What next?

[dohcsvt]

I have been training my Ollie and Stanley for about 4 weeks now. They both know target, wave and turnaround. Ollie can actually perform them off of a verbal cure, Stanley is good with visual. So anywy, thay are both proficient at these 3 tricks and I am hoping to move on to something new, but I am unsure of what to try next.

One of the things that I still need to work on is that they will only perform these tricks on the training perches. If I move them to a table or the floor they don't seem to get it. Should I make sure they will perform these tricks everywhere before teaching new? If I should start some new stuff, what do you recommend? Thanks for any input.
Ottis

[Michael]

I'd say work on the tricks on different surfaces some more first (like wave while perched on your hand, turn around on floor, etc). Then teach fetch next. It's a different skill and a prop based trick so it won't interfere with recent ones and give you more time to practice those and solidify them long term.

[dohcsvt]

I was thinking about fetch, I saw on the blog where you said it is good to learn a few basics first. I will try in the morning to get my boys to do tricks on my hand and other places. I think it may take more than one training session to get them to perform elsewhere. Hopefully will be trying to to do fetch by the end of the week. Thanks for the input.

[cml]

Can I borrow your thread a little dohcsvt (hard name to type !) and ask the same question?
I feel we are pretty much going side by side with the training dohcsvt, we've had the same kind of threads the past month or so. Always good to have someone to talk to and throw ideas at!

So far our amazon can do and has learnt these tricks in this order:

Target (voice and visual (its hard not to have a visual cue in this trick ^^))
Shake (voice cue only)
Turn around (voice and visual cue)

Im leaning towards wave for the next trick, but my wife wants to teach him fetch. What do you fellas reckon is the best way to go?

Cheers

[Michael]

Fetch, then wave. That way there is less mix up and more time to continue practicing old tricks. But hey, if you want to teach wave you can. The only reason I suggest this stuff is because it's typically easier and less confusing in this order. With Kili I mostly just taught cued tricks all in a row. Since I've learned to alternate types of tricks cause it speeds things up or creates less confusion. So either way you won't hurt anything but it's just simpler this way. Fetch is the foundation of many other tricks so it's a good skill to learn early on.

Here's another idea for you guys. Go through tube. It's a prop based trick that utilizes the target skill. Won't get mixed up with the other tricks and should be simple to teach.

[dohcsvt]

Can I borrow your thread a little dohcsvt (hard name to type !) and ask the same question?
I feel we are pretty much going side by side with the training dohcsvt, we've had the same kind of threads the past month or so. Always good to have someone to talk to and throw ideas at!

So far our amazon can do and has learnt these tricks in this order:

Target (voice and visual (its hard not to have a visual cue in this trick ^^))
Shake (voice cue only)
Turn around (voice and visual cue)

Im leaning towards wave for the next trick, but my wife wants to teach him fetch. What do you fellas reckon is the best way to go?

Cheers

No worries. I am currently trying to get my boys to perform thier tricks on surfaces other than the perch...so far moving a bit slow. Then I hope to teach the fetch trick. I will move on to this tube trick in a few weeks, as I think that it will take that long to get my guys to perform on flat surfaces and then learn fetch. I wish you the best of luck with your training.
Ottis

[dohcsvt]

Green cheek is picking up on the flat surface performance, the Sun is just not getting it.

[liz]

You know I don't do trick training but we do play games. Tug of war is always fun. Myrtle called me back inot the room this morning with peek a boo. We play attack the finger from the inside of a paper bag. There favorite though is oops I dropped my toy will you pick it up.

[dohcsvt]

You know I don't do trick training but we do play games. Tug of war is always fun. Myrtle called me back inot the room this morning with peek a boo. We play attack the finger from the inside of a paper bag. There favorite though is oops I dropped my toy will you pick it up.

Mine also love to play "oops I dropped my toy, will you pick it up"

[cml]

Yeah I think most people's parrots like to play "oops i dropped it" .
My wife has started teaching our amazon fetch today, we'll see how he's progressed when I get home!