Comments on: 3 Common Clicker Training Mistakes

By: Mary

Mary — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 20:04:52 +0000

Great post, as always!

Unfortunately, I think the reward that would be most motivating to my macaw would be to allow him to bite me.

We’re not making much training progress with the second-best options, but I’m not giving up!

By: Mat Richards

Mat Richards — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 20:03:39 +0000

As a Professional Bird Trainer I would be lost without my clicker. All of our close contact training training is with the clicker whilst we use a whistle for flight training.
The clicker is a fantastic tool when used correctly. I really feel there should be a practical course so that people can learn this technique properly as I am seeing many people who reinforce an incorrect behavior and subsequently reward it.
Timing is everything as they say!

By: Best in Flock

Best in Flock — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:00:03 +0000

Stewie is an easy one to train; he’s very treat motivated. I still struggle with Mika. She likes safflower and sunflower seeds enough to target anywhere I ask, but when it comes to retrieve, she’d rather just play with the object. I’m thinking it might be time to move onto a non-prop behavior because we’re not really making progress with retrieve. She won’t work for praise, or scritches, so maybe I can use a toy as a reward for a non-prop behavior.

By: Best in Flock

Best in Flock — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:56:05 +0000

Exactly.

It’s the tool of choice for most modern dog trainers, and when people think of clicker training, they think of dogs, although there’s lots of talk about using it with dolphins and circus/zoo animals. IOW, it’s a fairly mainstream concept in other animal training circles, but so many people don’t realize yet that it works with pet birds. And since this is a bird blog, my focus naturally is on using it with birds. If I had a dolphin blog, I’d talk about clicker training dolphins, even if the concept works generally with lots of animals.

By: Animals Away

Animals Away — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:56:41 +0000

The clicker works great for many different types of animals not just birds.

By: Meg

Meg — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 21:58:49 +0000

In my parrots, I seem to have the full spectrum of possible clicker training rewards. Frank works best for praise – not petting, and certainly not treats, even favored ones. However, Claudia is verrryyy picky, and only will work with you IF she does not have anything else to do, IF she is hungry enough, and IF you are offering her a large enough piece of her most favored treat. And her favored treat varies after a few weeks, as she grows tired of it. After saying that, you would never know she was at least as affectionate as Frank, if not more! The others all vary somewhere in between.