How did you train your bird to...

[PicklesParrot]

I have successfully started clicker training with my Eclectus-Mr. Pickles. He will run up and down the training perch to "touch" the red chopstick perfectly. I have even gotten him to "turn Around" perfectly. He no longer follows my hand but turns with a signal now. But, I can't seem to get him to focus or pay attention to anything else. Id like to teach him "shake", "wave", and "wings." Whenever I try to get him to lift his foot for "shake" or "wave" he just wants to grab my hand with his beak. And when I try to touch under his wongs to lift them for "wings" he will try to nibble on my fingers and move away. Maybe I should try something else first to move into these tricks? How did you get your birds to do these? Can anyone give me advice or step by step details of how you made this work? Also if your bird does any other tricks, How did you teach them those? It took me a good 2 weeks for him to perfect "turn around" and he was eager to learn and started picking up quick. He loves training time and gets excited for it. Sometimes he will even turn around and run up/down the perch while I'm getting out the clicker and treats. I've youtubed this things as well and only seem to find birds showing off the tricks they have already learned and not how they learned them. ANY advice or help or link to videos/articles is greatly appreciated.

 

[MonicaMc]

You probably need to capture the behavior rather than force it.

i.e. "wings" - capture him stretching his wings out and reward him for the behavior.

"shake" can be captured either when you initiate a step up or when he lifts his foot naturally.

Shake could then be transitioned into a wave.


I've taught my mitred conure to lift his foot up, but I haven't exactly gotten it into a wave or toe clasping yet. He's often eager to be with me, so he'll step up almost any time I present my hand. It was simple to pause with the command when he still had a foot up in the air and reward him for it.

 

[sodakat]

I just do the basics but what Monica said has worked for me. For instance, Jackie is big on flashing the red under his wings and will hold his wings open. When he stared doing it I would say, "show me!" and get excited. Some people use the word "eagle".

Now, most times I say "show me" he will lift his wings, PLUS two of my other males have learned the words "show me" after watching Jackie.

 

[PicklesParrot]

Thanks guys! I will try to catch the behaviour. I realized recently as well I need to work on his step up more. He has just started getting stubborn with it. I never actually trained him to do it because he came to me already stepping up. But lately he is refusing to do so and sometimes refusing to get off. Ill start training that and then maybe when he is better he can move into "wave" and "shake."

 

[gemini84]

when oxy and prince first started doing shake they woukd balance themselves by holding my finger with their beak, oxy still does this to give hi 5, (hi 4 to be picky....lol).

 

[OctupussPrime]

what i did was wait for my parrot to lift his foot to scratch his head and half way i'd click the clicker and at the same time say, wave, and treat him. time after time he started to wave for a treat till he got the hang of it. Also, he now lets me scratch his head on command lol so wait for the action then click.. easy lol