Recall training

[brightwing]

I was wondering, how do you train your parrot to come to you on command, to fly to you from any spot.

[NotEnoughTime]

Monica has a number of links in this Freeflight Training thread - look at the links in the third post. One of the best links is: http://www.flyingparrotsinside.com/. Have a look at the the "Target Flying" link at the top of the page.

[brightwing]

Thinks, i will check those things out

[loyallyroyal]

I just let Dewey see the treat and tell him come, eventually realizes when I call come and he flies to me he gets a treat.

[brightwing]

How long did it take before he came to you

[NotEnoughTime]

Originally Posted by brightwing

How long did it take before he came to you

Since all of my birds have been flighted I have done recall training with all of them. To start I hold the treat within their field of vision and put out a finger quite close to them and say "come." Usually, if they have been trained with step-up, they will readily come.

I progressively move my finger farther away.

It takes less than 20 minutes for the parrot to get the idea.

We use "come" (and "stay") at least twice every day (usually many more times).

I should add that we also play "hide and seek" regularly. This allows Gari (my Green Cheek) to find me when I am not visiable but she can hear my voice. Further, I was advised by Shanlung (Tinkerbell Legacy - Living and loving of a flying CAG in Taiwan) that the parrot should learn to fly down. Parrots fly up easily - but flying down seems to not be as easily learned. So I wait downstairs during some games and call for Gari to "come."

As a result I have been able to retrieve her when she has accidently flown away. See: Gari's Great Adventure...

[brightwing]

That sounds like a good idea, i will get into it.
I just got a cockatoo who comes to me that I can easily train but it will be difficult to train my African grey

[NotEnoughTime]

Originally Posted by brightwing

but it will be difficult to train my African grey

They have a very independant mindset and *judge* each time... whether or not the reward is worth the behaviour... Yup - harder to *train* but easier to *work with*. They seem to know you are trying to train them - so when I work with my friend's grey I like to treat it as a co-operative learning event. The basic principles still apply (behaviour --> reward) but the reward may be something totally different each time (a favourite treat, a puzzle to solve, a big fuss, let's go somewhere else that's interesting, and so on). The basic behaviour --> reward get boring after a while...

[jenseits]

I think Carly Lu's Flightblog is a great resource for people wanting to know more about working with a flighted grey: Carly Lu's Flight Blog: Parrot Training, Flight & Recall (the how to's, do's, don'ts, dangers, etc). Raz has two freeflying (as in outdoors, no restraints) African Greys and she has some good posts talking about what goes into their training.

[NotEnoughTime]

Originally Posted by jenseits

I think Carly Lu's Flightblog is a great resource...

Wow! Yes - nice resource!!!