they know the work leads somewhere good.
Ready to Dive Deeper?
This case study demonstrates core principles of the constructional approach: genuine choice through degrees of freedom, solving for the actual behavior challenge rather than suppressing symptoms, and building sustainable skills that transfer across trainers and contexts. When we stop trying to eliminate problem behaviors and start building valuable alternative behaviors, we create training programs that work with the bird’s natural behavioral repertoire rather than against it.
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