Updates and Musings About Life with Parrots
Finally I have some video to share of Mika (white capped pionus) working on her retrieving skills! [updated: I’ve noticed some criticism of this video floating out there, so I want to make a couple of points: 1) This is NOT her regular cage. I just needed a surface to work on that I could…
Read More...Some birds (like Mika) step up pretty much whenever you present your finger in the step-up position. Stewie thinks that’s for suckers. Here are his rules for getting him to step up (from his perspective): 1) Bribes – A bribe is when I show him the treat (and let him watch me get the treat)…
Read More...Here’s our most recent video of Mika demonstrating target training. As I’ve mentioned numerous times (as I learned from the Bird Click group), targeting is the best first prop trick to teach a parrot. It’s easy because it requires almost no chaining, and can be used to teach subsequent tricks. To be honest, doing clicker…
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When I first got Stewie I tried training him to step up because conventional wisdom has that this should be the first thing a bird learns. All Stewie learned was that if he bit me hard enough I’d eventually go away. 🙁 Then I found the Bird Click group on Yahoo and took the advice…
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I’ve spent the last couple of weeks trying to convince Mika to eat a bigger variety of food. I’ve put off training with her because she’s such a picky eater that it’s hard to remove treats from her regular diet to use for rewards. Furthermore, she’s a very slooooow eater. So far there’s nothing she…
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Updated November 2009: Link has been fixed. The new download is of the Fall 2008 issue. Parrot trainer Barbara Heidenreich is generously offering a free issue of Good Bird Magazine to readers of the Best in Flock blog. Just click here, enter your information and you’ll receive the free copy via a link in an…
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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),…
Read More...Sometimes you can get discouraged watching parrot training videos. Those birds always seem to do all the tricks perfectly (despite the trainer’s claim they’re not even tame… yeah right) while our own training efforts make us wonder if there’s something wrong with our birds… or us. The truth is, that no bird knows how to…
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…
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Best in Flock was included on the Pets page of AllTop.com, Guy Kawasaki’s project to aggregate all the best feeds on particular topics! And if that wasn’t cool enough, Barbara Heidenreich has added us to her blogroll as well. Stewie and I are honored by the attention and recognition! Thanks so much!!
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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