How do you teach a parrot to stay put between tricks?

[Scatter]

Hey there,

I've had Calvin, my blue crowned conure, for almost a month now. He's learned to wave, shake his head, fetch and to fly to me when I call him, so I'm pretty happy with his progress so far(you might notice I've basically been following trainedparrot.com to the letter so far lol).

So here's the thing. After I ask for the first trick, or after he sees the clicker or the reward, and sometimes even just after I put him on a back of a chair(any of his most common "training spots"), he goes trick-crazy and won't stop randomly shaking his head, waving and generally trying his best to get attention. If ask him to do one of them he'll do it anyway, but sometimes he'll do what I ask and some other at the same time(wave-shake...), and anyway I'd prefer him to be still and pay more attention on our sessions.

I'd had this same problem with my dog and got great results by ignoring his cue-less tricks and rewarding him when he just sat still, waiting for my cues, every once in a while. Would this work on a parrot? I'm trying it out, but it's not easy, since he's very seldom not moving around...

Any suggestions?

[Kim S]

I would suggest turning your back on him for a couple of seconds. This will teach him that his behavior will get him nowhere. I believe Michael covered this in one of his training topics, just cnt remember which one.
He just wants a treat and is doing all the tricks he knows to get it, haha.

[idlepirate]

Sorry I know that you posted this in October and now its December but just wanted to leave a quick comment before someone else has the same problem.

I learned from a clicker training group, that you should always try to train 3 prop behaviors first to get the bird used to the clicker or training system. Until they understand that you cue, they perform, and then they get the treat. Not that they think they can just wave or shake their head and magically get a treat.
This is why they say you should never try teach a parrot to go potty as one of the first tricks (i know "going potty" isnt a trick but you know what I mean) as some might continuously poop, trying to get your attention or a treat and end up with internal problems.
By teaching a parrot 1-3 prop tricks first like "target" and "fetch" the bird is only able to perform the trick when you offer the prop... until it understands the training better.
Hope this made a little sense, hope everything's going great with the training so far

[Michael]

I can tell you from training 3 parrots that this is not entirely true. I do agree that it's best to start with target, however I have no problem going to wave from there and then to shake. You're going to hit bumps along the road when you move onto a new trick no matter what it is and going to have to deal with it sooner or later. The "begging" behavior where the parrot does the trick uncued is actually VERY GOOD. This tells you the parrot knows the behavior and is eager to earn treats. All you gotta do is reward when it was cued and not reward when it wasn't.

How do you think we capture vocalizations on cue? The parrot does them on its own, you click/reward the ones you want, they happen with greater frequency, they learn to do them only on cue to get the reward. Even after teaching Kili 20 tricks she still does some tricks uncued for (especially while learning them and even in general) just to get attention or beg for treats. Usually when she does tricks uncued it is to get my attention to cue her to do tricks so she could earn rewards. It all works out in the end.

As to the original poster, it sounds like the parrot might be "too motivated." If you are food managing, consider easing off or feeding the parrot a few big treats early on to get good motivation instead of desperate motivation which hurts the attention span. You want a motivated parrot but not desperate cause when it is desperate it will do everything just in case cause its gotta have the treat.