Much progress

[dohcsvt]

After 3 weeks of training I have taught both my and my to target, turnaround and wave. But today I had a break through with the as I discovered that he will do wave with a verbal command only. This is the first time that he has performed off of a verbal so I am very excited. Only problem is he does not lift his leg very high, maybe parallel to the floor, but that is it, and that is with a verbal or visual cue. the although learning at a slower pace lifts his leg much higher when waving. I guess that I can make the green cheek lift higher by not rewarding until he lifts higher, but I do not want to confuse him. Does anyone have some suggestions?

Also, what would be the next recommended trick at this point? I was going to try and get them to shake thier heads yes, but that is in no way building off of what they know. So, I thought that there might be a better choice for the next training agenda item. Thanks for any help.
Ottis

[cml]

Congrats, it seems you've done a great job with your little fellas! We would like to teach our little guy, Stitch wave next!

We started with the headshake as it was easy to get him to do (since its a natural behavior) and the last couple of days we've had a breakthrough. He now almost always performs the head shake on cue. He also shakes randomly during the day, but I guess thats because he's realised that its a behaviour thats rewarded. We dont reward the random shakes now though!

Have you any tips for the wave? Any problems you ran into or anything else =)? Also, how do you teach turn around?

Cheers,
CML

[dohcsvt]

Congrats, it seems you've done a great job with your little fellas! We would like to teach our little guy, Stitch wave next!

We started with the headshake as it was easy to get him to do (since its a natural behavior) and the last couple of days we've had a breakthrough. He now almost always performs the head shake on cue. He also shakes randomly during the day, but I guess thats because he's realised that its a behaviour thats rewarded. We dont reward the random shakes now though!

Have you any tips for the wave? Any problems you ran into or anything else =)? Also, how do you teach turn around?

Cheers,
CML

Congratulations with head shake, I am working towards that...eventually.

I did wave by waving at the bird with one hand (making sure that hand stays in his field of view) and then bring my other hand towards him like I am looking for a step up, but do not allow step up, smply pull the hand back and reward when he raises a leg. Ther is a video on it, I will try to find it.

As for turnaround...for me I built off of target. Once the bird learned to target, I would then get him to notice the stick and move it around him as he follows it...but don't let him touch it and then reward at full rotation. I had to start rewarding my at half rotation, because he would not turn all the way around, but as long as they are moving in the right direction. I wish you the vest of luck.
Ottis

[dohcsvt]

Try this link, it has many ideas on training and the blog is run by the gentleman that founded this site. Tons of great info...once again, good luck!

http://trainedparrot.com/

[cml]

Yes, Ive read pretty much everything Michael has on his site, its a great resource. I was thinking that turn around can be built off from our previous target training (target training is probably what stitch knows best).

I am thinking that wave will be our next trick, Im gonna follow michael's guide for it, just wanted to know if you had experienced any problems along the way. Its a great thing with these forums, to share experience and learn something from each other along the way! =)

[Michael]

I would say it's better to go to wave first rather than turn around and here's why. I prefer to teach unrelated tricks after each other to prevent confusion/mixing. If the bird just learned target and now you teach turn around, it can interfere with the ability to target. The bird will start turning around every time it sees the target stick rather than targeting. If instead you teach wave, clearly there won't be one bit of confusion with target and it will give more time (and practice, don't forget to continue to practice old tricks) to fortify the original trick.

If you look at the order I have been teaching tricks to Truman you will see that they alternate in type of trick. One will be a prop trick then the next will be a cue trick, etc. I purposefully developed this order to minimize confusion and mixing of tricks. While it is possible to teach tricks in any order, I do think this alternating concept works best for learning and retention.

[dohcsvt]

I would say it's better to go to wave first rather than turn around and here's why. I prefer to teach unrelated tricks after each other to prevent confusion/mixing. If the bird just learned target and now you teach turn around, it can interfere with the ability to target. The bird will start turning around every time it sees the target stick rather than targeting. If instead you teach wave, clearly there won't be one bit of confusion with target and it will give more time (and practice, don't forget to continue to practice old tricks) to fortify the original trick.

If you look at the order I have been teaching tricks to Truman you will see that they alternate in type of trick. One will be a prop trick then the next will be a cue trick, etc. I purposefully developed this order to minimize confusion and mixing of tricks. While it is possible to teach tricks in any order, I do think this alternating concept works best for learning and retention.

I hadn't thought of that. I was lucky that neither of my birds confused target and turn around. My next plan is targeting at a distance. I started this morning and the best I can get is a hop from one perch to another....if it involve wing flapping, neither of my birds are interested. So, I will work on that.