Parrot agressive with clicker?

[eunoia93]

I have a 4 month old quaker parrot named Fintan. He knows how to step up but nothing else so far. I wanted to clicker train him and the first couple of times doing step up with the clicker seemed OK but he wasn't super into it. But recently whenever I take out the clicker he gets SUPER agitated. Crazy, he had never really bitten me that hard previously (just "beaking") but my normally nice baby really tries to take my finger off when I have the clicker and am giving him treats. I tried to just click the clicker and give him the treat repeatedly (without asking him to do something, just so he knows that "click" means "treat")..but instead of taking the treat gently like he normally does, he snatches it angrily and usually bites me hard in the process. It makes me afraid to try to give him the treat.

What should I do? I'm reluctant to forego the clicker because it seems like such a elegant way to condition an animal but I don't want to force it on him if he really hates it and I'm just scaring him. He takes food from me gently otherwise.

Thanks

[Wolf]

Personally, My first impulse would be to forget the clicker. That is probably the better thing to do, but since you still want to use a clicker, you could try and find a couple of different clickes that sound differently. There is something about the sound that the one that you currently have that is being rejected by your bird.
Although I have a clicker, I don't use it much preferring to give my birds praise and treats rather than just treats.

[eunoia93]

Personally, My first impulse would be to forget the clicker. That is probably the better thing to do, but since you still want to use a clicker, you could try and find a couple of different clickes that sound differently. There is something about the sound that the one that you currently have that is being rejected by your bird.
Although I have a clicker, I don't use it much preferring to give my birds praise and treats rather than just treats.

This is my first instinct as well but I didn't want to give up too soon, just wasn't sure if it was maybe worth it to keep trying with it. Thank you for your input about the different clicks. It is rather loud.

[Wolf]

You cam muffle the sound of it in your hand so that it is not as loud.

[Pajarita]

I don't even own a clicker and all my dogs, cats and birds are very well-behaved so it's not as if it's really necessary. I mean, people have been training animals for thousands of years without them so, obviously, it's not as if you can't do it without them! Personally, I don't use anything that I can tell aggravates the birds... And, with quakers (naturally aggressive little things that they are, especially if they are females), you don't want to do ANYTHING that will bring on their aggression and get them used to it.

Have you tried using always the same phrase of praise instead of the click? Works for me. But you should also re-evaluate your training because it might be that it's not the clicker sound itself the problem but that you are asking too much, too often, too long, at the wrong time, under the wrong conditions, etc and, if that is the case, changing the sound is not going to help.