Head shake on cue?

[cml]

So we are working ever so slowly on learning the head shake, and we've gotten to a point where I dont see much progress. Stitch has caught on to that shaking his head is rewarded, but not that he has to listen to the cue "Shake" and see me shake my head.
As it is now he spontaneously shakes his head after a flight recall or even after a stepup, hoping to earn extra treats.

Any tips on how to get him to understand that he has to do it on cue?

I have watched Michaels vid on head shaking and im using the same method, ive been blowing Stitch in the face to get him to shake his head.

Cheers!

[Michael]

This is the easy part. Reward when it is done on cue. Don't when it isn't. If you can predict him about to do it, show the cue. Or you can make the cue just as it is being done, then reward. If you followed the steps correctly, you would have already been showing the cue since the blowing phase so it doesn't take much more to get the cue locked in. Blowing + cue always happen together, then blowing stops happening but cue persists. Parrot learns to follow both, or one or the other so when blowing stops but cue is shown, it knows what to do.

[cml]

This is the easy part. Reward when it is done on cue. Don't when it isn't. If you can predict him about to do it, show the cue. Or you can make the cue just as it is being done, then reward. If you followed the steps correctly, you would have already been showing the cue since the blowing phase so it doesn't take much more to get the cue locked in. Blowing + cue always happen together, then blowing stops happening but cue persists. Parrot learns to follow both, or one or the other so when blowing stops but cue is shown, it knows what to do.

Cheers, we'll keep going at it slowly! I'll update once I start to see some results =).

[Michael]

Going too slowly could be the problem though. You want to get out of the transitional stage as soon as possible because you don't want the parrot to learn the incorrect transitional behavior so well that it is hard to undo/replace.

[cml]

Going too slowly could be the problem though. You want to get out of the transitional stage as soon as possible because you don't want the parrot to learn the incorrect transitional behavior so well that it is hard to undo/replace.

Ive done a couple of more training sessions now, and it hasnt stuck yet.
He does respond sometimes, and I can see his little brain thinking, but more often than not, I get no reaction from the cue (head shake and saying shake). Will work on is as fast as possible then, but I think I need to blow on his face a little more, or what do you think?

Cheers!

[Michael]

Yup. Blow to make him shake to correspond with the cue. See the video. Basically it is:

1) Show cue and continue showing it
2) Say cue
3) Blow
4) Parrot shakes
5) Click
6) Reward

Get on a roll with this like maybe doing 10 in a row. Then the parrot expects the blow already knowing what to do. But you trick it by not blowing (or blowing less and less each time) and showing the cue instead.

[cml]

Ive identified the problem!

The problem was simple, he has learned a cue for head shake, but not the right one. Instead of shaking when I or my wife shake our heads and say "shake" he shakes when we pout our lips, as to blow him in the face! I noticed this when I wisseled to Stitch and caught him shaking his head, and after trying it a few times noticed a pattern.

What we are doing now is shaking and at the same time pouting to get him to shake his head. Its far from perfect yet, but I think we are seeing a step in the right direction. Hopefully he will associate the pout with the shake of our head now, and then we can remove the pout altogether eventually.

[dohcsvt]

Good job getting him going. This is my next planned training, and your post may help me avoid some of the same issues.

[cml]

I hope you do well, we are making progress here at home!

[cml]

Here's where we're at now, Stitch does shake his head on cue now, but not every time. It's definatly going in the right direction ! I'm so proud of him.



Edit:cant seem to get the youtube window to work? Replacing with a link for now