Hi guys! I've been following Michael's blog and this forum for a long time (even before my baby was ready to be picked up!), but this is my first time posting. I've owned parakeets in the past, but this is my first time training a bird to do more than step up. Your help would be appreciated!
My baby is a 3 month old yellow-sided green cheek conure (and the DNA results just arrived yesterday! It's a girl!!! Now I can finally get to naming.) I've had her for a bit over two weeks, and successfully trained her to wave and target last week. She is now very good at both, and does so on verbal cue w/hand gesture.
Now, when she's out of her cage and near me, she'll often start waving on her own, probably because she wants a treat and thinks waving = treat always, rather than waving on cue = treat. This on it's own isn't really a problem, as I find it really cute. However, I just started training spin/turn around, and she's getting the tricks mixed up. Instead of using the target stick to show her what to do initially, I say the command while gesturing my finger in a circle and then kind of push her tail so that she spins around on the perch, "following" her tail. She's at the point where she knows what to do, but only when I reach over to prompt her. The problem is, when I say "spin" and start reaching toward her, her first reaction is to wave every time, and then she'll spin only once my finger nears her tail. She gets stuck on the trick she does know, so to speak. This has been happening for about 2 (brief) sessions.
My question is--is this a problem? And if so, how should I resolve it? I'm trying to mix the wave command in her turn-around training sessions so that she can learn to distinguish the cue. Maybe this is normal with new trainees and will disappear over time? Thanks for your help!