This morning I trained Dante to say his name when asked. It started out accidentally, but I'm very happy with the results!
Like many greys, Dante doesn't tend to talk much when I right am next to him. I guess he figures he has my attention, so why should he bother talking? So this morning I grabbed the clicker and started working with him to try to get him to say ANYTHING when I was standing right next to him.
I started by standing out of the room in the hallway and saying "I love you" because he often responds by saying "I love you" back to me. (Dante stayed totally quiet, but Nikko started telling me he loved me!) After several minutes of Nikko and me saying "I love you" back and forth to each other, Dante finally piped in with "pretty bird!" so I clicked, and gave him a treat. Then I went back to the hallway and started saying "I love you" again. Again, after a few minutes, he said "Dante bird" so I clicked and rewarded. At this point, I didn't care WHAT he said, I just wanted him to say it when I was standing next to him. I moved into the room a little bit and kept saying "I love you". He said, "Dante bird" again, and got rewarded, and a light went off in both of our heads: he realized he was going to get treated for saying "Dante" and I realized that I needed to change my cue from "I love you" to "what's your name" in order to match the behavior he was performing.
So I started asking him "what's your name" to which he replied, "Dante". It took about 20 or 30 minutes to get him to respond reliably. (I was working with Maxwell on "turn around" at the same time, without much success.) We'll see how well it sticks in the next training session, but I was able to get him to speak when I was just a foot away for the first time, so I'm quite happy!