can you teach a parrot to drop it or leave it?

[skeetersunconure]

I know this is a wierd question but seriously parrots get into everything and chew everything what if by accident your parrot got out of his cage or something and there was something poisonous or dangerous to a parrot and by the time you noticed he was about to pick it up or was eating it I mean it would be nice if he knew how to leave it or drop it. I mean I know dogs can be taught to do this and parrots surprisingly have been taught many things that a dog can do as well so I was just wondering if it is possible or if you can teach a parrot to drop it or leave it. thanks!

[captwest]

Hey Skeeter, I'm sure you could train your sun to drop something, not sure how to go about it though, I know with my amazons if i startle them some thing like "HEY" they'll drop what their chewing on , tho it's usually something like my pen and not something dangerous. My birds do know the meaning of the NO command ,have to show some video, i think every owner needs to teach this as it comes in very handy.I think that with alot of these type of commands the tone or inflection of your voice is a real que to the bird, But i'm not a behavorlist, just a parrot lover with lots old and FRESH bite wounds. nothing like a cat fight between two hen YNs, the no command wasn't much help this time, btu it was alittle to late.

[idlepirate]

I haven't tried this yet so this is only a suggestion...
Have you tried, like with dogtraining, to substitute what the parrot is chewing with something else?
I'd imagine when the parrot knows its not supposed to chew on something and gets attention from you to give it back (usually trying to pull it away), the parrot is just going to want it more. Learnt this in puppy classes. When they had a shoe or something they weren't supposed to have, you're supposed to offer something in exchange of the shoe, something bigger and tastier like a bone for example. They see the bone and immedietly forget the shoe and drop it because the bone is more exciting and interesting.

I think the same concept might work on a parrot. maybe im wrong. Try offer the parrot one of its favorite toys to distract him to drop whatever it is that its chewing on and take what you have to offer instead. Or maybe even a flight recall or trick to get their attention and they might drop the item.
I dont mean treating them for chewing on something they shouldnt- just distracting them or substituting the item.

[Michael]

Well, in practical terms you could teach a parrot to fetch and drop things in your hand. However, this would not work in an "emergency" and most likely the parrot would find chewing whatever it found to be more entertaining/rewarding than the treat you'd give it. For these reasons it is more important to take adequate measures bird proofing and not allowing anything "poisonous or dangerous" to be available. You cannot rely on training to get the bird to drop it because if you don't notice the bird doing something dangerous, you cannot get it to drop it.

If you just find your parrot chewing up something you really don't want it to, training isn't that important because it is much easier to forcefully make it drop it. You can scare the parrot and it will usually drop what it is doing and fly away. Personally, I would just grab the parrot and pull whatever it is right out of its beak. Sometimes the parrots will get a hold of something of mine that's important and I will just pull the beak open and remove the item in question.

This is an issue so rarely that it just isn't worth trying to do training over. A lot of the time though I can use the fetch command and get the parrot to give me whatever it is holding. If it is urgent, I'll just take it away. If it is outright poisonous, I really make an effort for it not to even be there in the first place. If I am close enough to the parrot, I will just take it away. If I am really far and there is no other choice, I'll scare the parrot and it will fly away from whatever it is.

[Mona]

You can definitely teach "bring it to me"

I have used this cue to get things away from my birds every once in a while. If you spend the time and get it conditioned, you will be able to get most things away from them.

The other day, Phinney grabbed a plastic Donald duck off a shelf. I didn't want her to eat it (and that had the best chew texture EVER) so I just asked her to "bring it to me". She did. Michael probably has training a "bring it to me" behavior on a video somewhere as a "fetch". I used Tani Robar's methods on Phinney years ago. Phinney and Babylon are highly conditioned to the "bring it to me". I started training Babylon when she was a baby and she picked up the behavior incredibly quickly. For smart, quick little Babylon it was just a matter of reinforcing the behavior. Phinney, however, took longer because I started training Phinney when she was about four years old and it took a lot of time using small increments. I had to train Phinney using steps and in stages and I think it took her about four months to "get" the behavior....but once she had it she has never forgotten it and she is very conditioned to it.

Honestly, the "bring it to me" is the basis of most tricks that you might want to teach with props. It can also morph into a "flighted retrieve". If you spend time teaching it with props - and you spend time structuring training sessions so that the birds enjoy the training sessions - the result will be that in an unstructured session the birds will often respond to a cued "bring it to me" partly because they are conditioned and partly because they want the attention and are eager to start a "structured" training session. My best trained birds can be cued "bring it to me" to get them out of trouble.

Having said all that, it isn't 100%. I do agree that prevention is the best strategy; however, I have used this to manage problem behavior and it will work.

Fun question

Thanks!

Mona

[skeetersunconure]

Thanks guys those were really interesting answers!