Last time, I described the use of punishment in parrot training, and explained that it’s an attempt to decrease a behavior. Simple enough, but realize that if you stop one behavior, you have to replace it with something else, because at no time is your bird not doing something. Even just sitting and staring at you is a behavior, after all. So when your bird is doing something you don’t want him to do, and you use a form of punishment to get him to stop (a stern look, or turning away from him, for example), you won’t have an absence of behavior. You’ll merely end up with a different behavior. Maybe it will be one you find more acceptable, maybe it won’t. Maybe your bird will do something even more obnoxious, and you’ll have to try to punish that. Maybe your attempts to punish are backfiring and you’re accidentally encouraging the very behavior you’re trying to get rid of. This is all too easy to do, and it’s a major reason we’re much better off using reinforcement whenever possible. Understanding this is a key point in working with your parrot: It’s usually easier to reinforce behaviors you do want than it is to focus on getting rid of behaviors you don’t want. Be encouraging, not discouraging.
Let’s first get our definition of reinforcement. Like punishment, it’s a consequence of a behavior. But where punishment tries to decrease a behavior, reinforcement tries to increase a behavior. Reinforcement can involve applying something pleasant after the behavior (positive reinforcement–”reward”) or it can involve removing something unpleasant after a behavior (negative reinforcement–”rescue” ). Remember how we’re using “positive” and “negative” here. They don’t mean “good” and “bad” in this case. I know it’s confusing.
When you reinforce something, you’re strengthening it. In the case of a behavior, you’re making it more likely to occur again. With positive reinforcement, the reinforcer is what you apply in order to do this: a food treat, praise, a smile, whatever. Negative reinforcement has you removing something the bird doesn’t like, or removing him from a situation he’s unhappy about. This technique is used with dogs and horses all the time. The whole point of a bit and bridle is to show a horse that if he goes a certain way, he won’t get pressure on his mouth. By walking slowly alongside his owner, a dog learns the choke collar doesn’t tighten on his neck. A parrot-specific example is when a bird steps onto your hand after he has fallen to the floor. Stepping up is reinforced because you removed him from a scary situation. Assuming he didn’t want to be on the floor, that is.
We have to choose reinforcers that are appropriate for our birds at that point in time. If we don’t use the right reinforcer, we won’t be doing any reinforcing. At best, we’re having a neutral effect. We at least hope we aren’t so off-base that we are actually engaging in punishment instead. This can happen, unfortunately. In order for training to be effective, you have to know what motivates your bird. What does he like? What doesn’t he like? It changes, you know. Being able to read your parrot correctly is part of training process.
Let’s assume you have your bird figured out and you know what buttons to push, so to speak. You’ll want to use positive reinforcement more often than negative reinforcement. While it’s certainly fine to remove a parrot from an unpleasant situation that just happens to occur (like if the bird falls on the floor), it’s trickier to create something unpleasant just so you can get rid of it. Wrapping a bird in a towel and holding him, releasing your grip as he starts to relax, is an example. Used correctly, this can be a helpful training method, but if something goes wrong, you can make the situation worse. Take advantage of a naturally occurring chance to use negative reinforcement when you can, but put most of your efforts into rewarding behaviors by giving your bird what he likes. This approach is reinforcing for you, too.
