Am I conditioning the clicker correctly?

[Cockatiels101]

I'm really confused about clicker conditioning. I've always thought that you just click and then you give the bird a treat immediately after you click, but apparently you're supposed to let the bird's beak touch the treat and then click. Help? Can somebody walk me through this whole clicker condition training? Cuz I think I've been doing it wrong for the past 4 days! Thank you! Please put in additional information that would help me out!

[Red Moppet]

Hi there! What are you training your bird(s) to do? Are you target training or something else?

The clicker acts as a bridge between the act you want the bird to do and the treat... in other words, right after the bird performs the desired action you click and then you can give it a treat.

I think what you are thinking of is getting the bird used to anticipating a treat immediately after the clicking sound... I read somewhere on this forum this process used. Initially you give a treat and then you click and slowly you move to clicking and then treating. Ideally the bird will be excited after the click because it knows it's getting a treat. Then you can start training. I think that's how it goes.

I'm just starting out myself so am not sure how well I can describe the process but there are many helpful & knowledgeable people in this forum that might be able to walk you through the process more clearly.

There are also several books out there that focus on clicker training and/or bird training that might be helpful (just do a google search and you'll find several).

Hope that helps a bit - looking forward to hearing more about your process. Good luck!

[Michael]

I'll go with what was said above

[Cockatiels101]

Oh, okay! Thank you! Now, I'll have to do it all over....