Bird Tricks classes any good?

[chris-md]

I’ve been on so many sides of the fence with them. But I like where I’ve landed.

They aren’t evil, they are for those who can’t help themselves.

The videos depict common positive reinforcement techniques. If you already understand reward based training (even in working with dogs), they’re generally useless. If you’ve never trained anything a day in your life, they’re very helpful.

Cost wise, you can’t complain about the prices. What you all have to understand is they are no different than dog trainers. they e just spoiled us with free content - welcome to the modern age of YouTubers meets actual professionals. I even had an exchange with jamie-Leigh once where she told me they were - at that point- still trying to find the balance between giving away free andvice/information and charging for proper services. Since there are far fewer bird trainers, of COURSE the prices will be higher. Dog trainers charge upwards of $200/hr. And theyre a dime a dozen. Dealing with an aggressive dog can cost you $5k or more. What do you think one of the few public bird trainers in the US should charge?

It’s simple economics. Besides, most “training videos” (mine included) aren’t done by behaviorists who are well versed in all aspects of training (including the use of punishment). They are proper behaviorists reading scientific papers and distilling it down for layman. There’s a measure of security knowing these people actually understand the universe of training.

And understand YouTube isn’t for everyone. Some folks who don’t understand training can’t work off generic YouTube videos. They’re the ones birdtricks caters to. I’ve thought many times how useless they generally are to me, but I realized not everyone understands training techniques like I do.

And understand finally saving a portion of food for a couple hours later is not the same thing as food deprivation, especially if the balance of the days meals are observed. It’s reshuffling calories throughout the day to ensure good motivation. Not a big deal. “food withholding” accusations should be reserved for proper calorie deficit/starvation techniques, which are abhorrent. This is not that.

 

[Keet_Krazy]

And understand finally saving a portion of food for a couple hours later is not the same thing as food deprivation, especially if the balance of the days meals are observed. It’s reshuffling calories throughout the day to ensure good motivation. Not a big deal. “food withholding” accusations should be reserved for proper calorie deficit/starvation techniques, which are abhorrent. This is not that.

Food management and weight management are definitely actual training techniques. Which need to be done correctly, if their birds are baby begging for food I don't think they're doing it right.
This is the article I made mention to earlier. Again it's quite old and I so hope BT has changed since then!

birdtricksters.com | LibertyWings.com

 

[chris-md]

I’ve seen that article. Some of it is legitimate criticism for the time. The rest (like renaming of traditional terms) is complaining for the sake of complaining with no actual valid point to be made.

I can’t say definitively how they deal with this nowadays, except for the videos they put out. They don’t appear to be starving peoples birds for training - as evidenced above, they said to merely save a portion of the morning meal for training. To their credit, They have been very transparent, including a post on this forum a several years ago if you search the member jamieleigh, about how they recognized they had some growing to do their since the early days. I’ve made similar tweaks, having made one or two big public training blunders (“public” to the few thousand viewers who watched a video of mine on YouTube I made 7 years ago that I subsequently took down where I’m basically manhandling my bird and calling it training while hormonal).

Their approach is simple: gentle positive reinforcement. Exactly how exotic training should be handled. Everything else, the marketing etc, up to personal tastes. I’m ambivalent about them, but they do occupy a unique niche of professional training and modern YouTuber, the latter which can evoke strong feelings. I can’t stand modern influencer culture personally, but it’s here to stay. And they are influencers…

 

[Whitelightning777]

Of course cats aren't birds, but I've found that Nyx is more willing to do tricks before feeding time instead of afterwards. I got her to stand up on her hind legs reliably,, only took 2 or 3 days.

I've been told if you can train cats, you can train anything.