Updates and Musings About Life with Parrots
What a treat! Today I got to interview Barbara Heidenreich, one of the country’s top parrot training experts. She’s been in the field of animal training since 1990, has consulted with zoos around the country, and publishes resources for owners of companion birds, including Good Bird Magazine (a free download of which is available here),…
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Where to find props for clicker training, cool training toys, parrot trick props, like birdie roller skates, bird-sized basketball hoops, skateboards for parrots, ring toss and color discrimination games for birds ranging from budgies to cockatoos and macaws.
Read More...The latest trick we’re working on is waving. This is usually one of the earlier non-prop behaviors parrot trainers teach their birds, but I started with behaviors I could capture instead of ones I’d have to shape. I finally felt we were both ready to work on this trick, and once I knew my plan…
Read More...Another attempt to capture Stewie on video. Better than our previous video clip, I think. The “put the ball in the cup trick” was the first big “stupid parlor trick” this little sun conure learned, but when we started training he was still pretty bitey; in fact, he’d reach around training props just to bite…
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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…
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I pulled this old draft out of my archives. It’s from late last year, but I thought I’d go ahead and publish it now, even though he already knows how to retrieve and put the ball in his cup. After very fast progress with targeting, we hit a bit of a bump moving on to…
Read More...My video of Stewie on YouTube is almost at 1,000 views. Go help me over the hump 🙂 This was taken back in November, when he hadn’t learned much beyond targeting, retrieve and “put the ball in the cup”. Retrieve is the only thing he did correctly, and he gave it to the wrong person…
Read More...In the last couple of weeks Stewie has had a few flight feathers grow back in. He was clipped when I got him last summer and he’s been to the vet for a follow-up trim because one was growing in really uneven. But this time around I’ve been wrestling with the decision whether to keep…
Read More...This is a YouTube video I found of a woman working with a cherry headed conure (or possibly a mitred conure) who was originally part of a wild flock in San Francisco. Jasper came down with neurological issues and suffered brain damage and was then taken in by Mickaboo Rescue. What I love about this…
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I found a cute little toy store in Clarendon with a completely unusable Web interface, but a great brick-and-mortar store. As soon as I walked by the Kinder Haus I knew I had to go in (and my companion knew it was for Stewie, no foolin’ him) and I found lots of great, high-quality (German-made)…
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