Extremely impressed with clicker training

[Andromeda]

I'm new to clicker training but not new to owning birds. I have a brown-headed parrot who's been with me for 3 1/2 years and a GCC who's been with me for 3.

I never tried to train either one of them until 6 days ago. Here's how things went with my GCC (moving at his pace):

Day 1: He learns that "click" means treat
Day 2: He learns to target a stick
Day 3: He learns to move in a circle by following the target stick
Day 4: He learns to move in a circle by following my finger instead of the target stick
Day 5: He learns to move in a circle with no hand signal on the cue word "circle"

I can't believe that 6 days ago he didn't know any tricks and had never heard a clicker and now he will follow the target stick and turn in a circle when you say "circle." I even tested his circle trick with my husband and he will also turn in a circle when he gives the verbal cue!

Things are progressing more slowly with my brown-headed parrot but he's less tame than my GCC so I expected that to be the case. He knows how to target and I'm teaching him to move in a circle by following the target stick.

What's great is that my GCC seems to love training as much as I do. Yesterday when he was doing circles he'd do a circle and then wag his tail as soon as I clicked---even before I gave him a treat!

I think my brown-headed parrot likes it, too, but he's more low-key and harder to read.

I'm so glad that I have a new way of interacting with my birds and this forum and Michael's videos and blog have been such a great resource.

I do have one question: do you reward a trick when you haven't given a cue? This morning when I put Bubba on his training perch he immediately started doing circles again and again without a cue. I didn't click and reward until I actually gave the cue and he turned in a circle. In-between cues he was continuing to turn in circles but again I didn't reward him for that. Is that right?

[Polarn]

When mine does a trick without me asking them too, i ask them to do another trick (not the one their doing on their own) Polarn has started to spin around,around, around and around as soon as I go get the treats (been working alot with him on this the past couple of days to remove the "whisping of the finger" I dont have to run my finger around him but he still seems to respond way better to my signed commands than verbal... guess he would be perfect for a mute person Anyways, I try to teach him the verbal commands too... however, when he does this spinning and spinning, I ask him to wave or nod yes or anything just to stop the spinning, before the spinning it was waving he did constantly as soon as i grabbed the treats.

So, personally, no i do not reward tricks I do not ask them to do.

The other two is harder to ignore this from tho since they only know target and wave so far and are still hesitant to my hands so I have to keep my hands quite far away, so that means its quite hard to teach them new stuffs, but i use the training to egt closer. Correction: the budgie does not know wave yet, however she targets and spins around...

[Andromeda]

Thanks for the response, Polarn.

Since my last post in this thread 6 days ago my green cheek conure has learned how to wave on command.

I saw Michael in one of his videos say that the first trick is the hardest because they are "learning how to learn."

Wave was my GCC's second trick and I couldn't believe how quickly he learned it. I know it's a pretty simple trick but it only took him about 30 - 60 seconds of "lift foot, click" for him to learn that when I point at him I want him to lift his foot!

The end result is that now he lifts his foot when I wave.

My brown headed parrot is also making good progress. He will turn in a circle on command and this morning I started working on "wave." Just like my GCC, he learned within 30 - 60 seconds that what I was trying to do was get him to lift his foot. Now I just have to work on getting him to do it when I wave.

It's so amazing to me that 12 days ago they knew no tricks and now they know target, turn in a circle, and wave.

I love how effective the clicker is at marking the exact moment they do what you want them to do.