Training Methods Which One??

[WeLuvBirds]

Would anyone suggest Karen Pryor? I've visited her site a few time and it looked good. Has anyone had any experience training their birds using her books?

TIA,
Michelle

[FeathersNFur8]

Originally Posted by WeLuvBirds

Would anyone suggest Karen Pryor? I've visited her site a few time and it looked good. Has anyone had any experience training their birds using her books?

Michelle, her book, "Don't Shoot The Dog" is a prerequisite reading suggestion for many positive reinforcement training groups for Parrots.

[Tiki]

I agree, Barbara Heidenrich's video is excellent!

[Alyce Johnson]

Originally Posted by tielfan

That's right. These techniques can quickly get you a bird who is obedient. They may even produce a bird who loves you, but it won't be a healthy kind of love. ...A victim offers love and allegiance to an oppressor in order to escape any further abuse, and there's a really high potential for long-term problems.

I bought the Chet Womach video & was completely disgusted. I agree totally with the folks who say his methods break trust & are basically emotionally abusive in many respects. I thought it was a load of total crap, basically. I would absolutely never use his methods!

I also absolutely would NOT recommend any of his products! And as others have said, he's a very aggressive advertiser, too. So once you get on his list you get deluged with e-mails that sound helpful but are all just another sales pitch. It's not that he doesn't send you everything he says he will. He does do that. It's not a "scam" in that sense at all. You get the products.

But I just believe his methods are "flashy" but not built on sound emotional principles of how to build a safe & sane home environment for your parrot! If you want a performing automation for use in shows (like he uses his parrots, to demo his techniques) then maybe you'd be satisfied with his methods. But if you want a loving, trusting well-guided companion bird, you'd be very ill advised to use his methods, IMO!

[tielfan]

Originally Posted by WeLuvBirds

Would anyone suggest Karen Pryor? I've visited her site a few time and it looked good. Has anyone had any experience training their birds using her books?

TIA,
Michelle

Karen's book is excellent, but it's mostly about clicker training theory and isn't geared specifically toward birds. Melinda Johnson's book IS geared toward birds, and was published by Karen Pryor's company so it has her seal of approval. The front cover has a small logo identifying it as "A Karen Pryor Clicker Book".

Melinda's book also includes some clicker training theory although it isn't nearly as extensive as Karen's discussion. What it offers instead is a specialized approach for birds and a lot of "how-to" information. Birds are psychologically very different from dogs and cats. The same general principles apply to all species, but you need to tweak the method a little to get the best results for each individual species.

I'd recommend reading BOTH books. I bought Melinda's and borrowed Karen's from the library, which is the ideal arrangement for me.

[Freedomoflight]

If you want to get a good psychological grasp on the basics of postive reinforcement, read Dont Shoot the Dog (recommended reading by Susan Friedman) and Melinda Johnsons Clicker Training for Birds, as a how-to guide.