Video of Sun Conure and His Ball Trick

Another attempt to capture Stewie on video. Better than our previous video clip, I think.

The “put the ball in the cup trick” was the first big “stupid parlor trick” this little sun conure learned, but when we started training he was still pretty bitey; in fact, he’d reach around training props just to bite me, so I needed to be careful not to leave my fingers exposed when I gave him the wiffle ball. As you can see in this video (below), it’s a non-issue now, because he’s stopped seeking out biting opportunities. (Personally, “not biting” is my favorite trick , but that doesn’t make for very exciting YouTube clips.)

Stewie Demonstrates Targeting

I’m still a terrible cinematographer, but I figured I’d go ahead and post this anyway. I wheeled Stewie’s playstand in front of the computer (with a built-in camera) and did a couple reps of targeting. Because the target stick is a black chopstick and the background is basically black, you often can’t see it in this video — but he does beak the end of it to earn a “good boy” and a safflower seed each time he does it.

Even if you can’t see the chopstick well in this video, you can definitely see how Stewie will climb all over to touch it. That’s a solidly reinforced behavior.

I’ll post some better YouTube videos of other people training their birds to target in a bit.

Teaching My Parrot to Fetch: Step 1

I pulled this old draft out of my archives. It’s from late last year, but I thought I’d go ahead and publish it now, even though he already knows how to retrieve and put the ball in his cup.

After very fast progress with targeting, we hit a bit of a bump moving on to the next trick.

It’s not that my bird isn’t smart, but rather the problem was that I wasn’t communicating what I wanted clearly. So we ended up having to take a few steps back and simplifying the task dramatically.

He was doing fine touching the wiffle ball I was using for a prop, and sometimes he’d even grab it — but he always dropped it very quickly. I got stuck at getting him to hold on to it.

This is how I got Stewie to actually grab the toy, not just beak it:

I put it in the way of his treat dish. He grabbed the toy to move it out of the way, but before he could drop it, I c/t for grabbing it and catch the toy before he dropped it. Okay, I admit, it was cheating a little and it’s better to have your bird learn by really experimenting with new behaviors himself, but we weren’t making progress and he was frustrated.

So we did a lot of reps of him grabbing the ball and lifting it a bit. I started delaying the click to make him lift it higher, so he’d grab it lift it all the way out of the cup and move it around as if to say “Hellllo! See me lifting it? What are you blind? Where’s my treat?!”

After that I wanted to teach him to put it in my hand. I held my hand out to force contact with the ball and c/t’d. Didn’t seem to work. Then I tried taking the ball, but that resulted in him biting me — he was still afraid of or mad at hands at that point — which was a major setback. Clicking and biting shouldn’t go together!

So I stopped trying to take the ball and kept trying to shape bigger and bigger lifts out of the cup, but didn’t know how to proceed from there.

Then one day, when his wiffle ball was sitting at the bottom of his playstand, he climbed down, grabbed it, climbed all the way back up his stand and put the wiffle ball in his cup!

Ah ha! I was trying to teach him to lift the ball out of his cup, but what he had LEARNED instead was that he got a treat for putting the ball BACK in his cup. Smart birdy!

So I changed course and followed his lead. Rather than getting him to take the ball out of the cup and give it to me, I simply started handing him the ball to place inside the cup. After several sessions he’d even walk a few steps to take the ball and a few steps back to deposit it. This method also gave me more control over how close my fingers got to him since I wanted to avoid getting nipped at.

That’s how Stewie learned his first “real” trick — how to put a ball in a cup — even though I was actually trying to teach him retrieve. The student teaches the master

Stay tuned for Part II of this post where I explain how we went on to learn actually to retrieve.

Stewie’s Video on YouTube

My video of Stewie on YouTube is almost at 1,000 views. Go help me over the hump

This was taken back in November, when he hadn’t learned much beyond targeting, retrieve and “put the ball in the cup”. Retrieve is the only thing he did correctly, and he gave it to the wrong person most of the time. (It wasn’t fair, since we confused him with the cues and there were so many distractions.)

Stewie now targets like a pro, puts a ball in a cup, brings me things, puts rings on a peg, flies to me on command (sort of, sometimes) , can put coins in a piggy bank, and a few things I’m forgetting.

Hard to believe this is the same misanthropic biter that first came to me from the shelter.

I’m starting to think seriously about getting another bird - something similar in size to Stewie, but preferably not as loud. LOL. I think a green cheek would be perfect, but because I also feel strongly about getting another rescue bird, my choices will be limited by what’s out there.

Anyone have suggestions on what other types of birds I should be looking for? Maybe a Quaker?

Cockatiel with Small Ring Toss Prop

Teaching Flighted Recall: First Steps

In the last couple of weeks Stewie has had a few flight feathers grow back in. He was clipped when I got him last summer and he’s been to the vet for a follow-up trim because one was growing in really uneven.

But this time around I’ve been wrestling with the decision whether to keep him clipped or try to let him fly. So far he has two full flights on each side and that’s enough to get him pretty mobile. He’s not an expert flier, but he can fly enough to get into trouble

I started recall training with Stewie this weekend and our first session went really well.

First I asked him for regular step ups. I kept increasing the distance a fraction of an inch until he could barely reach me with his beak if he stretched as far as he could. (He had to reach real far, put his beak on me and then lunge to pull the rest of himself onto my
arm.)

When I was just out of reach I brought out the big guns: a Nutriberry - his very favorite treat in the whole world. That got his attention. Using the Nutriberry as a lure, I coaxed him to get up on my arm.

It took a little while of him running up and down his cage trying to figure out how to reach me and then after much hesitation, he hopped over. That got him lots of praise and a whole Nutriberry! He dropped half of it, which I retrieved and used to get him to do it again.

That first 2 hops were the most difficult. After that he just got his regular safflower seeds as a reward. Going from a short hop, to a
short hop with a little wing flapping, to a flight of a couple of feet went very smoothly.

Stewie did all that in just one session. Now need to keep reinforcing it and trying lots of distances, changing the heights, etc.

He’s still not doing it all the time, and today he won’t attempt longer distances even if it’s a distance he’s comfortable flying; but if he got every single trick down cold in just one session, I’d be at my wits end trying find new ways to keep him challenged.

Flighted recall is probably one of the most important tricks to teach a parrot who can fly, so I’m going to try to be more vigilant about training and reinforcement for this one than I’ve been with some of his others.

Training a Wild-Caught Bird

This is a YouTube video I found of a woman working with a cherry headed conure (or possibly a mitred conure) who was originally part of a wild flock in San Francisco. Jasper came down with neurological issues and suffered brain damage and was then taken in by Mickaboo Rescue.

What I love about this video is the level of excitement in the trainer’s voice. This is very effective.

One of the take-aways from Jasper’s story is that even wild-caught birds can be trained via clicker training. So if your once-hand-fed baby turned into a handful - fearful and bitey - don’t despair. There’s hope for your little feathered terror.

Clicker Training Coins in a Piggy Bank

I found a cute little toy store in Clarendon with a completely unusable Web interface, but a great brick-and-mortar store. As soon as I walked by the Kinder Haus I knew I had to go in (and my companion knew it was for Stewie, no foolin’ him) and I found lots of great, high-quality (German-made) toys.

Since I’d been looking for a piggy bank, I was very pleased to find a small ceramic bank that was just the right size for Stewie. And Stewie already had “coins” he could use for this prop trick: the little chips from the Connect Four game were the perfect size. (I don’t want him using real coins because they are usually filthy, plus I don’t know if the metals are a problem.)

So the next prop trick we’ll be working on is “coins in the piggy bank.” I’ve introduced the prop to him and so far he’s not very adept at putting the coins in the slot. Mostly he just places them flat on top and then watches them slide off. Silly bugger. But he has gotten it a few times, so I’m optimistic he’ll master it in just a few sessions.

Establishing Dominance Over Your Parrot?

I often hear it said that a lot of parrot behavior problems stem from the bird thinking it is “dominant” to the humans, and that the way to control the parrot is to reestablish the person’s flock leader position.

I’m one of those people who don’t believe it is important to establish “dominance” with birds. Sometimes they’ll test you to see what they can get away with, but they aren’t like dogs or wolves in that they jockey for alpha status.

I’m a huge fan of clicker training and the philosophy espoused by Melinda Johnson who admins the Yahoo Bird Click group. She advocates teaching “stupid parlor tricks” as a way to improve communication and therefore the relationship with your feathered friend. It’s not about forcing the bird to do what you want, it’s about teaching your bird to want the same thing you want and then doing it voluntarily.

When I got Stewie last July (from an animal shelter where they had no idea what to do with birds), he was one cranky little guy. In fact, I was a little worried that he didn’t like me and wouldn’t ever really be very fond of me. I started clicker training and it totally changed our relationship.

He learned that there are ways to communicate with me that don’t involve biting. I figured out how to read his body language to understand what he was trying to tell me.

He learned that he can manipulate me into giving him treats just by doing some silly tricks. I have a bird who does silly tricks for me.

We both have so much more fun together, and he’s become downright affectionate — something I never expected!

I believe wholeheartedly that we achieved this new relationship precisely because I didn’t try to establish “control.” In training, we are partners. Neither of us thinks “we’re in charge.” I respect his needs/wants (respect doesn’t always mean he always gets what he wants though…just like I don’t always get what I want either) and he does what I want him to because he wants to do it.

Stewie now steps up with no problem - whereas he used to bite my fingers whenever they were near him. The stepping up came completely naturally; I wasn’t even really trying to train him to step up. We worked on a lot of other tricks first and at some point he got so excited about going wherever it was I was going to take him that he started seeing me as a convenient method of transportation, and happily steps up when I offer him my arm

Clicker training is the best way to turn a cranky, biting bird into a loving pet. I know it, because I’ve seen the change in Stewie with my own eyes.

Small Clicker Training Props for Birds

This is the bird prop I got for Stewie from Nature’s Chest — it’s intended to teach him color discrimination. Unfortunately it’s too small. He doesn’t have the dexterity to get the rings onto the peg.I’m going to try to teach him pull the rings off the peg instead and give them to me. He can already retrieve, and he can get the rings off the peg, so the advanced version is for him to give me the color I ask for.

Update: we spent a whole training session just taking the rings off the peg and giving them to me. To start teaching colors, I just said whatever color he was going for anyway (that way he always gets it right!) — so if he went to grab a red ring, I’d say “Bring me RED!” and then reward him. Once we get comfortable with that, I’ll put my hand on top of the other ones so the only one he can get is the one I asked for. Just need to be careful not to get nipped at because he doesn’t like it when someone interferes with his props mid trick.

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This one is the small Psitta Puzzle. For this trick, he needs to put the shapes in the corresponding hole. The description on NatureChest.com says that it might be too big for cockatiels, so I got the smallest one they had, but I probably could have gone a size up on this one too.

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