reducing food--as training method

[Pajarita]

I agree with a lot of what Pajarita said in terms of limiting food for performance. I don't believe that a bird should go hungry just for the sake of training.

That said, I disagree with her view of using food as a motivator. From what Pajarita said, she's just using a different positive reinforcement that's not food. It doesn't make it better, just different. And it's not that the food is the end all be all, its just a way of teaching. Same with my dog. I taught him commands that started with food but that was just to learn the procedure. Now he does the same things for scratches and kind words. I find the same with my bird so far. I hardly ever reward a step-up with anything other than a kind word or head scratch. But it took a few treats to facilitate the behavior.

As for what some consider "mindless tricks", I find training fun. And based on my parrots body language, which I've come to know pretty well, he likes it too. We have a fun time interacting in that way. As we do in others ways but it's just part of the complete picture.

But don't kid yourself that just becaus you don't use treats as positive reinforcement that you're not training your parrot in essentially the same way as those who use food. You might believe that your bird is doing what you ask because he "wants to" but in reality it's just the preospect of the positive reinforcement regardless of the form it takes that helps them learn. The only difference is that your reinforcement is different the someone else's.

No, the difference is that my bird doesn't need to do a trick to satisfy its hunger, loneliness, need for attention, etc. If I call a well-fed, fully flighted bird that doesn't live in a cage and is surrounded by other birds (and this makes a HUGE difference because a bird alone in a cage for hours and hours would be more than happy to do a training session when this means he gets to come out and finally get some attention and company as well as food!), to me and the bird comes, I can assure you it's for no other reason that the bird wants to. Does the bird come all the time? No, it comes when it feels like it (but they do the greatest majority of the time). Does it matter to me that if it doesn't? No. I don't insist, I don't bribe, I don't punish, I don't reward. I merely ask - nicely. The same way that I would call a grandchild to me for a hug and a kiss and the grandchild would come running with his arms open to hug and kiss me back - or not, although they also do the greatest majority of the time. The motivation is nothing but love. Not food, not freedom, not company, not attention, not anything that is actually a necessity to the parrot. And I don't think that you can call love 'positive reinforcement' although I am not 100% sure... If I understand it correctly, positive reinforcement is an 'extra', a 'bonus', something good that you get when you do well - but, although I guess that a show of affection could be used and taken as a reward, I don't think that something you give or take away depending on behavior could actually be called love... But, in any case, that's not the 'kind' of love my animals get. They are loved (and get treats) regardless of whether they do what I ask them to do or not. And that's the basic difference: what I give them when they do something I ask for is not a reward for performance because they would still get it if they did not do anything.

[Holden1960]

From what I have read so far, food management is about good weight management. Being able to take advantage of this to assist training is just a bonus.

Overweight birds suffer with some serious health issues and it is therefore in the birds interest that they have their diet managed in captivity, in the wild the case is often that only just enough is provided by the natural environment and at times not enough is provided and therefore the bird does not get the opportunity to carry excess weight.

From what I know about parrot behavior they generally eat in the morning and in the evening around dawn and dusk when their predators are usually busy looking at the inside of their eyelids. When someone says that they are taking advantage of these times what is wrong with that considering if the bird was out in the wild, this is when it would be most motivated to do what it needs to do to eat?

At this point in time I am of the understanding that living with a parrot is like living with a 2 year old child. I remember when my kids were that age my wife and I invested a huge amount of time and effort into training and providing routine. This includes choosing when and how much they eat, and also developing a relationship where they understand that they can have anything they want, but there are expectations placed on them.

You may not consider it training, but every time your child says please or thank you it is because of training, when they do get a bit older and do their homework when they get home, it is because of training.

"Do your homework and after dinner we will go out for ice cream" is that not using treats as a motivator?

If we are going to use this type of training on humans, why not birds?

I await Pajarita's passionate response.

[Pajarita]

Because you are talking not only two completely different species but also one of them is OUR own young (very easy for us to read) who grows up into an independent adult (same as us), who evolved to live in a hierarchical society and is hard-wired for following orders from superiors - while birds do not grow up into human adults, we cannot really read because we have no point of reference, have completely different needs and behaviors programmed by nature, and which do NOT include living in a hierarchical society and following rules set by somebody else. A bird in the wild might be 'motivated' to forage because he is hungry but the activity itself is a social, pleasant and completely natural one while a parrot 'motivated' to do a trick because he is hungry for the reward is stressed out because this is not learning a trick is NOT inherently a social, pleasant or natural activity (parrots don't 'work' for their supper in the wild).

And, no, weight management is NOT food management and if you are reading this anywhere, you are reading ONLY one side of the story (that of people who train professionally). Food management is only used for training, weight management is only good parrot husbandry. BIG difference! The first is for our benefit, the second for theirs.

Now, let me clarify my position, I have no problem with giving a child a treat for behaving well the same that I don't have a problem with people identifying a high value item for the bird (usually a protein food like a favorite nut) and giving the bird this item only as a reward for training AS LONG AS the bird is not been kept waiting for his food or deprived of the necessary quantity to not feel hunger (which is what food management is all about).

And a parrot that has been alone all day long in a cage and shows excitement when he comes out of his cage for a training session is not happy because of the training, it's happy because he was finally let out of prison and has gotten company and attention. The parrot would be just as excited and happy if you just open the cage and do nothing but walk around with him on your shoulder and give him a nut for no good reason but because you love him.

[marie83]

Marie, when people talk about an animal been more receptive to training because they are hungry and the reward is getting food, you are talking about a HUGE lack of empathy and a HUGE control/power trip. Have you ever heard of dogs or horses having to wait for their dinner so they can be more receptive to training? No, you haven't. Dogs and horses are trained in the middle of the day, after their breakfast and well before their dinner (if they eat twice a day). It's actually counter-productive to train an animal when it's hungry and the only motivation for performing is the food they will get for it. Animals, like people, cannot learn well when they are hungry.

The reason why people use it with birds (see note below) is because birds don't feel the need to please anybody, humans or their 'leaders', so the only way of ensuring a consistent response is to force it - thus, hunger been a great motivator. Otherwise, given a parrot a choice (and that means self-confidence, flight, outside a cage, etc), he/she will only do what you ask when he/she feels like it. Humans tend to be very controlling and want all their pets to obey them all the time perfectly regardless of the situation, time of the day, animal's own volition or mood and whether they (the humans) deserve the obedience or not. And parrots not been hard-wired for obedience present a problem for the human who needs the immediate gratification of show of power over the 'inferior' animal. Thus, the food management technique.

Note: people used to do it (and I am sure they still do) with canaries, they would not feed them for an entire day or more and when they were starving, they would put their hands in the cages with food on the palm so the bird, desperate for food, would perch on the hand. They learned but it's a despicable thing way of getting an animal to do anything!

Now, let's not confuse weight management with food management because bird people are now using them indistinctly, but they are two completely different things. Weight management means exactly that: managing weight. It consists of switching food around (like low carb items instead of high carb), not free-feeding, reducing portions and increasing frequency in order to keep a faster metabolism, feeding fiber items when hungriest and carb and protein later, allowing for exercise, etc. It's done solely for the bird's benefit and I practice it all the time and have been doing it for many years. Food management, on the other hand, is nothing but a euphemism for 'get the animal to perform no matter what and, if you have to, make it hungry", it's done by reducing portions without making up for the quantity taken away, eliminating or delaying a meal, etc. and it's done solely for the human's benefit. One is good, the other one is not. And birds that learn under food management can end up with problems; the most common one been that the bird reverts to baby begging behavior almost all the time he/she is with a human -which might sound like a very insignificant thing to put up with but, in reality, it's not because it means the bird is under severe distress.

I am all for training birds. I do teach my birds certain commands and they all learn whatever I want them to but I do it the same way I do it with my dogs, cats, children, grandchildren -and husbands The commands are all necessary for cohabiting (or, in the case of humans, simple good manners or consideration for others) and the teaching is done when the occasion arises and through repetition, consistence, persistence and positive reinforcement. None of my animals gets a treat for doing something right (well, the wild-caught might at the beginning but then I wean them out of it), they do it because they want to. And the treats or food are NEVER directly related to performance. Food is their right and providing it is my obligation and not to be used as a way of getting something I want out of them.

Actually I would disagree with most of this because your blowing it way out of proportion. Horses biologically need to graze day long, only letting a horse eat once per day would be considered cruel- and your horse would probably end up deficient nutritionally. Adult dogs are "often" fed just once a day and it generally isn't considered cruel to have them go 24 hours in between meals- personally I couldn't live with myself only feeding a dog once per day. Also there have been studies (although currently not too many and with limited species so far but they should be easy to find) that have concluded that limiting food intake (which we are not talking about here as the bird should still get a full daily allowance) has health benefits and can help with memory/learning. Of course we cannot apply this to birds and unstudied species as yet/if at all because we can't just assume it will work for each species- however if it does apply to some species it is definitely a fair question to ask if it could benefit all species after all we have a year round abundance of food these days in a domestic setting which is quite clearly not natures way....

The canary thing - again that's sheer cruelty and not feeding a canary or finch type bird for near on 24 hours is taking to the point of literal starvation. I know of someone who lost a number of birds in this way, the daughter fed the birds one morning, the father forgot to feed again that evening and by the following day he had lost 6 of them. Again- nobody is talking about starving a bird or only feeding 1 meal per day.

I personally have not and nor do I know of anyone whose birds have had issues with reverting back to baby behaviours from being fed twice a day with opportunity to earn more food in between- whether that's from training or foraging although I do accept that you have had more birds than me and will know more people with them.
None of mine, past or present will train if they don't feel like it regardless of whether I train before, after or in between meals.
I can also assure you on the very rare time my partner and I have somehow messed up their food routines then the birds let it be known by screaming the place down even after a morning training session so they are not fully hungry. My birds and I'm sure the majority of peoples birds do not starve or suffer just because they get the bulk of their food in two meals and bits in between.

I firmly object to the accusation on behalf of those who use food as a training aid are being cruel- these birds generally get morning and evening meals and you yourself have said on the forums just after dawn and just after dusk is when they eat the majority of their food in the wild. Earning food through training and foraging keeps their brains active, it can encourage flight which is both healthy for them and enriching, birds do not get anywhere near enough flight in captivity so we need to encourage it- even the active ones don't get enough.
Not providing them with ways to get food in the day seems cruel to me and many people do feed just morning and night although they are probably the same people that are happy to leave the bird long periods without company or near permanently stuck in a cage.
Not feeding your bird a morning meal at all to train in the afternoon seems even crueller and that is where the issues lie- people who force the bird to do stuff to fulfil its natural instinct to survive.

So should there ever be proper conclusive evidence that birds as a species do better health wise with variable food allowances are we then going to be deemed cruel for not looking after their health by feeding too much or too often? Just wondered because right now people aren't doing that, people are feeding their birds entire daily allowance by spreading it through the day and according to you even that is unacceptable as it means we are "starving" our animals, lack empathy and seek to control.......

[Pajarita]

I am either not explaining myself properly or you are not understanding what I wrote, Marie. Let me try to clarify: the only way to teach a parrot to do tricks is through food rewards and we agree on that. You must have seen many professional animal trainers shows and what you always notice is that, when it's a parrot performing, they ALWAYS get a treat after but, when it's dogs or horses, they never do even if they used treats to teach the animal the trick to begin with. Why? Because pleasing us is no real motivator for parrots so they need the reward or they simply would not do it. BUT if a parrot has a full belly and the high value item (reward) is given often enough (daily sessions), it loses value and, eventually, the bird will not perform consistently for it so, if you want your bird to perform all the time and perfectly on cue, the only way to achieve this is through what they call 'food management' which basically means the bird needs to be hungry. Maybe not necessarily starving but definitely hungry. I object to that practice.

My point is that some training does not require treats because the parrot will do it because it wants to. This includes flying to us, stepping up, not beaking hard, etc. There is a reward for the parrot but the reward is nothing more than our closeness - something they desire. I have two parrots that would wave to me when they say Hello or ByeBye but they do it on their own, not because I ask them to and the only reward they get is my reaction (I say Hello or ByeBye to them very enthusiastically and lift my hand the same way they lift their foot and we do this for a minute or so, facing one another). I have parrots that play peekaboo with me but, again, they do it because they like my reaction. So, some 'tricks' can be taught and performed without any food reward BUT they always have an unpredictable result (sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't). And I have no problem with that, I have a problem with people sitting down every single day to train and delaying, say, their dinner in order to ensure the bird will perform well every evening.

And I don't know where you got that I think it's bad to practice weight management... quite the contrary! I ALWAYS recommend it! It's part of a good parrot husbandry.

But, although I am not sure about horses not been fed continuously (I thought they always had some fodder or grass to chew on throughout the day but I could be wrong on this) I know for a fact that feeding dogs once a day is not cruel or even harmful as long as the dog is from a small to a large size (toys, miniatures, extra large and giant breeds need food twice a day but that's only because they are so aberrant in terms of size from what nature created a canine to be). Wolves don't even eat every single day.

As to birds reverting to baby behaviors, Michael's Truman does it all the time and you can see it in several of his videos. It's called psychological or emotional neoteny and it's not what you would call something you would desire of your bird.

[Hookturn]

I love the statement, and Pajarita uses it a lot, that her birds do particular things because they "want to." Yes they do want to. But they "want to" because of some reward. Whether it's food or affection or whatever, they are doing it for some perceived benefit to them. It's not better or worse just different. Pajarita can look down on all of us who enjoy teaching our birds "mindless tricks"'all she wants, but it's funny that she's teaching her birds in the same way just with a different motivator.

[Pajarita]

Nope, you are missing the point. I don't teach them tricks. They learn them by seeing something done or said many, many times and by them deciding ON THEIR OWN to imitate it. Some do it, most don't. And the ones that do only do it when they want to so the 'performance' is completely unpredictable and it appears and disappears at their will. In my house, there are no training sessions, no rewards, no target, no expectations, nothing but daily cohabiting and mutual enjoyment of each other's company.

But I have nothing against training as long as it's not the alpha and omega of parrot ownership, the only consistent interaction with the bird, there is no suffering in the part of the bird in any way and no expectations for the bird to perform ever.

[Wolf]

At present the only training that goes on with my birds is speech, and that is done just by the repeating of some words and phrases, it is done whether they are in or on their cage or any place that they happen to be and the rest of it is just me talking with them and I don't reward them with any thing other than an excited good girl or boy.

[Pajarita]

Exactly what happens with mine. I am going to give you another example. Zeus is an adult yellow nape amazon of about 15 years of age that had been punched by his previous owner when he bit so he is a 'hands-off' bird (especially since he has a mate he is very possessive about) BUT he used to be a pet in another previous life (I am his fourth home, I think) and understands 'Good boy!' and 'Pretty bird!' so I say them to him often and he comes close to me, perching at the very edge of the platform and actually putting his body forward and lowering it (the platform is at the same height of the top of my head so my eyes are lower than his) so he can look at me closely when I talk to him. The only word he says is Hello in a low, man's voice so I always say Hello to him several times while I am in the birdroom and, as I saw that he was looking at me so intently when I talked (praised ) to him, I started waving my fingers at him when I said Hello the same way that one would do it to a baby (hand at shoulder level, palm facing out and fingers slowly going up and down together in a 'come hither' motion). About two or three weeks ago, he started lifting his right 'hand' and opening and closing his toes (kind of like making a loose fist and then opening it again) while I was doing it - he was imitating my hand wave! This, of course, prompts a very enthusiastic praise for him which makes him fan his tail and half pin his eyes in pleasure. Now, you might say that I am 'teaching him a trick' but, in reality, I am not, he is the one doing the learning on his own and only because he wants to.

[Hookturn]

He "wants to" because there is a pay off for him. Whether it's your company, head scratches, or whatever, it's the same as when my little guy comes to me for a treat. I don't know why it's so hard for you to admit that. Your birds do what they do for some perceived benefit. Just because you think your motivation is better or more pure than those of us that use food doesn't make it so. It's just a different motivation. They "want to" because they believe it's in their best interest. Plain and simple. You can tell yourself and us that it's just because they "want to" but that doesn't change the fact that "want to" is really their reaction to a perceived reward. Whatever that might be.