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gedoena
Flutterer
Joined: 24 Jul 2006
Posts: 114
Location: Bloomington, Indiana, USA |
| clicker training question |
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We got a clicker training "kit" including "Getting STarted Clicker Training for Birds" by Melinda Johnson. I've been studying the book for aobut 2 weeks and today we decided to start training two of our three birds. Despite her advice my husband and I did it together since I couldn't figure out how to juggle all the objects at once, and since none of the birds are more bonded on one person. Two different expereinces with the two birds, and a question with each:
1) Dewey, our half-moon conure, is a very tame adopted bird. We don't know how he was trained before (or if he was just hand raised but never trianed). He doesn't apepar to know any commands...for example, he will readily step up when he feels like it but if he doesn't feel like it, he just good-naturedly ignores the finger at his chest and our request to "step up", for instance. He likes kisses, petting, and cuddling. I often feel like he needs more stimulation but is afraid of toys, especially in his cage, so I worry about him when we are out.
At the beginning of our session today, he refused to do it on the kitchen table (we had to give him medicine the other day and we did it near there so we figured that was why). We moved to the coffee table. The book suggested that for the first 1-2 lessons we concentrating on just getting him to link the click to the treat. We clicked and treated a bunch of times. He ate the treats and made many interesting noises but we couldn't tell if he was noticing the click at all. We probably shouldn't've but we decided to bring out the prop. He is usually terrified by new objects but when he went up to bite it I clicked just as he started nipping (which was what we were supposed to train him on as his first "prop" lesson) and gave him a treat. He then actually started running up and nipping it every time Max offered it! I was amazed! We started thinking about teaching him another thing but then decided it was too much for one time.
Question regarding training Dewey: His favorite thing is sun-flower seeds. We got some without shells and cut them up as tiny as we could. However, Dewey (a 64 gram bird) is taking forever to eat a piece. After he eats the piece little shreds of it get on the table and he kept getting distracted by picking those up. Also after a while he seemed bored with the treats. Surprisingly he still seemed intersted in the activity... but I want to make sure we can keep giving him treats to keep up the technique. Any suggestions?
2) Kiwi the budgie (also adopted) is not very tame. I think he may once have been but now that he lives with Sugar (not tame) he mostly isn't. He will step up but will quickly fly away and generally doesn't like being near us, although he communicates loudly when he wants to (eg to let us know it is time for breakfast or time to come out).
Today we started his training session with practice of just click and treat. Although often he will take seeds from between our fingers when he is in the right mood he didn't seem to want to today. Today, once he was offered a sprig of millet he would take one millet. We clicked and treated a bunch of times. Again we couldn't tell if there was any mental connection. Can you suggest how we can tell?
We tried putting the prop near him once but he was scared.
We were very surprised by the reaction of the two birds to the prop. Dewey is usually terrified of bird toys, etc. The budgies are not. Therefore, any toy we buy for Dewey almost always ends up in the Budgies' cage.
Any suggestions for proceeding with Kiwi?
Thanks!!
Marisa |
Sunday October 21, 2007 10:30 pm |
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eaglevision
Fledgeling
Joined: 25 Jan 2008
Posts: 240
Location: In Fluffies |
You could probobly put a conlusion of the questions. That way people don't have to read ALL of it.
I did read the first story, but then I got tired  Sorry  |
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Tuesday February 5, 2008 8:03 pm |
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