I’m still a terrible cinematographer, but I figured I’d go ahead and post this anyway. I wheeled Stewie’s playstand in front of the computer (with a built-in camera) and did a couple reps of targeting. Because the target stick is a black chopstick and the background is basically black, you often can’t see it in this video — but he does beak the end of it to earn a “good boy” and a safflower seed each time he does it.
Even if you can’t see the chopstick well in this video, you can definitely see how Stewie will climb all over to touch it. That’s a solidly reinforced behavior.
If you’re interested in learning how to clicker train your bird, check out Melinda Johnson’s book Clicker Training for Birds, on clickertraining.com:
I’ll post some better YouTube videos of other people training their birds to target in a bit.
hey there, love your page..i have a 1 yr old conure..and im dying to get him a bottlebrush gym, but i went to waynes website and hes not responding to calls or emails..=( btw, what treats are you giving him in the target training?
Thanks, I’m glad you like the site. I enjoy sharing my progress with Stewie and hope I can inspire others to take up training with their birds as well. It’s really great for them to keep their brains active with new challenges.
I usually give him safflower seeds for training.
hey btw..where did you get that perch that u used to weigh stewie? also, how does he like the vetwrap?
I believe I got it at Chirp N’ Squawk bird supplies. The perch comes with the scale. The post about it has a link and some more info.
Stewie doesn’t appear to have strong feelings about vet wrap one way or the other. I used it mainly on his old playgym so it wouldn’t be so slippery, but now that he has Wayne’s bottle brush stand it’s not an issue anymore.
Nice video, I believe that with love, passion and patience we can easily train a parrots.
Cheers,
Justin
http://eclectusparrot.jumpingpet.com