Teaching a bird to Fetch a ball or something?

[bmsweb]

Firstly the bird I plan on teaching is a Cockatiel (Jazz). I want to teaching him to Fetch a ball or something like that. What process would you use to teach a bird this?

Thanks
Paul

[Michael]

Once again, that is a very advanced trick for a budgie/cockatiel. Start with simpler stuff like turn around, walk through a ring, shake head, nod head.

[bmsweb]

OK you must be getting sick of my question by now, but how do you go about teaching a bird to shake head or nod head?

[Michael]

I think it is time for you to buy a parrot training book or something. I do my best but it's a lot to explain all the training techniques. I am planning to write my version of a parrot training book and post it online for free when I get my next parrot. But until then...

Briefly, teach shake by blowing at your parrots face until it shakes its head trying to shake it off. Show a cue before this, blow, and click after it shakes and reward. For nod head yes, you use the target stick or a treat and pull it up and down so your parrot has to follow it with its head and that becomes nod.

[Frederica]

Hallo bmsweb,
getting a bird to fetch a ball is really difficult.
There are only two ways IMO:
Fisrt, you have a bird that natirally volubtarily picks up a ball (or another thing) and you can c/t this.
Second, you lead your bord to the ball and give the same cue you give for touching the target dtick.
Step by step, the bird will touh the ball and then you have to wait wht it does if you do not c/t: Push the ball, pick the ball up...?
I got my male budgie, Twitch, to pick up the ball for a millisecond and then toss ist away.
His female, Keisha-May first picked up the ball on her own and was heaviliy reinforced by me for that.
She now takes the ball from m hand, flies away with ot, runs wround with it and, with luck, retirns it to my hand.
Twitch watches this a couple of times and now...flies on my hand and picks up the balll.....for a millisecond, and tosses ist away!
We have been practising this for 3 months now, and it has hardly improved, except that he noe sometimes returns the ball to my hand (i. e. pikcs it up from my hand and almost instantly drops it back).

The great rhing about that:
Both birds LOVE to "play ball" but will only do it when I offer them the ball; neither experiments with it on its own.

Best,
Frederica

P. S. Best way to start:
Put some balls around the playstand/ cage and wait to reinforce any activity with it.

[bmsweb]

Thanks Michael,

We've started with turn around and that seems to be going well. Will work our way up to fetching

Frederica,

Thanks for the info, that helps heaps. I think understanding how a difficult trick like that works really helps understand the basic ones even better. Today, Jazz has been with us for two weeks exactly and I'm happy to say he is a totally different bird.

Will hopefully post some videos of him soon . . well once we have a few more tricks down

Cheers
Paul

[Manziboy]

I have tried a few times to teach Manzi to fetch. I am still having the same problem in that he won't hold any object any longer than it takes him to throw it. Manzi does pick things up on his own, but as soon as I begin training, any object gets immediately tossed. I was using a coin and he did learn that he can get the treat more frequently if he tosses the coin into the metal bowl, but as soon as the bowl got further away, he was no longer able to toss it far enough to get into the bowl. He still never tried to walk with it in his hand. Today I tried a pen and a wooden block and he tossed both of those several times. He quickly learns that he has to go over to the object and pick it up, but then he gets frustrated when I try to get him to hold onto the object for any length of time. I'm not sure what to do about this and think I will try teaching him another trick instead.

[Michael]

How many days in a row did you work on the trick? You sure it's not a lack of patience? Even a budgie could learn to fetch and that is really tough.

[skeetersunconure]

for skeeter fetch was extremely easy it took probably only a day for him to actually fetch it but another day to perfect and shape the trick. here is what i did: start with something flat like a checker piece and put a treat right next to it have the bird walk up and get the treat do this several times until the bird comes to expect the treat being there then place the treat under the object and have the bird see you do it. well when the bird walks up he will probably try to pick up the checker piece and immediately when he picks the piece up click and reward ir CR when your bird is steadily doing this try not placing a treat under the piece and when he walks up and picks it up CR. when the bird is steadily doing this slip yor hand under the piece when he picks it up so it falls in your hand. only reward when it falls in your hand he will start learning that the only way he gets a treat is if it falls in your hand then when he is doing this steadily bring your hand farther and farther away and eventually you will have fetch. the transition to the ball was a little tricky for skeeter but all you have to do is when he getst the trick start letting him fetch similarly shaped objects as the checker piece andthen add balls and things like that. really the transition was the only difficult stage for skeeter and i taught him out of it in literally 10 minutes if your bird has problems like skeeter did i can tell you what i did for skeeter to help him but now he picks up and fetches anything even a stuffed bear. i got a book for skeeter called Parrot Tricks: Teaching Parrots with Positive Reinforcement they disagree with clicker training but i think clicker is the better way to go. but ya fetch was one of the easiest tricks.

[Manziboy]

The issue of duration is not being addressed. I've had at least 10 training sessions with Manzi, when normally it takes from 1-3 for him to learn a new trick. With each time, there is no improvement and in fact he is getting worse because he cannot figure out what to do.

How do I increase the duration for which Manzi holds an object? He just grabs it and immediately throws it. This morning I decided to try "fetch" with something that Manzi likes to chew and thus hold for a long time. As soon as he saw the treat he ran to the object and chucked it. After a few minutes of chucking the object every time I switched objects and the same thing happened. By this time, Manzi was already giving up running away several times and then coming back again. If he doesn't get the treat right away, he runs away. I show him the treat again, so he'll run back, throw the object and then look to me for the treat. Sometimes he will throw it a couple of times to see if that helps him get the treat.

Another technique I tried was this. I placed the object on the table, and then as soon as he touched the object with his beak, I used the clicker (in which case Manzi immediately stops and comes to me for the treat). That way, he didn't get a chance to throw it. He learns that immediately (within two tries), but when I wait for half a second more, to get him to pick it up, it is already too late because he throws it right away.

I agree that fetch seems to be an easy enough trick. Manzi is so quick to learn tricks too, but somehow we are missing the connection here. Since there is no progress and the training session is just a backwards slide, then no amount of sessions, doing the same thing, will fix it. I need to somehow figure out how to teach Manzi to hold onto the objects, but I'm at a loss.