jakrob4
New member
- Mar 24, 2013
- 34
- 7
- Parrots
- Abby - Hahns Macaw
Lulu - Lovebird
Ziggy - B&G Macaw
Just wrote some training tips in another post and thought would put them in a thread for whoever else is interested.
First of all I have to say the benefit of using a clicker compared to voice commands is the split second timing. Most people don't use a clicker properly when training with it and can confuse the bird even to the point of being detrimental. When using a clicker every click must be timed perfectly and never done at the wrong time for it to be most effective. When training a bird to wave at the beginning for example the click must be done the second that foot lifts off the perch. If done too late it can make the bird think it was getting a click for something else and might not even try lifting its foot for many more tries. When clicker training no click is better than a badly timed one.
For my advanced birds I do all my training sessions slow at the beginning with plenty of praise and lots of treats to ease them into it and by the end of it it's a fast intense challenge with only seconds between clicks and a treat only every 4 clicks or so.
They fly back and forth between me and a perch with many randomly mixed tricks between and compete against each over. I also do solo training sessions with them on different days. They finish it off quite puffed, exhilarated and wanting more so they look forward to the next training session. I compare it to a workout session, if you go at it slow the whole time without much challenge you never really get your heart racing and it is really quite boring. If you start off slow and then end up really pushing yourself and smashing it out by the end of it you feel amazing (and sore) and have a lot more fun. Obviously you need at least a couple of tricks in the bag before you can start doing this and a fair bit of experience with timing and commands as its easy to stuff up when doing it so fast.
Only use treats that the bird doesn't get in its normal food, if using nuts chop them into little pieces first. Your kisses and excitement are treats too, doesn't always have to be food.
Now Here is the big one, every time you are trying to get your bird to do something ask yourself 'Does the bird want to do this or am I making it do this?'. By this I mean are you forcing your bird onto your hand with your other hand or are you using a treat as bribery? Every time you put your bird in a position it doesn't want to be in you are breaking that trust barrier in a very bad way and only adding more problems for the future.
Patience is a must with bird training.
We all know how hard it is not to dunk your bird in the shower because you just got your new shower perch and want it to try it out, just don't do it.
Let it make that decision itself otherwise you might wreck any chance of it ever using it. The only exception to this is putting healthy foods in its face it refuses to taste, never stop doing this haha.
Here is my detailed version of recall training, please give it a read even if your bird is well trained already and let me know what you think or if its missing anything.
1. Click the clicker then give your bird a food treat or something else it enjoys, this could even be a scratch or both.
2. Once the bird is giving a very obvious reaction that it thinks it is getting a treat when it hears the click it is ready for the next step. This could take 20 minutes or 2 days. This is called conditioning.
3. Slowly bring your hand towards the birds chest in the shape of a perch until the bird starts to seem scared or uncomfortable, STOP right there and don't move it any closer, give the bird a treat with your other hand and then remove both hands completely. Keep repeating this until you can get within a few cms of the bird without it being scared at all but do not touch it yet.
4. Now put your hand in front of your bird like a perch then gently say 'Come on *birds name* step up'. Don't touch its chest or be close enough to make it uncomfortable, if you are forcing it to do something you are doing it wrong. If it doesn't step onto your hand on its own use your other free hand to hold a treat just out of its reach so it would have to step onto your perch hand to get the treat. You must also be holding the clicker in one of your hands at the same time (this is a skill in itself haha). The second your birds puts both feet on your hand you must click and say good bird then give it a treat.
5. Keep repeating this until your bird understands it very well and even steps up without a voice command. Don't give it treats every click, mix it up but make sure you say good bird every time because you can use that to let it know it has done what you wanted when you don't have a clicker or when showing friends tricks.
6. Do the same to get it to go on its perch but change the voice command to '*birds name* on your perch'. Make sure you click the second it steps on its perch as well and give it random treats for doing it.
7. Pick a whistle that you can do loudly and easily, this will be your recall whistle. Don't use your fingers in your mouth and remember the one you pick will be used for the rest of its life so pick well. This helps if your bird ever gets outside or if your training it for freeflight. My hahns macaw even uses this whistle to call my lovebird from the other end of the house.
8. Now put your hand in front of your bird like a perch but a hold it a little further away, then say 'Come on *birds name*' and do the recall whistle you picked. So for example my command is 'Come on Abby *phwt phweo*'(The phwt phweo is my recall whistle, it's sort of like a wolf whistle but done faster and shorter).
8. Do the same for getting it to go on its perch but don't whistle just use the on your perch command. As you get further away you will find it will be a lot easier to get it to come to you than it is to get it to fly back to its perch. To solve this start only giving treats after it has flown to you and then back to its perch but still click for both.
9. Once your bird is jumping/flying off the perch to get to your hand on command keep moving it further away until you are getting it to fly from the other side of the house or into different rooms. You can nearly turn it into a game of hide and seek using only your whistle as the hint to where you are.
10. Repeat this daily for the rest of its life and in 4 years time you will probably have a bird that you could take outside and it will come to you on command.
I also have a jackpot whistle that is only used at the end of a few training sessions. It is different from my recall whistle. This whistle is meant to be a 'come here no matter what whistle' and was meant for emergencies when in freeflight. This jackpot whistle is extremely loud and is ALWAYS followed by a massive amount of their favourite treats. In theory it's meant to snap them out of any situation like a hawk attack etc and get them to come back straight away.
Once they are well trained they will do commands for either a voice command or a hand signal.
If you want to teach a bird to turn around use the same method but hold the seed above its head and behind its back so it turns around and then bring it back around to the front so it does a complete spin, the second it finishes the spin click. As it gets better do the same movement but with no treat in your hand, it will think you are holding one anyway. Once it is confident with that start doing the spin with your hand slowly higher and higher above its head until you can do the hand movement from a distance.
To get it to fetch start off by giving it the object you want it to fetch, the second it bites it click.
Slowly start lengthening the time it has to hold the object until you click. Then put the object next to the bird and tell it 'pick up the *objects name*' and it should pick it up on its own, click the second it picks it up.
Start holding your hand under it so when it drops the object it lands in your hand and give the commmand 'give it to me' or 'bring it to me', the second the object touches your hand click. Once it figures out 'bring it to me' means put the object in my hand you can start moving your hand further away or throwing the object further away.
Every trick is taught in baby steps this way, all the clicker does is pinpoints the exact second the bird has done the right thing. You can teach anything if you break it down into steps. I also find the birds are more interested in the training if I'm using the clicker.
Any opinions or questions are appreciated.
Good luck and most of all have fun
First of all I have to say the benefit of using a clicker compared to voice commands is the split second timing. Most people don't use a clicker properly when training with it and can confuse the bird even to the point of being detrimental. When using a clicker every click must be timed perfectly and never done at the wrong time for it to be most effective. When training a bird to wave at the beginning for example the click must be done the second that foot lifts off the perch. If done too late it can make the bird think it was getting a click for something else and might not even try lifting its foot for many more tries. When clicker training no click is better than a badly timed one.
For my advanced birds I do all my training sessions slow at the beginning with plenty of praise and lots of treats to ease them into it and by the end of it it's a fast intense challenge with only seconds between clicks and a treat only every 4 clicks or so.
They fly back and forth between me and a perch with many randomly mixed tricks between and compete against each over. I also do solo training sessions with them on different days. They finish it off quite puffed, exhilarated and wanting more so they look forward to the next training session. I compare it to a workout session, if you go at it slow the whole time without much challenge you never really get your heart racing and it is really quite boring. If you start off slow and then end up really pushing yourself and smashing it out by the end of it you feel amazing (and sore) and have a lot more fun. Obviously you need at least a couple of tricks in the bag before you can start doing this and a fair bit of experience with timing and commands as its easy to stuff up when doing it so fast.
Only use treats that the bird doesn't get in its normal food, if using nuts chop them into little pieces first. Your kisses and excitement are treats too, doesn't always have to be food.
Now Here is the big one, every time you are trying to get your bird to do something ask yourself 'Does the bird want to do this or am I making it do this?'. By this I mean are you forcing your bird onto your hand with your other hand or are you using a treat as bribery? Every time you put your bird in a position it doesn't want to be in you are breaking that trust barrier in a very bad way and only adding more problems for the future.
Patience is a must with bird training.
We all know how hard it is not to dunk your bird in the shower because you just got your new shower perch and want it to try it out, just don't do it.
Let it make that decision itself otherwise you might wreck any chance of it ever using it. The only exception to this is putting healthy foods in its face it refuses to taste, never stop doing this haha.
Here is my detailed version of recall training, please give it a read even if your bird is well trained already and let me know what you think or if its missing anything.
1. Click the clicker then give your bird a food treat or something else it enjoys, this could even be a scratch or both.
2. Once the bird is giving a very obvious reaction that it thinks it is getting a treat when it hears the click it is ready for the next step. This could take 20 minutes or 2 days. This is called conditioning.
3. Slowly bring your hand towards the birds chest in the shape of a perch until the bird starts to seem scared or uncomfortable, STOP right there and don't move it any closer, give the bird a treat with your other hand and then remove both hands completely. Keep repeating this until you can get within a few cms of the bird without it being scared at all but do not touch it yet.
4. Now put your hand in front of your bird like a perch then gently say 'Come on *birds name* step up'. Don't touch its chest or be close enough to make it uncomfortable, if you are forcing it to do something you are doing it wrong. If it doesn't step onto your hand on its own use your other free hand to hold a treat just out of its reach so it would have to step onto your perch hand to get the treat. You must also be holding the clicker in one of your hands at the same time (this is a skill in itself haha). The second your birds puts both feet on your hand you must click and say good bird then give it a treat.
5. Keep repeating this until your bird understands it very well and even steps up without a voice command. Don't give it treats every click, mix it up but make sure you say good bird every time because you can use that to let it know it has done what you wanted when you don't have a clicker or when showing friends tricks.
6. Do the same to get it to go on its perch but change the voice command to '*birds name* on your perch'. Make sure you click the second it steps on its perch as well and give it random treats for doing it.
7. Pick a whistle that you can do loudly and easily, this will be your recall whistle. Don't use your fingers in your mouth and remember the one you pick will be used for the rest of its life so pick well. This helps if your bird ever gets outside or if your training it for freeflight. My hahns macaw even uses this whistle to call my lovebird from the other end of the house.
8. Now put your hand in front of your bird like a perch but a hold it a little further away, then say 'Come on *birds name*' and do the recall whistle you picked. So for example my command is 'Come on Abby *phwt phweo*'(The phwt phweo is my recall whistle, it's sort of like a wolf whistle but done faster and shorter).
8. Do the same for getting it to go on its perch but don't whistle just use the on your perch command. As you get further away you will find it will be a lot easier to get it to come to you than it is to get it to fly back to its perch. To solve this start only giving treats after it has flown to you and then back to its perch but still click for both.
9. Once your bird is jumping/flying off the perch to get to your hand on command keep moving it further away until you are getting it to fly from the other side of the house or into different rooms. You can nearly turn it into a game of hide and seek using only your whistle as the hint to where you are.
10. Repeat this daily for the rest of its life and in 4 years time you will probably have a bird that you could take outside and it will come to you on command.
I also have a jackpot whistle that is only used at the end of a few training sessions. It is different from my recall whistle. This whistle is meant to be a 'come here no matter what whistle' and was meant for emergencies when in freeflight. This jackpot whistle is extremely loud and is ALWAYS followed by a massive amount of their favourite treats. In theory it's meant to snap them out of any situation like a hawk attack etc and get them to come back straight away.
Once they are well trained they will do commands for either a voice command or a hand signal.
If you want to teach a bird to turn around use the same method but hold the seed above its head and behind its back so it turns around and then bring it back around to the front so it does a complete spin, the second it finishes the spin click. As it gets better do the same movement but with no treat in your hand, it will think you are holding one anyway. Once it is confident with that start doing the spin with your hand slowly higher and higher above its head until you can do the hand movement from a distance.
To get it to fetch start off by giving it the object you want it to fetch, the second it bites it click.
Slowly start lengthening the time it has to hold the object until you click. Then put the object next to the bird and tell it 'pick up the *objects name*' and it should pick it up on its own, click the second it picks it up.
Start holding your hand under it so when it drops the object it lands in your hand and give the commmand 'give it to me' or 'bring it to me', the second the object touches your hand click. Once it figures out 'bring it to me' means put the object in my hand you can start moving your hand further away or throwing the object further away.
Every trick is taught in baby steps this way, all the clicker does is pinpoints the exact second the bird has done the right thing. You can teach anything if you break it down into steps. I also find the birds are more interested in the training if I'm using the clicker.
Any opinions or questions are appreciated.
Good luck and most of all have fun
