GCC gets carried away with ring stacker

[marie83]

http://www.youtube.com/embed/boAerjSnaQc

I think this little chap does know what he is doing lol.

[Andromeda]

What a funny little guy. I love GCCs; they are so adorable.

I have that same ring puzzle and I want to teach my GCC the "rings" trick but I think I'm going to teach "fetch" first with "The Teach Box".

[marie83]

Well i just ordered the medium sized ring stacker for Ollie this morning as I was putting a food order in. I did want the small size but I can't find it in the UK, I'm worried the medium may be a little tall for him but if it is I'll just make a step. I think I probably need to teach him to fetch first though. He seems quite bright at the moment, he wants to train and tbh its the only way I can get him near me atm but i'll save the new stuff for a while.

Let me know how you get on training fetch.

[Andromeda]

Well i just ordered the medium sized ring stacker for Ollie this morning as I was putting a food order in. I did want the small size but I can't find it in the UK, I'm worried the medium may be a little tall for him but if it is I'll just make a step. I think I probably need to teach him to fetch first though. He seems quite bright at the moment, he wants to train and tbh its the only way I can get him near me atm but i'll save the new stuff for a while.

Let me know how you get on training fetch.

I have the small and it's just right for a GCC but I don't imagine the medium rings will be too large for him and, as you said, if the pegs are too tall you can just add a step. You can definitely teach fetch first just using the rings and your hand and later work up to having him put the rings on the pegs.

I'm going to teach fetching using the box and the shapes that have pegs (as in the first of the two videos I posted). Hopefully I will eventually be able to teach him colors this way, too, at which point I'll move on to the rings game. Once I can get him to puts some shapes in the box I will take a video.

Let me know what Ollie thinks of the rings game once he gets his beak on it! It's great that even though the poor little guy is sick he still wants to train with you. Green cheeks are busy little birds and it's so good that he gets the kind of enrichment trick training offers.

[marie83]

Actually can you do me a favour and measure how tall the small size it please? I know the dimensions for medium and large but not the small lol.

It is a bit bizzare about the training really, he wouldn't come near me but I was tidying up some of the parrot stuff and picked up his target stick. He was straight over lol, I never thought for a second he would be bothered at all so we practiced a few targets, waves and turn around and he was really really keen. I'm not going mad though as I don't want him to become fearful of training too.

[Andromeda]

Actually can you do me a favour and measure how tall the small size it please? I know the dimensions for medium and large but not the small lol.

Sure. The rings are 1" in diameter and the pegs are 2" tall.

It is a bit bizzare about the training really, he wouldn't come near me but I was tidying up some of the parrot stuff and picked up his target stick. He was straight over lol, I never thought for a second he would be bothered at all so we practiced a few targets, waves and turn around and he was really really keen. I'm not going mad though as I don't want him to become fearful of training too.

Aw, that's cute. If he is eager to target I'd definitely do a little targeting and a few other tricks for a short period.

My Poi is a very moody bird who generally wants me to leave him alone so what I do with him is I offer the target stick a few feet away and if he runs over to it and targets I know he wants to train and then I will cue his other tricks or work on something new. If he just stands there and puffs up his cheeks or squints his eyes I know he's in a bad mood so I just leave him alone.

Maybe something similar would work with Ollie.

[marie83]

Eeep, the medium is a full inch and a half taller. I'm worried now as I didn't really want to use the step. I just took the chance as I didn't know what the shipping costs would be straight from zoo-max, a small fortune no doubt.
Ollie always wants to train but assumed he wouldn't given the circumstances lol. I wouldn't force it on him though poor thing.

[marie83]

Well the ring stacker has already arrived to my suprise. usually i will clean anything which can be cleaned before giving it to my birds but I decided to open the box in the living room since Ollie still isn't "talking" to me.

Of course Ollie came straight over, gave me a helping beak unwrapping it and promtly goes for the yellow rings and starts throwing them around the room. He then goes for the green but one at a time isn't enough fun for him so he uses his beak underneath some of them and pushes four off in one go. I strongly suspect teaching him his colours is going to be fun.....

[Andromeda]

Of course Ollie came straight over, gave me a helping beak unwrapping it and promtly goes for the yellow rings and starts throwing them around the room. He then goes for the green but one at a time isn't enough fun for him so he uses his beak underneath some of them and pushes four off in one go. I strongly suspect teaching him his colours is going to be fun.....

That is so cute that he took to it immediately! If he just naturally wants to pull the rings off the pegs that will make training him to do it much easier.

[marie83]

Ideally I want him to put them on the pegs though, lol The height isn't ideal for that, though I measure it slightly shorter than the specs on the website otherwise it would definitely be too tall.