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Good, Free Clicker Training Info

Exchange information about how to teach specific tricks to parrots. Most of these techniques should apply to all bird species. Share your success stories.

Good, Free Clicker Training Info

Postby charlieandkiwi » Tue Nov 20, 2012 10:32 pm

Hi All,

I bought this book off of amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/Clicker-Training- ... ning+birds a while back. It was sort of helpful. My birds quickly learned how to target to the stick, follow it around, etc. Then I started trying to teach them how to flip over. It took FOREVER (nearly a week of two times per day) to get an inconsistent flip. The main problem was positioning the stick. They were fine reaching down to get it, reaching partially around, but stopped trying and started trying to turn around to get it instead of flipping all the way around. I had slightly better luck with the turn in place trick, but it was difficult phasing the stick out.

In general, I had a lot of trouble figuring out how to conveniently position the stick to get the movement I wanted. The book wasn't helpful with that.

I'm cautious to buy other book resources for this reason. Do you know of any free training videos or other sources that might be of help?

Also, can you use clicker training to get two birds to like each other who currently don't? How would I do that?
charlieandkiwi
Conure
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is female
Posts: 108
Number of Birds Owned: 2
Types of Birds Owned: I have a 4-5 year old green cheeked conure and an 8 year old white eared conure.
Flight: Yes

Re: Good, Free Clicker Training Info

Postby marie83 » Wed Nov 21, 2012 8:55 am

I would recommend reading Michaels training blog (link at top of page) if you haven't already. If you click on site map there is a list of the articles he has done, have to admit I read through EVERYTHING, even the stuff I already knew lol. There are articles about how to train certain tricks and also how he introduced Kili and Trueman which might help a bit. I think even with the best training if two birds dont want to get on they wont unfortunately but you should be able to calm them down a bit and hopefully get them to tolerate one another better.
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marie83
Cockatoo
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is female
Posts: 3565
Location: Midlands, UK
Number of Birds Owned: 2
Types of Birds Owned: Yellow sided Green Cheek Conure
Pineapple Green Cheek Conure
Flight: Yes

Re: Good, Free Clicker Training Info

Postby charlieandkiwi » Sun Nov 25, 2012 2:15 pm

marie83 wrote:I would recommend reading Michaels training blog (link at top of page) if you haven't already. If you click on site map there is a list of the articles he has done, have to admit I read through EVERYTHING, even the stuff I already knew lol. There are articles about how to train certain tricks and also how he introduced Kili and Trueman which might help a bit. I think even with the best training if two birds dont want to get on they wont unfortunately but you should be able to calm them down a bit and hopefully get them to tolerate one another better.


Thanks for the response! I have been looking into Michael's stuff. What has been really encouraging is seeing that it's not always perfect for him, either. I'm still looking for other sources, but have started a training blog under the "flight recall" section. If you know of anything I could use, please let me know here or there.
charlieandkiwi
Conure
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is female
Posts: 108
Number of Birds Owned: 2
Types of Birds Owned: I have a 4-5 year old green cheeked conure and an 8 year old white eared conure.
Flight: Yes

Re: Good, Free Clicker Training Info

Postby marie83 » Sun Nov 25, 2012 6:26 pm

Well i haven't looked too deeply into parrot training tbh, I've skimmed a few sites though and alot tend to use force/flooding methods, none of which I am keen on, I prefer to let the animals I train choose to do things and then use positive reinforcement for the behaviour and I wouldn't suggest any other method tbh. That said I have been reading alot about the training of dogs since a very young age, then as soon as I got my own dog I went straight to work on him and he learned about 25 commands in the space of 2 years however it took a long time for me to realise you can apply the same principles to almost any animal. When I first started training my birds anything beyond step up I asked the most stupid question about target training and then it clicked that I already did know how to do this.......
Anyhow there are a few sites with information on training using positive reinforcement but none I have found that are as good as Michaels and certainly not with the support this forum offers.

However if you are just after new ideas on things to train then other sites can offer new ideas, you dont have to use their methods to do so though, take the idea and then do it your own way bit by bit. If you have any ideas you can always share them on here to discuss different approaches, problems and successes etc. Sometimes the answers are right under our noses and other times less so.
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marie83
Cockatoo
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is female
Posts: 3565
Location: Midlands, UK
Number of Birds Owned: 2
Types of Birds Owned: Yellow sided Green Cheek Conure
Pineapple Green Cheek Conure
Flight: Yes


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