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!
Whenever I need a good laugh, I like to watch funny parrot videos on YouTube and similar sites. (It’s not for nothing that I’m the self-proclaimed Crazy Bird Lady.) It’s really not hard to find funny videos of sun conures, in particular. Below is another recent find and favorite.
In this video, Snicket, a young sun conure being trained by Chris Biro and Susan Hillard, is trying to work out the dollar bill trick… hilarity ensues
A more detailed explanation of what’s going on is contained at the beginning of the video.
Despite the hard work of a lot of proponents of clicker training, and several excellent resources about clicker training specific to parrots, there’s still a lot of confusion around what clicker training is, how it works, and how you use it to train companion birds.
As an avid reader and participant in the training section of a popular bird forum, I often have the opportunity to talk up the benefits of positive reinforcement training. Frequently I see the same types of questions come up over and over again. Most of them are based on misunderstanding of the role of the clicker.
Parrot Riding a Bicycle by Spinndoctor
Following are the most common clicker training misconceptions:
Myth: There’s something innately special about the clicker device that make animals perform tricks better
Actually, there is nothing magical about the clicker. The clicker simply produces a sound that you, the trainer, use to mark the behavior you’re trying to reinforce. You can use a ball point pen, a whistle or your voice to make a distinct sound instead of using a “real” training clicker. The only requirement is that you are able to produce a unique and specific sound that you use to mark precisely when the desired behavior is occurring.
A clicker has no meaning in and of itself. You imbue it with meaning by pairing it with a reward.
Myth: Any type of training that involves a clicker can be classified as “clicker training”
“Clicker training,” as the phrase is used in this blog and in most training circles, refers specifically to the use of positive reinforcement training, and only positive reinforcement training. Anyone who uses a clicker to mark desired behavior but doesn’t connect the click with a reward, or a trainer who pairs positive reinforcement with positive punishment, is not applying the core principles of clicker training.
In fact, you could technically be “clicker training” without even using a clicker. As long as you’re using some sort of marker to bridge the instance of the behavior and the reward, and not using punishment to train, you’re basically using clicker training.
Myth: Clicker training is only for teaching silly tricks
Clicker training is not just for teaching a parrot silly tricks. Clicker training is effective for teaching fun party tricks, but it can be useful for teaching husbandry behaviors such as cooperating with nail trims, wings clips, toweling, etc. Furthermore, “tricks” like stepping up, recall and flighted recall, using certain vocalizations to get your attention, etc. are all behaviors that you can be trained using a clicker – those behaviors lay a basic foundation for good day to day interaction.
Most important, however, is that the process of clicker training helps birds and bird owners understand each other better. You get to learn your birds’ body language, predict how they’ll react, understand what they’re trying to communicate, and build trust. Your birds will learn that you are not capricious and unpredictable, that they can manipulate you into doing what they want, that you are the source of good things, that they get rewarded for offering friendly behaviors, and that they do not need to bite you to communicate. That type of trust-building will allow you to handle your birds and be more affectionate toward them.
Formerly untame conure being snuggly. Photo by melanie.phung
Myth: Clicker training is hard
If I can do it, almost anyone can do it. All you need is a tiny bit of coordination and timing, both of which you can work on fairly easily.
Myth: You need to tame your bird before starting to clicker train
Absolutely wrong. In fact, the process of clicker training helps you tame the bird and I most often recommend clicker training to people with aggressive birds. You don’t need to tame your bird before starting training; you start training in order to begin taming the bird. Training helps you establish a common language with your bird and demonstrates that you can be trusted because you a) reward your bird for doing things you like, b) act in a predictable and consistent manner, and c) allow him to exercise choices. Clicker training also gives you fantastic opportunities to learn (and respect) his body language. You can tame your bird by doing these things without training, but it will take longer because there will be fewer opportunities for you to show your parrot that you’re paying attention to what he’s saying and for him to see just how much choice and freedom he has.
Myth: You have to have a lot of time to devote to training
Not only do you not need to spend a lot of time on training, it’s actually better to limit individual training sessions to just a few minutes at a time. Anywhere from 2 to 10 minute sessions will generally do the trick (<– intentional pun); how many sessions you do a day depends on each bird’s level of interest.
I started off doing one to two training sessions per day, each only 2-3 minutes long. These days, time constraints are such that I barely do 1 or 2 sessions a week, mostly just reinforcing old tricks. The beauty is that birds don’t seem to forget — even after a hiatus of a week or more, my birds remember all of their tricks from before.
Myth: If you use a clicker, you don’t need to use food rewards
The clicker is not the reward. The click itself does not motivate the bird to repeat a behavior, it simply signals that a reward will be forthcoming very shortly. The reward doesn’t have to be food, although food treats are convenient, but it does need to be something your bird likes and is willing to work for.
Myth: If you start clicker training, you’re stuck carrying a clicker around forever
Once a behavior is solidly trained, you can phase out the clicker. The clicker is used for explaining what behavior you’re looking for, but you don’t need it for practicing tricks your bird already knows.
Myth: The author of this blog is an expert
As the disclaimer in my sidebar states, I’m neither a training instructor nor an avian expert of any kind. I simply love parrots. My birds, Stewie and Mika, are “just” pets. They don’t perform in front of crowds, they don’t do anything you can’t easily teach your own companion birds in just a few weeks. I’m not a particularly good trainer and, as cute as they are and as much as I adore them, my birds are not in any way geniuses.
In other words, go try this yourself. You too can have friendly, tame, trusting parrots who do silly tricks to amuse and delight you and your friends.
Many thanks to professional bird trainers and clicker training experts like Melinda Johnson, Barbara Heidenreich, Karen Pryor and others who have provided the books, resources and discussion forums that have helped me develop a more positive relationship with my birds. However, any errors and gross misstatements about parrot training are mine, and no reflection on the above mentioned professionals.
For more information about the benefits of clicker training for birds, I recommend Melinda Johnson’s Clicker Training for Birds. Johnson’s book speaks in depth about concepts and techniques for learning how to teach your bird, with some good examples; it’s not a step-by-step “cookbook” breaking down individual approximations of every trick you could possibly teach a bird.
In addition, Karen Pryor’s Don’t Shoot the Dog is an excellent book about positive reinforcement training generally (and not about dogs specifically, so don’t let the title fool you).
When I first got Stewie I tried training him to step up because conventional wisdom has that this should be the first thing a bird learns. All Stewie learned was that if he bit me hard enough I’d eventually go away.
Then I found the Bird Click group on Yahoo and took the advice to start with target training. I stopped presenting my finger to him because he bit and he bit hard, and the first rule of clicker training birds is “avoid the bite.”
Mika Stepping Up
We started with targeting and moved on to a few other prop behaviors. After he learned several tricks, he started stepping up on my arm even without my having “trained” him to do it.
He did it because he had started to trust me and knew that I was a convenient method of transportation (at that time he wasn’t flighted). After a couple more tricks, Stewie now even steps up on a finger (although he still prefers arms) … again, without any explicit training on my part.
A common attitude is that there’s no point to teaching “stupid parlor tricks” like basketball, crawling through a tunnel, etc. if you’re not planning on putting on shows. And there are certainly more important tricks to teach than how to manipulate props — the most important, of course, being stepping up.
So what do you do if your bird refuses to step up? Do you keep forcing it, pushing your bird because it’s something she is supposed to know? And if yes, what do you do when your bird eventually starts biting, harder and harder and harder?
In my experience, it’s absolutely true that teaching “stupid parlor tricks” first helps get a bird more comfortable with handling and stepping up later on. If you have a distrustful bird — it seems common for parrots to be afraid of hands — teach him that hands are the source of wonderful treats, not instruments of brute force that bully him into doing things he is scared or unwilling to do.
There’s no reason you need to force a trick they don’t like; and if you come back to it later, you’ll probably find a much more willing student. And if your bird eagerly targets, getting him to step onto your finger eventually will be a cinch.
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Bonus: Mika admiring a photo of a pretty Pionus stepping up:
We’re taking a break from our regularly scheduled programming to show you something really cool.
Ever wanted to play fetch with a bird that has a wingspan of 8 feet and talons large enough to wrap around a tennis ball? Meet Evie the Eagle:
This trick is super-advanced flighted retrieve (i.e., not just retrieve, not just flying to retrieve and flying back, but catching the object mid-air and returning it. Wow! (Here’s the newspaper story on Evie and her handler)
Here’s Stewie doing his coins in a piggy bank trick. The blue piggy bank is just a ceramic bank I picked up at a toy store. The “coins” are plastic disks from a Connect Four travel set.
I’ve spent the last couple of weeks trying to convince Mika to eat a bigger variety of food. I’ve put off training with her because she’s such a picky eater that it’s hard to remove treats from her regular diet to use for rewards.
Furthermore, she’s a very slooooow eater. So far there’s nothing she likes that doesn’t take her a few seconds to eat, so we’ve been very slow to get started with training — that’s because the training reward should be something that can be eaten quickly enough that it doesn’t stop the flow of training. The bird should not be given any opportunities to get distracted from the behavior being reinforced.
My first goal before I even started training was to change her diet: no more peanuts, fewer seeds, high-quality pellets instead of filler and, if possible, fresh foods. In addition to being better for her, it would be awfully convenient if Mika and Stewie ate the same foods – it would cut preparation time in half!
The good news is that seeds are finally a much smaller part of her diet, with the majority of it consisting of a combination of Zupreem Avian Maintenance Natural pellets, the same type as Stewie’s but bigger, and Kaytee Exact Organic pellets, plus a mix of dehydrated vegetables. She still gets pumpkin seeds for snacks, but the sunflower seeds are only for rewards now.
Even though unshelled sunflower seeds still take a little longer for Mika to crack and eat than I’d like, it seems like the best training treat option for her. I might even try shelled sunflower seeds if it appears that it takes her too long to shell them herself.
So I think we’ve finally overcome the hurdle to the very first step of clicker training: finding an appropriate treat.
We’ve started on the second step of clicker training: charging the clicker. This is where we introduce the parrot to the concept that click –> treat.
Once that’s established we work on teaching that trick –> click –> treat (i.e. that specific behavior –> reward)
I actually never charged the clicker with Stewie — we just started on tricks right away; to tell the truth, I’m not sure he even gets the whole concept of the clicker — but he certainly “gets” training. For some reason it just seems like Mika requires more introduction to the concept and the clicker might be necessary for marking the desired behavior more precisely since she does react more slowly than he does.
Here’s a video of me charging the clicker with Mika and asking for step ups:
At the end of this session, right after this video ended, I tried introducing the target stick, but she just ran away from it, so I’m saving targeting for a separate training session.
Since I haven’t really done any training with Mika, there aren’t a lot of videos of her. So if you’re wondering why there are quite a few of the Stu-monster and so few movies of my pionus, that’s why. I promise it’s not one of those no-one-takes-photos-of-the-second child things I’ll take more videos once she knows how to do some tricks, and I’ve asked my videographer friend who did the cute Introducing Stewie video to make one of Mika as well. With her looks, there’s no reason she can’t be a movie star too.
Update: July 31
Only our second training session ever and she already seems to get targeting. She’s even taking a few steps towards the target on her own. Hurray!
One year ago TODAY, Stewie came home to live with me, and my life hasn’t been the same since. Because he was found on the street unbanded, we have no way of knowing how old he is, much less his exact hatch day, but July 15 marks the 1-year anniversary of his being my little Stu-monster* so I’m lighting a single (virtual) candle to mark the occasion.
Happy one-year anniversary, Stewie!
Working with Stewie has been such an incredibly rewarding experience, I wish more people knew how great it feels to earn the trust of a rescue bird. It’s hard to believe how far we’ve come in a year. Here’s to hoping for many, many, many, many more years to come.
* technically I didn’t decide on his name for several weeks, but that’s neither here nor there.
Here’s a video of Stewie putting rings on a peg. This trick is based on simple retrieve (although I didn’t start working on it until he perfected “ball in a cup“). I trained retrieve with a variety of objects, including these rings, so when it became time to teach this ring toss game, Stewie already knew to bring the ring to me and put it in my palm. I started off holding the peg in my hand and guiding it through the ring as he was holding it.
It took a long time of my helping him place the rings before he was capable of doing it without much help, and even once I stopped helping him by guiding the peg it still took a long time before he got proficient at it and perfected his aim. In the beginning he got a treat for every ring, but now that he does it pretty well I make him do 3 rings one after the other before he gets a reward.
Because the rings are also used for retrieve, he sometimes just tries to give the ring to me (i.e., put it in my hand) instead of getting it onto the ring — that’s what’s going on with the blue ring in the second section of the above video.
He also likes to cheat and lift up the ring he just placed on the peg a little bit and the let it drop again, rather than going to get a new one, so I have to hold down the already-placed rings with my finger so he can’t pick them up again.
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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.
My first goal before I even started training was to change her diet: no more peanuts, fewer seeds, high-quality pellets instead of filler and, if possible, fresh foods. In addition to being better for her, it would be awfully convenient if Mika and Stewie ate the same foods – it would cut preparation time in half!
