Clicker training is a fantastic method for taming and training parrots, effective on everything from little budgies and cockatiels to ornery cockatoos. It’s amazingly simple and easy to do, and yields really fast results. The basis of clicker training is positive reinforcement/operant conditioning, and the “secret” of the clicker is that it’s a simple way to communicate. As soon as your parrot starts to understand that “click” means “good, now here’s your reward”, it opens up so many possibilities.
If you’ve started clicker training and aren’t seeing great results, check to see if you are making any (or all) of these three common clicker training mistakes.
Mistake #1: Clicking But Not Delivering a Treat
A click is a promise of a treat. If you click for the desired behavior but don’t follow up, you are breaking the implicit contract of clicker training your bird. “Click” always means treat, even if you made a mistake and clicked for the wrong thing.
However, after the behavior is well established and you are sure that your bird understands what you’re asking for, you can phase out the clicker. You should continue to reward the desired behavior, but a treat is no longer required 100% of the time. (In other words, you can treat without a click, but a click always means a treat is coming.) In fact, variable reinforcement can actually be much better at creating a stronger behavior (both bad and good).
Solution: Perfect your clicker timing and always deliver a treat after clicking.
Mistake #2: Not Using a Consistent Marker
As I mentioned in my clicker training myths post, there is nothing magical about the clicker that causes the bird to do what you want, but it has several advantages: it is a distinct and sharp sound that can mark a very precise point in time; it is a consistent noise that always sounds the same; it doesn’t sound like anything else the bird is likely to hear during non-training times. The bird understand that the click has one simple function: to signal that they did the right thing and earned a treat.
You can choose not to use a clicker device as a marker (or “bridge” to the reward), but using a verbal marker is not as precise and could cause training (and learning) to go much slower. If you choose to use the word “good” as a bridge rather than a mechanical click, be conscious of using the same intonation, inflection and timing every time. If your supposed marker is just a combination of long sounds all strung together — “gooooooood. good. gooooood biiiiiirrrrd” — your bird will probably understand that you’re pleased, but have no clue what specific thing is generating the praise, which is the whole point of the marker.
Solution: Use a clicker. If you can’t use a device that makes a distinct, sharp sound, then clicking with your tongue would still be preferable to using a word.
Mistake #3: Using the Wrong Training Reward
The first “trick” you should start teaching your bird is targeting, but even before that the first step of training is figuring out what your bird’s favorite treat is. “Treat testing” involves offering your bird several high-value food items and seeing which one it consistently eats first. Whatever that is, is what your bird prefers most and will probably be willing to work for.
Birds are not like dogs in that their owner’s approval is enough to make them jump through hoops (figuratively or literally). They need to know there’s something in it for them. You don’t have to use food as a reward but it tends to be the easiest to deliver. Things like a head rub could potentially be used as a reward, but only if the bird finds it rewarding enough to work for it. Giving scritches to a bird who barely tolerates them, in other words, is not the correct way to C/T.
The problem with rewards is that we (as humans) tend to focus too much on what we ourselves think should be rewarding, not what actually is to our training subject. Remember: a reinforcer is only a reinforcer if it causes the behavior to increase. I.e., if your bird isn’t eagerly working to get that reward… it’s not much of a reward.
Solution: Conduct treat testing and observe which treats your bird is most enthusiastic about. Remove that item from his daily diet and only use it as a training reward.
I frequently see people struggling with getting their bird back in its cage. I adapted one of my recent BirdBoard responses into a blog post.
How do you get your bird to go in its cage? My parrot always puts up a fuss and runs/flies away when it’s time for him to go back in.
Look at the situation from your bird’s point of view.
You really have to make it worth it to them if you want them to go inside without a fuss. Imagine it was you being locked up… wouldn’t you fight to stay out if being inside your cage meant no more attention, no more playtime, no more fun?
Mika Playing in Her Cage
A quick digression: The most important thing you need to do (regardless of whether you have trouble getting your bird to go back inside) is to make sure the cage is a fun and safe place.
The cage is your parrot’s home and probably where he spends a good part of his day — it should go without saying that your pet parrot should have as much out-of-cage time as possible (at least a few hours a day), but inside the cage is the safest place for him when he can’t be supervised (when you’re at work) or it’s not safe for him to be out (for example, when you’re cooking). In addition to food and fresh water, the cage should have plenty of space to move around in, plus a variety of toys, perches and enrichment activities.
Your bird’s cage should be situated near where the family activity is, but in a location where he can feel safe (e.g., against a wall, not directly in front of a window). Being inside the cage should never feel like punishment.
But even if your parrot’s cage is the birdie equivalent of Disneyland, being outside — with YOU — is still going to be much more appealing to most pet birds.
So, there are a couple things I do to insure I don’t have to fight with my birds to get them to go inside:
1) Reinforce random step-ups. I give them a treat for stepping up and then put them back down. I do this repeatedly throughout the day. The purpose is to pair step-ups with treats (reward) and show them that a step-up doesn’t necessarily interrupt whatever they were doing before. If they get to step right back off, it costs them nothing and they even get a treat. Only rarely does “step up” equal going inside the cage.
2) Have them go inside and then let them come back out a few seconds later. This teaches them that going inside doesn’t mean that the fun ends right away. Neither does going in the cage mean that I’m leaving. I think a lot of birds don’t like going inside because they know it means their person is leaving them for the next few hours, so I make sure they get a bit of inside the cage time when I’m sitting right there next to them, still paying attention to them. That way inside-time doesn’t equal me being gone or them not getting any attention.
3) Put a very special treat inside their cage that they ONLY get when it’s time to go inside. Sometimes they can come back out when they’re done, but they only get to eat it inside their cage. Nutriberries work like magic in our house. In fact, 99% of the time, I put the treat in their cage and they run inside by themselves. I don’t even have to put them inside; I only have to close the door behind them. Being inside the cage might not be the best thing ever, but neither is it a terrible thing since they get to associate it with a very special treat.
Magic ———->
The important thing, as far as my approach, is that they get to choose to go inside. Having the choice makes it much more palatable for them. Also, I make sure that for them doing what I want isn’t always followed by something not nice. Otherwise I know they’d stop cooperating. (Think about it this way: if every time your boss said “can you come in here?” you got yelled at, wouldn’t you be much more reluctant to go over there? But if going into his office usually meant something nice, you’d be much more eager, right?)
FWIW, they didn’t start off being this cooperative. It took some training, so don’t be discouraged if it doesn’t work right away. You might also want to try target training to help the process along.
p.s. Mika blogged about why she goes back inside her cage a few months ago. She doesn’t realize that she’s constantly taking part in training, and that’s part of the trick: she thinks it’s all her idea. Shhhh
p.p.s. Slightly off topic, but not really: Below a great video of someone using clicker training to introduce their African Grey to a new travel carrier. Notice how the trainer doesn’t rush the CAG and lets her explore the cage on her own terms. They also do a great job ”treating for position” (You always want to click for the behavior, but place the treat in a position that reinforces continuation of that behavior.)
Basically I began to desensitize him to this new object by C/T’ing him for stepping close to it and beaking it.
But I needed to be careful that he didn’t think beaking it was the final objective (i.e., he started to think the desired behavior was to “target” the skateboard). The catch with “shaping” a behavior is not to linger on one step too long, or that becomes the behavior the bird gets stuck on.
So after it was clear that Stewie was comfortable getting close to the prop, it was time to move towards getting him to put his foot on it.
My first approach was to put the prop in his way (braced, so it wouldn’t accidentally move and startled him) and asked him to touch the target stick behind the prop. My hope was that he’d step on it in order to get to the target stick, but he usually just stretched his neck or found some way to walk around it.
Then I decided that my best bet was to get him used to stepping up on the skateboard while I held it.
Here are the steps I used to shape him to stand on the skateboard like a perch:
1.) I held the prop between my thumb and forefinger, kept my arm horizontal to the floor and presented my hand directly in front of him.
2.) I asked him to step up, so it looked like I was asking him to “step up” on my finger. (He’s not a big fan of stepping up onto fingers, so this wasn’t necessarily the obvious choice.)
3.) I started by rewarded a foot lift.
4.) We moved to touching his foot to my finger and the skateboard at the same time.
5.) Then I required that he put weight onto the skateboard with one foot.
6.) Only after it was clear that he understood that touching the skateboard was part of the trick (as opposed to reaching around my finger and stepping up on my wrist), I changed the way I held the skateboard so he could stand on the skateboard like a perch. At this point, I kept my hand where it was so he could step off as soon as he got his treat. I feel it’s important in the early stages to give him the opportunity to back off quickly if he isn’t feeling secure, otherwise he might not be as willing to leave his comfort zone the next time I ask.
7.) Once I had him stepping onto the skateboard prop consistently, I fed him several seeds one after the other to let him know I wanted him to stay on it, rather than stepping back off.
8.) After that, I started moving him a few inches away from his cage to get him comfortable with the idea of standing on it while it moved.
9.) To document his progress, I got out the camera to take photos At this point he was comfortable enough to stand on one foot to eat his reward.
Still a little unsure:
A little more comfortable:
Now we’re getting it:
Ready for a half-pipe:
This is all progress he’s made over the course of a couple 5-minute training sessions staggered throughout the weekend. For the next couple of sessions we’ll just continue to reward what he’s comfortable with so far (which is to step up onto the skateboard whenever I hold it in front of him).
Part III in the skateboard training process (whenever I get around to it) is to get Stewie comfortable with standing on the skateboard while I push it along a flat surface.
I could probably have achieved these pictures much faster by using a bit of luring and simply not giving him the opportunity to retreat, but the point of the training is not simply to force him to stand on the skateboard (and get some cute pictures), but to ensure he’s comfortable with the prop and get him excited about making progress on this trick.
Some birds (like Mika) step up pretty much whenever you present your finger in the step-up position. Stewie thinks that’s for suckers.
Here are his rules for getting him to step up (from his perspective):
1) Bribes - A bribe is when I show him the treat (and let him watch me get the treat) before asking for a step up, rather than presenting the reward only after he has performed the queued behavior. Not preferred by me, but sometimes it needs to be done. Although he gets a treat for performing most tricks on cue, stepping up is such a basic command that it doesn’t usually get a food reward – so knowing that one will be coming is much more motivating for him. What I try not to do, however, is use the treat to “lure” him onto my hand (i.e., luring would be making him step up in order to reach the treat).
2) Playing on his fear of being left behind - This technique is most often used in the bathroom, where he enjoys hanging out on his perch attached to the mirror. I often take him in to the bathroom with me if both birds are out because I don’t trust him alone with Mika. Usually when I’m ready to leave again, he won’t step up. If I keep insisting he’ll nip at me. So I simply turn around and pretend I’m walking out the door. If I do that and then ask him to step up, he usually does.
3) Present a forearm instead of fingers - When I got Stewie he didn’t trust fingers, and presenting a finger often got you bitten. So we trained stepping up onto an arm. Even though he is much better about (my) fingers now, he still doesn’t care much for stepping up onto a finger. Often he just beaks or nibbles on my fingers as if to say, “yes, this thing you’re showing me is interesting, but what about it?” Arms and shoulders are much better prompts to get him to step up. If a bird is being cantankerous and bite-y, however, then presenting a finger will surely get you bitten; in that case I recommend using an arm (harder to get a beak around) or even just a hand-held perch (like a dowel or a ladder).
4) Approach from the south side of the cage - This is just a weird Stewie quirk. For some reason, if I approach him from the right side of the cage, he’s much more likely to step up than if I ask for a step up from the other side. It’s possible that he hasn’t generalized the “trick”, or it could be that he thinks we’re more likely to go to a fun place if I’m standing on one side versus the other. Obviously something that needs more positive reinforcement training to get him to step up from anywhere, but the point is that if you’re having trouble getting your bird to perform a trick, watch carefully for patterns and preferences – it might not be entirely random.
5) Be standing; don’t reach up - This point is similar to the one above. If I want Stewie to step up, then my whole arm needs to be at least at his level. If I’m sitting in my computer chair and reach for Stewie, he’s likely just to look at me, beak my hand or play with my sleeve; if I’m in the exact same position, but standing, he’ll step up on my outreached arm. I think it just feels more secure for him because parrots equate height with safety. Like most parrots, getting my birds to step up when they are on the floor is pretty much guaranteed because they do not want to be down there (the ground is where they are most vulnerable to predators in the wild). If you have a flighted bird who likes to land on curtain rods, you want to make sure that you train “step up” even if you’re reaching up from below. Also important in case you ever need to retrieve an escaped bird from a tree.
These examples are just some ways that Stewie is an odd duck (conure) about how he prefers to be asked to step up. Your bird probably has different quirks. It’s important to know your bird’s quirks before you can devise a strategy for overcoming or working around them.
I’ve probably mentioned that I recently read Don’t Shoot the Dog by Karen Pryor, a book that popularized clicker training among pet owners in the United States, and which spawned a whole industry — including clicker training books like Clicker Training for Birds by Melinda Johnson, which talks specifically about how to train parrots.
Since I just reviewed that clicker training book on this site, I decided to post my book review of Don’t Shoot the Dog to PetKnows.com, where I thought the topic could appeal to a broader (read: non-bird) audience.
But if you already own Clicker Training for Birds and want to get a broader understanding of the clicker training philosophy or just want to know what inspired Melinda Johnson’s how-to guide for birds, please check out my latest post on PetKnows: Don’t Shoot the Dog – Book Review.
Getting Started: Clicker Training for Birds by Melinda Johnson is my bible for anything related to parrot ownership, including taming or training my parrots. If you read my blog or read the Bird Board forum, you’ll notice that I mention it frequently — both to people who have problems with their birds (e.g. “my bird bites me”, “how do I teach my bird not to scream so much”, “my new parrot is scared of me”) as well as bird owners who have great relationships with their pets and are interested in teaching their parrots to do some cool tricks to show off.
Can clicker training solve every parrot problem? No. But it’s a fantastic place to start. And I bet it’ll help way more than you expect it to. Can I guarantee your bird will be the next Alex the African Grey? Probably not. But you and your bird will have a ton of fun learning and impressing everyone with what he can learn.
Clicker Training My First Bird
I belonged to the former camp when I discovered the concept of clicker training birds. In the summer of 2007 I adopted a sun conure from the local animal shelter. The name I chose for him was Stewie, after the Family Guy character because that Stewie was also a misanthrope who especially hated his mom. But as a baby, no one could understand what Stewie was saying so they all thought he was just being cute and babbling when he was really saying “Louis must die!!” and plotting her demise.
That’s what I thought my little orange ball of feathers was thinking about me.
After several months of trying to make friends with a bird who enjoyed nothing more than biting me, I started doing research on taming an unfriendly parrot and stumbled across the Bird Click group, moderated by Melinda Johnson.
There I learned that clicker training is a great way to improve your relationship with your bird because it teaches you to communicate with your parrot, so I gave it a try. The process of training helped me to tame Stewie by building trust. I showed him that I was the source of yummy treats and that it wasn’t that hard for him to manipulate me into giving them to him. Because of the training he eventually stopped biting. It didn’t happen overnight, but it did happen faster than I thought it would.
Today, Stewie still has a nippy moment every now and then but he’s no longer out for blood. He’s an affectionate bird who enjoys hanging out on my shoulder, preening my face or trying to climb into my shirt.
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Clicker Training for Birds, 150 page book of complete training and care
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The Best Book for Training Birds
The thing to understand about Melinda Johnson’s Getting Started: Clicker Training for Birds is that it doesn’t focus on step-by-step guides to individual tricks. Clicker training, as I see it, isn’t really about the tricks. It’s about learning a common language, about teaching trust, about establishing a rapport, about learning how to teach and learning how to learn. One Amazon reviewer only gave the book a so-so review saying:
“This book is mostly about behavior in parrots. There is a lot of good information on that subject but not enough on the clicker training which is the reason I bought the book. Still, there’s enough to give you the idea of how and why it works to make it worthwhile reading. What I would rather have seen is a book that concentrated on just the clicker training aspect.”
But I think this review misses the point of the book. It’s not a cook book with a bunch of recipes to follow. Melinda Johnson’s approach is about learning how to train your bird as much as it’s about your bird learning how to learn. A book that only focuses on the step-by-step of how to teach a particular trick, might show you how to teach that one trick… and then you have a bird who might know one trick. But a book that explains the whys and hows of positive reinforcement training and the principles of training, gives you the resources you need to teach any trick you can think of and a parrot who understands the joys and rewards of figuring out what you want, and then trying different ways to please you.
Chapter 1: Clicker Training Is for the Birds! explains that training can add “a special dimension to a bird’s life” because birds in captivity tend not to have use their minds the way their wild counterparts do. Training stimulates their creativity and resourcefulness. When they figure out that you’re trying to communicate and play with them in new ways, it sets the foundation for a great new, multi-dimensional relationship. Chapter 1 gives a brief overview of what “clicker training” is, the role of the clicker, why this type of training works so well, what types of birds can be trained, what kinds of tricks can be taught and who makes a good clicker trainer (hint: it’s you!) From there, we go backwards a bit to set a foundation to make sure you and your birds are set up for success.
Chapter 2: Birdie Basics explains the importance of diet, exercise, sleep, lighting, parrot health, wing trimming, and toys.
Chapter 3: Getting Ready covers things like when you should start training, how you train multiple birds, where to train, how to train cage-bound or aggressive birds, how long training sessions last and who makes a good parrot trainer (hint: it’s you!)
Chapter 4: How Learning Takes Place is, in my opinion, the money chapter. This is where Melinda introduces concepts like classical and operant conditioning (and explains positive reinforcement, punishment and non-consequence). You learn the purpose of an “extinction burst”. You learn why punishment is not effective at behavior modification — not just that you shouldn’t use punishment, but why it doesn’t really work. Basic concepts like dominance, flooding, systematic desensitization and the “ABCs of behavior” are also discussed. If you understand how learning happens, you’re already armed with some amazing relationship-changing tools.
Chapter 5: Treats is about… you guess it: treats! What’s a good training treat, what’s not, how do you deliver a treat reward, what’s the difference between a bribe and a treat, using praise, how to work with a bird who doesn’t want treats, etc.
Chapter 6: All About the Clicker explains everything there is to know about the device that makes the clicking sound. What is a clicker, how does it work, why does a clicker work better than no clicker, why is timing important and how can I improve mine, when do you click, what do you do afterward, and lots of other clicker FAQs.
Chapter 7: Clicker Training Basics is about putting into practice what we learned in earlier chapters. It helps you create your training plan and goes into specifics of how to train: capturing a behavior, modeling a behavior, luring, shaping/refining behavior. It gives specific examples of how to chain a behavior. We also learn about begging in this chapter, how to deal with blocks, learning how to observe carefully and, importantly, how to deal with unwanted behaviors.
Chapter 8: Prop Behaviors is where we get into the nitty gritty of teaching specific behaviors. Start inside the cage if you have a cage-bound or aggressive parrot or outside if you have a friendly bird. Either way, you should start with targeting to a target stick. Chapter 8 teaches you how to do that. The book then covers various aspects of stepping up (that’s right, step up isn’t the first trick to teach) and gives some suggestions on half a dozen or so prop behaviors you can start with. At this point, it’s pretty much up to you to teach whatever you’re comfortable with – the book gives some tips on how to start. Find parrot training props here.
Chapter 9: Non-Prop Behaviors goes into a lot of fun tricks that don’t require props or toys. Ever want to teach a bird to dance on cue, take a bow, nod, flap, wave, shake hands or roll over and play dead? These are things you can learn in Chapter 9.
Chapter 10: Star-Spangled Manners answers questions like: how can I get my bird to go back in his cage? How do I potty train my parrot? How can I get my birds to stop chewing on my furniture or encourage them to stay on their playgym? Can I teach my parrot to enjoy showers? Come to me when I call? Stop using foul language? How can I get my bird to cooperate with a wing trim or nail clip? How do I teach my bird to accept a harness? Take medicine from a syringe? In other words, how can I teach my bird to behave? By now, at this point in the book, you probably already have some ideas about how reinforcement works – it’s just time to apply it.
Chapter 11: Screaming: The Call of the Wild. Birds vocalize to communicate and express themselves. This chapter talks a bit about parrot vocalization to put everything into perspective and gives some tips and tools for curbing and coping with yelling. How to stop a screaming parrot isn’t really a major focus of this book, but luckily there are plenty of other resources on the Web that teach you how to curb excessive screaming.
Chapter 12: To Chomp, Or Not to Chomp discusses biting and what you can do about it. The first trick to discourage your bird from biting is — ready for this? — to not get bitten. First and foremost Avoid the Bite! That’s right, avoid getting bitten. You’ll notice this runs counter to a lot of advice you find on the web, which says to “ignore the bite.” When I first learned about avoiding the bite (and how counterproductive ignoring the bite really is) in the Bird Click group, it was the most profound and best advice I’ve ever gotten.
In this section of Melinda Johnson’s book, we also learn how to discourage biting before it becomes a problem (among young birds), how to give your words meaning, dealing with learned aggression. We learn why we need to observe body language, how to change motivation, about height dominance, laddering, shouldering, fear, cage possessiveness and how to get creative.
Chapter 13: ‘Fraidy Birds discusses how to clicker train phobic birds and gives an example in Melinda’s own life dealing with an extremely fearful Goffins. The concept of systematic desensitization (covered in chapter 4) is detailed in practice as the author explains step by step how she got her Goffins to slowly accept and then welcome her. We also learn how we need to change how we approach a scared bird to earn its trust, how to build confidence, the importance of cage placement, how to educate family members about respecting the bird’s space, the effects illness can have, fear of falling and more.
Chapter 14: Resources is a short chapter with some additional resources for clicker training birds, including the Bird Click Yahoo group. Too bad this site here isn’t on that list!
Silly Parrot Tricks
I started clicker training with Stewie over a year ago and it has been an amazing journey. I’ve learned so much and I feel like I’m doing better by my birds because of it.
Today, between the two of them, my birds know several tricks, including prop tricks: targeting to a target stick, how to fetch various objects, put a ball in a cup, deposit coins in a piggy bank, fit a puzzle piece into a slot, put rings on a peg. And perform non-prop tricks on cue, such as: step-up, wave, turn, flighted recall, wings up. Best of all, I think they are much happier and smarter birds because of the mental stimulation they get.
Other cool bird tricks you can teach include: basketball, bowling, flighted retrieve, obstacle courses, play dead, roll over, potty training, nodding yes on cue, riding a scooter, and on and on. The list is practically endless, limited only by your imagination and your parrot’s physical limitations. All these things can be relatively easily with clicker training.
What are you waiting for? Resolve to improve your relationship with your birds by teaching them some fun tricks (or just interact with them more). Buy Getting Started: Clicker Training for Birds from the publisher (Karen Pryor, the clicker training guru) or from Amazon.
For my 100th post anniversary, I am delighted to publish a guest post by none other than Sid Price, founder of Avian Ambassadors, and a very well respected member of the professional bird training community. Sid is also president-elect of the International Association of Avian Trainers and Educators.
Sid and I had talked about the growing prominence of certain training programs in search results when people Google questions related to problem parrot behavior. Unfortunately, long-standing and well-respected avian trainers tend to focus on training, not on learning the newest web marketing techniques — as a consequence, the things you do find on the web tend to be promotional materials by people who are good marketers but not necessarily the best bird trainers.
Don’t Fall for Deceptive Training Tricks by Sid Price
When one is trying to figure out how to deal with behavioral issues and training challenges with birds it is important to know not only that a particular strategy works, but also what long term effects the use of the selected strategy may have on the relationship between you and your bird.
It is unfortunate that much of what is available on the Internet is more focused on selling a product than providing the best possible training advice. Over the last year or so this situation has degraded to the point where searching for training help turns up more and more links to sites that offer instant success for every kind of training challenge. I say unfortunate because most of the links lead directly or indirectly to some really expensive, poor training advice.
Beware the Silver Bullet
So, how can one filter the good advice from the marketing hard sell? Your first clue, as is almost always the case with over-hyped products, is that while there are often simple solutions to bird behavior challenges there are rarely instant, fifteen-minute solutions. Remember that most behavioral challenges come down to relationships. This is true not only with birds and other animals but also with humans.
Think how long it took to build the trust and confidence of a really good friend or coworker, then think how a little time it takes to completely shake that trust and confidence with a single bad interaction. Well the same is true for your bird; using some of the techniques advised by these instant cure folks will shake any relationship you may already have established. If you are at the beginning of that relationship then the shaky ground for the future will be well established.
How do you decide if a strategy is one you should be using? There is one simple question that you can ask yourself about the advice being offered and that is “Does the bird have a choice to perform the behavior you are looking for?” It is well established by behavioral science that animals given choice and control over their environment show much lower levels of stress and aggressive behaviors than animals that are managed using force or coercion.
The Choice to “Step Up”
As an example of removal of choice and control let us consider the behavior that almost everyone wants to train, the step onto the hand. If the technique that you use does not allow the bird to make the choice to step onto your hand and it has no escape from the “pushing” hand it may well, having already sent a bunch of visual cues to the owner to back off, reach down and bite that hand. The hand is then withdrawn and the bird begins the process of learning that biting gets hands away when they are not wanted.
So, how do we give choice to the bird in this situation? Firstly we need to be observant, when the bird first signals it does not want to step up by what may be quite subtle changes in posture we need to back off. What the bird is now learning is that it has control over the situation using its natural body language; the same way it would communicate with its flock members in the wild. What the owner can then do is to carefully watch the body language and note how far the hand was from the bird when it “said” back off. In the future, just before the hand gets to this position bridge (click or say “good”) and treat and take the hand away.
Gradually the hand may be brought closer, the bridge and treat can come later, and the bird will learn that the approaching hand is a good thing; plus it still retains the right to “say” back off with its body language, the owner should always comply with that request. With time, patience, and good observation the bird will learn to step onto the hand. Note that if your bird is clipped it is a good idea to begin this training on a perch that allows the bird to walk safely away from you. One piece of bad advice I have seen is to work the bird on a small perch so that it can not get away … now ask yourself, where is the control of the situation for that bird?
There are many places on the Internet offering advice on how to train the step up. Many of them use techniques that remove choice from the bird, they use what behaviorists call aversives (something an animal will work to avoid) to achieve their goals.
One really poor technique promoted on several web sites is to move either the hand the bird is stepping onto higher once it gets a foot on it, thereby forcing (coercing) it to bring the second foot onto the hand, or the owner is instructed to remove the perch the bird is stepping from once it has the first foot on the hand. Both of these techniques not only remove choice from the bird they also undermine the trust the bird has in the owner. In fact lifting a bird before it has both feet firmly on the hand is a very common thing that many experienced owners do all the time, it is a habit they should do their best to break.
Marketing Hype versus Proven Training Solutions
There are several other ways of knowing whether you are getting good training advice or a large dose of marketing hype. Good professional trainers who post training advice will almost always explain the science behind their advice and also they will provide links to the sources of their information.
For instance when I write about the effects of punishment in my articles I always include references to the scientists who provide support data with their work. Behavioral science has been around for over 100 years; during that time some techniques have been refined as they have been better understood, however much of the science that professional trainers use every day with their animals is strongly based upon that well researched body of work.
If a web site claims a “revolutionary” technique or they promise to reveal the “secrets” of the professional trainers … don’t believe them. Professional trainers who have secrets are probably also trying to make a living by selling those secrets too.
The science of behavior is in the public domain, it can be read about and studied for free. Having said that you will find that professionals who teach training present not only the science but also the application of the science, the art of it if you prefer.
All my training class materials refer back to the sources of my knowledge; I do not invent new terms to gain some market edge. This last point is also a clue that you should be wary of any web site using terminology that is not used by the training community at large. If someone is claiming a new technique then they need to also publish the science that backs it up. They need to have it peer reviewed by the rest of the behavioral community, just like the current science the best trainers use was peer reviewed.
Just because they publish it on their web site does not make it fact, true, effective, or in some cases ethical.
Contact Sid
If you have any questions about this article or about anything on my training blog (www.AvianAmbassadors.com/BirdTraining) please write to me at TrainingBlog@AvianAmbassadors.com and I will do my best to respond. Your email may be the inspiration for a blog article.
Notice the post title isn’t “skateboarding parrot”… that’s because we haven’t gotten to the part where he actually steps onto the board, BUT… he is beaking it, so at least he isn’t afraid anymore.
What’s going on? Well, I bought Stewie a little skateboard prop and I’m frickin excited! (Sorry for the poor quality pic, I’ll be replacing it as soon as I get a better shot of him.)
I’ve wanted a little Stewie-sized skateboard ever since I saw those adorable videos of skateboarding budiges – I just never could figure out where to find the prop.
Now that we have one we’re going to work on getting him to stand near it. The problem won’t be getting him used to the prop — he seems to be fine with it — the issue is that Stewie doesn’t like standing on flat surfaces (other than his cage top, which has bars).
So far we’ve been able to do all his tricks (retrieve, rings on peg, ball in cup, turn, wings up, etc) from a perch, but a skateboard is definitely going to require getting onto a table. This is where target training comes in. I’ve been asking him to step onto the table to touch the stick. Next I’ll be getting him to stay on the table longer and longer, as well as asking him to approach the skateboard and put his foot on it.
Stay tuned about our progress turning Stewie into a little feathered Tony Hawk.
But you too can have a skateboarding parrot… err, parrot skateboard. Apparently they are pretty trendy toys. I saw a TON of them at Target, where I got Stewie’s, and they’ve got multipacks of the same Tech Deck miniature skateboards on Amazon. Buy one of these props for each of your small birds!
Here’s our most recent video of Mika demonstrating target training. As I’ve mentioned numerous times (as I learned from the Bird Click group), targeting is the best first prop trick to teach a parrot. It’s easy because it requires almost no chaining, and can be used to teach subsequent tricks.
To be honest, doing clicker training with Mika hasn’t been a high priority. I started clicker training Stewie a year ago mostly to tame him – he was pretty aggressive and I needed a fun, positive way to interact with him. In my mind, THE biggest benefit to training was that it turned him into a tame and loving bird. Since Mika came to me already tamed and affectionate, teaching her to do tricks never had the same urgency. Thank goodness Mika forgives me for being lazy. However, I do intend to get her caught up – at the very least she should be able to do the same tricks Stewie does. It’s only fair.
The next step is to keep working with Mika on fetching a big pink ring. We’ve done a couple of sessions and it never clicked with her what I wanted her to do, so my current tactic involves letting her watch Stewie as he demonstrates retrieve. (In interviews with Dr. Pepperberg, she describes this method of teaching Alex the African Grey as the “rivaling technique”.) Hopefully I’ll have some videos of Mika retrieving soon.
(Updated Oct. 18) It’s my pleasure to post another in my ongoing series of interviews with well-known “parrot people”. Today’s interview is with Chris Biro, best known for his educational program The Pirate’s Parrot Show and the amazing YouTube videos of free flying macaws in the Moab Desert.
Chris Biro has been doing his The Pirate’s Parrot show at state and county fairs, parks, libraries, schools, etc. for 18 years. Today, the show includes several “pirates” and dozens of birds, focused on safe hands-on interaction.
Biro also founded the Freeflight list at Yahoo Groups in 1999 when he had trouble finding resources devoted to the topic. His group currently has members from all over the world.
Prior to becoming a well-known parrot trainer, he studied Electrical Engineering and spent 10 years in the US Army and Army Reserves. Chris enjoys flying radio controlled airplanes and helicopters, and photographing and video taping flying parrots.
Big fat disclaimer: All the answers in this interview are the opinions of the interviewee Chris Biro. Just because I’m featuring an interview about free flying on this blog does not mean I advocate free flight for your birds — in fact, it scares the living bejeezus out of me. I can’t stress enough though: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME! If you’re interested in learning how to free flying parrots, please research the subject extensively.
So, without further ado (although I reserve the right to throw a few more don’t-do-this-yourself disclaimers in there), here’s the Q&A with Chris:
Q: You have a particular interest in free flight — in other words, allowing your birds to fly outside without restraint. How did you get started in this area?
Chris Biro: In 1993 I had an Umbrella Cockatoo that several days in a row kept escaping from the aviary I had just built. Before I could figure out how she was getting out, I discovered I could get her back down to me each night pretty easily. So I started letting her out on purpose and bringing her in at night. This prompted me to begin searching for information about flight training. Not finding any information in books or magazines about flight training I started experimenting with several of my macaws and conures with different ways to train flight.
Once I discovered how naturally and quickly a baby bird learns to fly, there was no turning back for me. I discovered internet email lists in about 1998. I had a lot more to learn about flight training than just training methods. My queries searching for other people keeping flighted birds on various email lists promptly resulted in me being unsubbed. The topic of keeping flighted birds it turned out was quite a volatile subject so in April of 1999, I started the Freeflight email list so we could have a “safe” place to discuss the issues related to living with and training flighted birds.
Q: Can you describe your training methods and philosophy?
Chris Biro: The methods I use are derived from the scientific principles of Operant Conditioning. I train using positive reinforcement.
I use a clicker and favorite treat rewards for most of my training because I believe most behavior is trained faster with precise timing. I have always presented mostly natural behaviors in my show so my training methods and style rely heavily on use of the animal’s natural tendencies. I pay close attention to their natural interactions and observable interests and use those to help with setting them up to succeed. Using their natural tendencies in combination with positive reinforcement methods makes my training really efficient and fun for both myself and the birds. This approach is well suited for flight training.
Since flying parrots outdoors does involve elements of risk and danger I believe strongly in selecting the bird, the trainer, the methods, and the environment for maximum success potential. I am not in favor of pairing inexperienced trainers with high risk flight students and less than ideal training environments.
My recommended approach to flight training, as found on my website, is intended for everyday bird owners, not just skilled professionals. Even though it does require owners to learn some new skills before attempting this, these skills are within the ability of most bird owners.
Hand feeding skills and basic clicker training, including shaping skills, should all be well understood before attempting to flight train a bird following my approach.
I usually start with a baby bird at the same age it would learn to fly in the wild: prior to weaning. A pre-flighted bird cannot leave the nest to get to the food sources. I let the young bird fledge in the house and learn to master basic flight control. Once it is flying indoors it soon is flying to be with me. I then capture this “flying to me” and put it on cue, called recall. This then is turned into a fun game of “flying back and forth to a perch or cage top.” We will expand this to include flying through doors and from different rooms, becoming a form of hide and seek. In this way the bird is expanding its basic flight skills and it learns to come when called, even when it cannot see me. The goal here is for the bird to master all the skills available to it in the indoor environment.
During this time I am also letting the bird spend some time in an outdoor cage so it is becoming comfortable and relaxed being outdoors. When I take the bird to fly outdoors for the first time, I want everything possible to be familiar to the bird, including the behavior I will ask of it and the elements of the location. I do not want to ask it to do something it has never done before nor do I want it to be frightened by being outdoors. A bird that is spooked will not respond to recall in a predictable manner.
The location itself will also be carefully selected so that there are minimal restrictions of view or hearing to the bird and minimal restrictions of movement. It is important to be able to see the bird where ever it goes. Actually this is one of the most important factors in recovering a loose bird, knowing where the bird is located at all times. It is also important to be able to easily follow the bird where ever it should go.
Sometimes you have to move quickly to follow a flying bird because a bird is not slowed by obstacles that can restrict your movement. Selecting a location with fewer restrictions of movement can prevent
you from losing sight of the bird. Wide open fields with no tall buildings, fences or busy roads nearby are good choices for first outdoor flying practice. Restrictions from private or government property also should be considered.
The main point here is that every element that we can control should be carefully selected for maximum success potential before we take the bird outdoors. Too often people just step outside with any bird and say “You’re a bird, go fly.” Birds in the wild do not learn this way. The process of natural selection has configured them to be ready to learn in the environment their specific species lives and at the most opportune mental and physical state. We are not able to follow the baby bird where ever it goes as the parents can, so we need to be a bit more methodical in our approach. If done correctly, training parrots to fly outdoors can be done with a high degree of safety and can be a lot of fun. This kind of interaction between bird and owner can be very rewarding for both the trainer and the bird.
Recently a parrot owner named Andrew lost his African Grey Tui because he underestimated the dangers of free flying a bird who hadn’t been trained under those conditions. He thought Tui’s bond with him was so strong that she’d never fly away from him. Do you have any thoughts on that unfortunate incident?
Chris Biro: Andrew is an unfortunate example of what can happen if people are not properly prepared for flight training. It is clear in Andrew’s other videos that Andrew clearly loved his bird and Tui clearly loved Andrew.
But having a fully flighted untrained bird in an non-secure location is a very common way people lose birds. To expect the bird to automatically understand all it needs to know about flying so it won’t get lost if accidentally getting into the air, is failing to consider important information.
It is natural for a bird to be able to fly, just as it is natural for us humans to be able to walk. But we had to learn how to walk, just like birds have to learn how to fly. If the bird grows up in a cage, when does it have the opportunity to learn how to fly? Often it never has that opportunity.
This is why I have put much of my training theory on my website. It is my goal to help people avoid such mistakes by offering the basics of how I train flight. Hopefully after someone reads the various articles on flight training, they will have a better idea of what is involved with flight training and be able to avoid most of the mistakes that [cause inexperienced people to lose their birds].
What’s the worst advice you’ve ever seen regarding training a flighted bird?
Chris Biro: The worst advice I have ever seen regarding training a flighted bird has been “The best bird to flight train is the bird in front of you.”
Not every pet bird is a good candidate for flight training. Some have fears and bad habits that make them especially unsuitable for flight training. And not every person is ready for this level of focus and dedication. Some people have no experience or knowledge of training methods or are highly anxious personality types.
[That advice] potentially pairs the worst candidate and the worst trainer. That is asking for accidents. I cannot control the skill level of the trainer. I can only recommend that they learn about Operant Conditioning and practice clicker training with other animals before they attempt to flight train a bird. I cannot control what bird they select as their student to train to fly. I can only recommend they select what I know to be the easiest and safest student available. The baby bird at the natural age of fledging has no phobias or bad habits to overcome. Every baby bird I have trained has been an eager and willing student who learns to fly in a fraction of the time even the best suited adult birds will learn.
Can you clarify the importance of the “baby bond” between a parrot and his owner with regard to free flight training?
Chris Biro: I use the parental bond as part of my approach to training flight. I do a lot of clicker training with the birds and do not rely solely on that bond. There is also a social bond that flock members form and also a pair bond that forms between mates. All three are different.
There is a short period in a baby bird’s life during which it is programmed to stay close to mom.
The social bond and pair bond do not invoke this same level of “stay close.” It would be unwise to expect social or pair bonding to produce the same kind of stay-close response as the parental bond.
The issue of encouraging people to select a baby bird instead of an adult bird for flight training is not without controversy. Some feel the average bird owner is not capable of learning to hand feed a baby bird.
This is an opinion I disagree with so long as the person finds a suitable mentor to help train and coach them. It should also be noted that anytime a person selects a less than ideal flight candidate (like an adult never flighted pet parrot), they are at the same time choosing not to select a baby bird, meaning some baby bird out there will now spend its life as a clipped bird instead of as their fabulous flyer. If I can help people who are already getting a baby bird to select their bird for the purpose of flight training, give them the tools needed to train the bird, and offer them the moral support they need, then I think I can help prevent a lot of lost adult birds and help many young birds become great flyers. There are lots of baby birds being sold into peoples homes and those are the birds I think are best suited to become flighted birds. This of course means people need to stress to their breeders, NOT to clip the baby birds’ wings. It is sad to me to walk through a pet store and see all the clipped baby birds. All that eager potential so casually stripped from them just breaks my heart.
My focus is not so much on helping people train their current pet birds. Instead I think we will have the highest degree of success if I can reach some of those people who are getting a new bird.
So you don’t think free flying is an option appropriate for most pet parrots?
Chris Biro: No. I believe most pet parrots that are currently in people’s homes are poor candidates for flight training. Most have grown up and learned to live a life style that is not conducive to being good flight students. Some may be able to learn to fly indoors, and I think that is great, so long as the owner understands that they need to be training for the day the bird will get loose outdoors.
But for most pet parrots currently in people’s homes, I recommend clipping their wings. Some will be suitable to indoor flight training but most will not. I have always recommended either clipping or fully flight training pet parrots. There are many stories of indoor flyers getting outdoors without proper training so even the indoor flyer needs to learn good recall responses and be conditioned to being in the potential outdoor environment.
A third option is a large aviary, though most pet parrot owners lack the space or resources to construct an aviary large enough for their bird to get much actual flying in.
[But] I believe most pet owners are capable of doing this training if they have the right bird and methods.
Is there a single most important thing to understand about parrots and their ability to fly?
Chris Biro: Flight training is not something to take lightly. It often involves lifestyle changes. I liken it to keeping horses. If you don’t have the right set up, it may not be right for you. One serious difference though is that the birds can become lost or killed more easily through trainer error. Only people who are dedicated to doing the homework, locating and selecting the right conditions, and devoting adequate time and resources should consider taking on the freeflight experience with their own birds. Everything comes down to setting the birds up to succeed. If you have done your job right in selecting the right candidate, the right location, the right method (positive reinforcement) and have honed your own training skills through practice, then everything should go smoothly and quickly.
To wrap up, what’s your favorite thing about training parrots?
My favorite thing about training birds is watching the birds master new skill levels. It is an amazing experience to watch them fly, playing in the wind over a 2000 foot tall cliff or flying from tree to tree or rock outcropping along a canyon as we hike up the canyon trail.
These are all very natural activities for wild parrots and to get to watch my birds enjoying similar activities and similar skill levels does something for me I cannot easily explain. I know there are risks involved but for me the benefits greatly out weigh the risks. With proper training the risks are reduced to what I think are manageable levels. Figuring out exactly what that proper training involves is something I think the engineering part of me really enjoys.
I also enjoy the reaction people have when seeing the birds flying free. I can always tell who the bird people are in my audience by the way they react to seeing the birds flying loose. The non bird person points at the birds and tells their friends “Thats cool!” The bird person though is standing there with mouth wide open in total amazement.
You can see them go through a stage of total fear, thinking someone’s bird got loose, to total amazement once they realize the birds are loose on purpose and are eagerly flying back to me on the stage. The fact that people don’t think this is possible but yet see it happening with their own eyes is very rewarding to me. I get to expand their world a bit and maybe even the world of a few birds out there. People who get into flying parrots will always wind up learning about better training methods. They just have to or the birds will destroy their homes and become a complete nuisance.
Learning more about the science of training ultimately results in enriched and improved lives for all of their pets, not just their flying birds. I cannot help feel that people who see our birds flying come away more open to the ideas science has to offer us about learning and training.
Where should people go to learn more about training their birds to fly outside?
I have posted several articles about flight training at my website www.wingsatliberty.com. I would also recommend a few books, even if none are devoted to flight training, since any improvement in training skill in general will help with flight training. I highly recommend as a good getting started in training book “Don’t Shoot the Dog“, by Karen Pryor.
For those interested in learning more about the science behind training and how we learn “Learning and Behavior” by Paul Chance. And if you want to go into more depth “Learning and Behavior” by James E. Mazur.
If you can make it though my articles and the material in these books, you should be pretty well prepared.
Reminder: All the parrots shown in the photos and videos above are extensively and specifically trained on outdoor recall – DO NOT TAKE THIS CASUALLY: AN UNTRAINED PARROT SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED OUTSIDE WITHOUT RESTRAINT ON A WHIM. Okay, I’m done shouting. Just need to be as clear as I can be about this.
A big thanks to Chris for his time to do this interview!
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Welcome!
Welcome to my parrot blog, where I share insights with other and would-be parrot owners on ways to keep their pet birds happy. I'm not a professional trainer or avian expert; these are just my opinions, observations and insights based on my life with Stewie and Mika, and my efforts to do the very best for my birds. I also read voraciously and will share other cool stuff I find related to parrot ownership and training.
Clicker training is a fantastic method for taming and training parrots, effective on everything from little budgies and cockatiels to ornery cockatoos. It’s amazingly simple and easy to do, and yields really fast results. The basis of clicker training is positive reinforcement/operant conditioning, and the “secret” of the clicker is that it’s a simple way to communicate. As soon as your parrot starts to understand that “click” means “good, now here’s your reward”, it opens up so many possibilities.
At this point he was comfortable enough to stand on one foot to eat his reward.
Stumble It!
Stumble It!
