Hit a Block with Flight Recall

[Khaiqha]

So my when we're training, my Alex flies to me on cue a 100% of the time. I can also tell him to go back and he flies back to whatever he was perched on.

But when we're not training, I have like a 15% of getting him to fly to me on cue. It isn't treat based, as I can show him a treat and he still won't do it. When we are training, I have him fly to me in different rooms, so I know it's not location based. It's like I have to be in training mode to get him to recall, and I'm not even sure what my training mode is!

My guess is that there's some subconscious inflection in my voice/body posture that is different when I train. Does anyone have advice on how I can get him to recall all the time?

[Wayne361]

I hit this road-block too. Then I realized that Oscar didnt see a good reason to come to me if I wasnt providing food. Since parrots respond best to positive re-inforcement I realized that I had to provide a positive reason other than food if I was to succeed. So I would recall and give a very good beak scratch (which he loves) or an extended head scratch. Sometimes I would throw in a treat not used for training such as a small piece of banana (which he loves as well) to differentiate between training treats. Bottom line make coming to you a positive experience EVERY time and the bird will catch on soon enough.

Hope this helps,

Wayne

[lluke]

My little Quaker parrot is about 3 months old and I just got her yesterday. I've decided to let her be a flighted bird. How and when do i start the training for flight recall. Right now I have her confined to one room for flight away from her cage. She's very curious and aways flights away from me when I try to get her to step-up.

Help,
Lisa

[marie83]

Lisa, I know its exciting to have a new family member but your baby isnt yet familiar with his new surroundings and all these strange new people around. Give her a few days or possibly longer to settle in before you begin the training process, then we will be able to help you more.

[Michael]

It's ok, my parrots usually won't come when I call them outside of training either. They're lazy and if not really motivated, don't fly. Of course I can get them to step up or they follow me around. But they feel no obligation to come to me and why should they? They're not going to get anything that they really want. Sometimes they'll get my attention and I can tell they want to come to me, so I call them and they do. But if they are just chilling, they won't come if I call. I don't care about this too much but if it was necessary to overcome, I would feed them less, vary the time of formal training instead of same time each day, make treats more random, and give big treats for coming outside training. However, if you want your parrot to recall to you for nothing, dream on! LOL

Of course there are species that come for head scratches or attention, which I would call for nothing, but many won't. Mine won't unless they specifically wanted it to begin with. Cockatoos and other super social types you might have more success with.

The way to at least get started to train a parrot to recall off training times is to retrain the behavior from scratch at random times, offer mega treats, and do less normal training so that the ability to earn treats depends more on the informal training.

[Pricey_boy]

harry hasnt been doing it for very long but comes to me whenever i call him even if im not in training, once he learned to fly to me on cue i stopped rewarding him for it with treats but instead rewarded him with training session which i do reward him with treats for other tricks.
eventually he got use to it and sometimes hell just climb out of his cage and come to me when i call him not knowing if hes gonna do training or just sit with me he just takes the risk and enjoys being out either way

[Khaiqha]

Yeah, it's gotten to where if we're not training and I cue him to fly, he'll bend his head at me to see if I have anything worth while for him, and if I don't he just stays where he is. I only want him to fly to me more consistently in case of an emergency situation, like he got outside or there's a dog or whatever.

[Pricey_boy]

Maybe you could do training sessions with him on a perch and teach him to do tricks with the treats out of sight so he learns that even though he can't see them he'll still get them

[Dave & Karen]

Our parrotlet is the same way, if he's not in a training session, he won't come unless he wants to, but he follows me no matter what I'm doing so if I call him and he don't come to me I just don't sweat it. If I want him to come to me I can grab a snack and eat it where he can see me, he'll drop what he's doing for a bite of whatever I'm eating, since he loves broccoli or a bite of an oatmeal cookie or rice crispy treat, he'll fly across the house to get to me.
When I don't have food I'll grab a piece of millet and act like I'm eating it and that works just as well, then he gets the millet when he lands on me as well as LOTS of praise and head scratches if he wants.