Training and general behaviour

[TheKismetGrey]

Hi again!

For those of you who were following the story of the Stray Grey, a few months have passed and our leads have all turned up dead ends (for us... we had a few lost greys found by the owner, just not THIS lost grey.)

Still looking though!

The food issue fixed itself, thankfully, and the bird we now call Gumbeaux is doing very well! He is extremely social, loves EVERYONE and is even patient with apprehensive handlers and young adults (with supervision and an "escape route" of course.)

I have collected a sample for DNA sexing and am becoming more and more attached. I tried not too get attached, I swear I did!! There is no doubt that we are flock-mates, even the dogs.

 

I am a HUGE advocate of clicker training and have trained personal and NUMEROUS rescue dogs over the past fifteen (:::sigh::: that hurts) years. Gumbeaux is going to be my first bird. From what I figure, it's just the same concept using shorter and more frequent sessions. Has anyone "clickered" a Grey or is anyone familiar with the Karen Pryor/Ian Dunbar methods? I would love to start a thread for support/ideas/brainstorming in general!

 

I also had a question about greeting behaviours in CAG's. Sometimes Gumbeaux seems a little immature with his body language. I'd love to get a ballpark (young, adult, senior) of his age if at all possible. I know, it's probably futile.

[Dave007]

Ballpark---after a grey is 3 yrs old, all of the permanent eye color is seen and from that point on, it's extremely hard if not impossible to know what the bird's age is. That color is a white iris which surrounds a black pupil. The white iris is the important thing as far as age is concerned.

The 2 people you mentioned are strictly dog trainers and clicker training a bird is totally different then a dog. Even clicker training a cat would be very difficult. A dog is very domestic and a cat is also domestic but still has certain traits and connections to feral cats. The closer an animal is to it's original background, the harder it is to clicker train. Parrots are strictly wild animals even when they're pets. They'll always remain wild througout their lives. If a parrot escapes from a house and flies away but can still be seen, clicker training won't make the bird come back. It's in it's normal element.

Only small things can be acheived when clicker training a bird. Going from one spot to another, back and forth and a few other minor things. Most clicker training is for indoor use with birds. The only exception to that is when professional bird handlers are involved. That also includes predatory birds by the handlers.

There's a complete list of body language signs here that you should read but none really have anything major concerning greeting a person. It's very obvious when a bird greets a person. It gets excited, shows activity which looks like he's happy to see someone. The bird reacts the same way when he hears a person opening a bag of treats or cracking nuts. Excitement, moving back and forth, saying familar sounds when he hears these things.

If you wanna use clicker training, fine but remember that clicker training doesn't make a bird do things that will be fantastic and unseen before clicker training was done.

Edited December 31, 2010 by Dave007

[Karcar]

A book by Melinda Johnson and others are out there I started with hers it is a very good book to start with, I have clicker trained my Amazon she does lot of things and I am working also with my Grey's the Grey's do well also but my YNA is a pro she does (to date) everything I have tried to train her and it is fun and she is a little con artist she knows how to turn things around and get me to give her a nut or sunflower seed too by doing a boat load of tricks one right after the other and what else can I do but get the nut jar out , LOL the little brat. My Grey has an attitude that this is silly and she would rather be somewhere reading a book or something. but for a sunflower seed even my Grey will do whatever it takes to get one. LOL

Good luck, and have fun with it.

Karen

[TheKismetGrey]

Thanks for the responses!

 

I am not expecting to train Gumbeaux to do anything fantastic (although dishes would be great ) I just want to spend a little more quality time and keep him interested and thinking. I have actually clicker trained 2 house cats and my horse before, it can work on any species (even humans!) as long as the habits/motivation and thought processes of the species are understood.

Even feral animals can be conditioned with a clicker, operant conditioning, no biggie.

 

What kind of things do you ask your birds to do Karcar? I'm hunting for ideas.

I have only done a few sessions thus far, working on very basic commands (stepping off shoulder, being restrained as would happen at the vet's, etc.) but he is super excited about it!