Pajarita wrote:Michael wrote:Pajarita wrote:Yes, fun - but you forgot to add 'for us, humans'. I seriously doubt the birds think tricks are fun. If they did, they would do them without training or reward.
We'll never truly know if the birds think that are fun or not, but quite clearly through their behavior they choose to do them so there's gotta be something in it for them. You don't do anything without training or reward either. Any hobby or thing you do for fun at some point required learning how to do it and something that made it worth your while.
No, that's not quite correct. We don't do work without reward but we do fun things because the reward is in the fun. 'Fun' as a product of play behavior is found in nature in baby animals of some species sometimes (mostly with domesticated species), in adults. But parrots never play in the wild.
If parrots liked doing tricks they would do them without the reward... like dogs or horses would, for example.
Pajarita wrote:You need to do more in-depth research on the difference between a flock and a hierarchical society and what motivates them. And a hungry parrot would do any kind work to get food - any animal would, it's called survival instinct.
Pajarita wrote:You need to do more in-depth research on the difference between a flock and a hierarchical society and what motivates them. And a hungry parrot would do any kind work to get food - any animal would, it's called survival instinct.
Wolf wrote:Pajarita has her own ideas about parrots, many of which I agree with and some that I do not agree with. In regards to training, I am sometimes on one side of the fence and sometimes the other, but largely I disagree with her on this topic as I see no reason that training a parrot can't be a rewarding experience for both the bird and the human.
Clicker, target, stick training regardless of the name used for it or the precise application can be very useful. It can help you to have more and easier control of your bird as you can train it to go where it is directed to go. Trick training is pretty much a variation on this as you are not merely directing the bird to go here or there you are also asking it to move this object from here to there or to do this when you go here. If the bird is willingly doing these things, I see no harm. We can't say for certain how the bird thinks about these things, but most of us believe that our birds do enjoy many of the things that we teach them and most of the time we are basing this belief on telltale signs that are subjective and individual based on our understanding of our own birds. But I think that to a large degree that our birds welcome the break from the monotony of everyday life of doing nothing. They seem to appreciate the intellectual stimulation.
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