Francis learned something!!!

[Girltron]

I'm so excited! We got him one of these puzzles: http://www.birdsafestore.com/Products/The-Teacher__FM213.aspx and we've been telling him the colors every night at "parrot time". Last night I put two of the beads on my palm and asked him "which yellow?" and he grabbed the right one, so I got all excited and gave him an almond. After that he picked the yellow one when asked nearly every time.

 

Next I'm going to start teaching him using a mix of objects to make sure he knows the name yellow is associated with anything that's that color. Maybe he'll start saying "yellow" soon...

 

Which is all funny because I'd have told you that yellow was his least favorite color. Maybe it still is!

[JillyBeanz]

What a clever bird Francis is! Harvey's not interested in learning anything - he's far to independent to spend any "teaching time" with me!!

[Girltron]

Heh heh, well for one thing, Francis is 14 years old. (we finally got hold of his vet records from his first family. They kept everything, even his little cuff, luckily!) For another, his tendency to get sexual whenever either of us interacts with him sans agenda means that we like to come up with lots of distractions for him. It's not hard actually...we put the toy where he can play with it during his play time, then every so often we hold out a bead and tell him its color. Then one of us will take a couple of beads on our palm and say, "which yellow?" We do this to each other right in front of him, and we try to vary giving the wrong answer (the asker says "no") and giving the right answer (the asker says "yes! good job!") and then we ask him the same question. The first time he grabbed the yellow one was totally accidental, but we praised him so much he does it every time until he starts getting bored.

[judygram]

The first time he grabbed the yellow one was totally accidental, but we praised him so much he does it every time until he starts getting bored.

 

They do get bored easily so keep the sessions fairly short so they will be more exciting when you do play them but thats great what you are doing with him, they are very smart creatures and you can teach them lots of new things.