Clicker training with my flock!!!

[stlbirdgirl]

I got a clicker training kit when I was at the store picking up food on Saturday. I've been meaning to pick it up for a while now but I kept forgetting everytime I was actually at the store.

I read most of the book Sunday and had a lot of fun playing with my flock and the clicker. I wanted to make sure that they all see the clicker as a positive thing so I started off by just teaching them that the clicker sound means a treat is coming. Sydney and Sky caught on right away. Boomer is a bit fearful still so I have to give him treats on my open palm but he did eventually pick it up. Hans and Peppers are my little green piggies so of course once they learned that clicker=piece of walnut, they wanted that clicker!

I started off with Sydney. All of our training was done in the living room with the whole flock. I have already done a little bit of work with her so I decided to reinforce those behaviors. The two main things we worked on were her no head shake and when asked what she is, she will respond "hot stuff". I cue her no by moving my finger from side to side. She is fairly consistent with this already so we started there to build her confidence. As soon as she reciprocated my actions by shaking her head, she got a click, treat, and lots of praise. The toos love dramatic praise so they get plenty of it when they do something I like. She quickly figured out what I wanted and was offering it every time so we moved on to the hot stuff part. She wasn't previously as consistent with this part but the clicker made a huge difference! With the clicker, she knows exactly what she did to cause the praise so she wants to do it again. We worked on that until she had given me the correct answer 3x in a row and then I ended the formal session and played with her for a little bit.

Sky was next and we worked on targeting. He is amazing at it! He was reaching for the stick immediately and was even turning half way around for it within a few minutes. Each successful nip at the target won him a click, treat, and lots of praise. Sky was so into it that I earned myself some very very happy screams from an excited Too! Sydney kept trying to interrupt us. It turns out she loves her training and didn't want to let anyone else have all the fun. The T-stand is not usually out in the living room so it is not something they are the most used to. After Sydney had her training session there she kept going back to it to yell at me for more training though!

I moved on to the zons next. I actually tried to take Peppers into the other room with the T-stand at first but that ended up not working because he was too concerned with where his flock was (mostly where Hans was) to concentrate on me. When I put him back on Hans cage, he did much better so we ended up doing a joint zon targeting session! As soon as Peppers realized that touching the stick meant he got a treat, he would have hung upside down from the perch to touch the thing if I really wanted him to! Hans wasn't quite as into it but all in all, they both did excellent for their first ever targeting session.

Boomer is a little bit of a different story. The stupid woman who had him before me made him terrified of hands. He steps up fine but does not tolerate hands above his head. The target ended up also being a scary stimulus for him so I gave up on using it really quickly. I used my finger for a few targeting excercises. As long as I keep the bulk of my hand below his head and my finger low he is more comfortable with my finger then a stick. My finger MUST stay below the level of his beak though, if I accidently break that threshold, he gets fearful again. I am really hoping that clicker training will help him to get over some of this fear.

The whole flock really seemed to have a lot of fun with the training and so did I. Everyone was excited about it so throughout the day we had little mini sessions too. I can't believe I waited so long to try it with my flock!

[parrotntn]

Congrats. Clicker training is a wonderful tool and bridge to a better bird relationship.
I will be curious to know how it goes with all of them. It is usually recommended to single them out for the sessions. Of course, each home/situation is different.
I am beginning target training with Frisco..but he is so totally enamoured (overbonded) with me at the moment, it's not that easy. I think I may delay that until we work thru this overbonding problem. Of course, we just started, so I may use it to help correct the overbonding problem.
We'll just have to see how it goes.
Good luck and keep us posted!

[Izzy]

Thanks for sharing your success story, I've been meaning to start clicker training for months, you just gave me some more motivation!