After you watch the short video above…

Fill out the simple form below, and I’ll add you to the pre-announcement list for the release of this new ‘Stop Screaming’ course.

You’ll not only be one of the first to know of it’s release, plus qualify for the chance to receive several additional bonuses when I launch the course to the public in about two weeks.

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I’m putting the final touches on our brand new multi media ‘Stop Screaming’ course that I’m going to release in a few weeks… and I need your help!

I’ve tried REALLY hard to make sure this course addresses every possible type of screaming problem your bird might have, and I know for a fact that this course reveals stop screaming techniques NO ONE has heard of before that are going to REALLY blow you away.

I’ve filled it full of dozens and dozens of new tactics that get FAST results when trying to stop your parrot’s screaming.

But to make sure I cover every possible type of solution to screaming, I could really use your help.

If you are looking for answers to how to stop your bird’s screaming, and you’d like to make sure I address your specific issue in this new course, please leave me a comment on this blog post describing your bird’s specific type of screaming behavior.

I’m personally going to read through all the comments and make sure my new course specifically answers EVERY single type of screaming issue that your bird has.

And if the DVD’s I’ve already created don’t already address your bird’s type of screaming, I’ll make as many new modules to the course as necessary to address the other types of screaming I haven’t included how to fix in this course (allthough I’m pretty sure I got most answers covered — this course is VERY comprehensive)

But in order for me to give you the best answer, I need you to describe your bird’s screaming issue to me clearly and specifically. This doesn’t mean you need to write me a 82 page response though… instead please describe the exact type of situation where your bird screams that you haven’t been able to successfully fix… in one clearly written paragraph.

I’ll read through the responses and create a detailed section of my new course that answers them.

That way I create the most helpful product for you possible!

So how does that sound? Can you help me out and describe your bird’s screaming problem for me?

If so I’d really appreciate it!

Looking forward to reading your responses and helping you fix your bird’s screaming once and for all!

I’ll be in touch soon,

Chet

It’s amazing how much momentum you loose when you take a week of of training an African Grey rescue like Bean.

Unfortunately I didn’t have a choice, as my travels took me to sunny southern California for business… oh well. So after spending a week and a half building up my Grey’s confidence to be strong enough to target over my hand, and up the side of his cage… I spent the last few days since i got back from California just getting him back to where he was when I left.

I have been trying very hard to get bean to target onto my hand… but his phobias are keeping him from being willing to do so… even after 3 days.

I’ve got him to put weight on my hand with one foot, and that was a fun experience. It involved really trying to make the training fun for him. He goes into an ‘OVER EXITED’ mode where his phobias seem to vanish after several minutes of training. He looses focus during this time, but he soaks up the attention as well. Figuring out how to make these happen more often might be key for him.

I’m also noticing that I have to watch my temperament and not push for too much progress in each training session — an African Grey can burn out on training if it’s too much work, and not enough play.

Which brings me to another problem I’m running into…

I can get Bean, with a 95% success rate to reach far across my hand to target an object. (this is HUGE since he’s afraid of the hand) But it’s causing problems as he’d really rather reach than step up onto the hand. So I’m thinking about retraining a targeting behavior, but this time train it to Bean’s foot, so he’s trained to target objects by touching them with his foot. This will require a separate object for him to target so as not to confuse him, but might be much more helpful in getting him to overcome his fear of the hand.

I plan on starting some training today where I get him to touch objects with his foot… but it might take a few days, or up to a week to train, depending on how scared of the object he is… and will probably have to resort to finding the least possible scary object to target — maybe even stickers placed on his perches, as wooden dowels seem to scare him right now, and he’s not willing to step up onto them.

Training this type of behavior is sort of an incompatible replacement behavior as it makes it impossible for him to resort to reaching for an object, because we take his beak OUT of the situation.

If that doesn’t work than I’m going to have to resort to possibly teaching some natural behaviors on cue, like wing flapping, or head bobbing etc. This often gets birds to start to enjoy training a LOT more, and can lead to easier progress when behavior training is resumed.

That’s the update for now.

Cheers!

Chet Womach

For all you fans out there that have been watching my updates of training with my African Grey, Bean… I won’t have any updates for you until next Tuesday, as I had to take a 3 day business trip to California for a seminar.

I’ll keep you posted with how’s he’s doing when I get back into town. I miss the little guy and can’t wait to get back to training him some more and seeing more progress.

He’s doing awesome at overcoming his fear of my hands with the use of targeting… and I promise I’ll have video to show you soon.

Cheers!

Chet

As promised, here’s a quick update on how my CAG’s training went today.

African greys sure do develop phobias for things more than other birds I work with, but even so, today I was able to get Bean to consistently take two steps off of his perch, and up the side of his cage to touch a target stick.

He’s still nervous if I try to feed him his treat while he’s on the side of the cage, so I have to let him back down to reward him, which makes the rate of reinforcement hard to work to my advantage, as every rep takes longer than I would like it to, when he has to climb all the way down to get his treat… it’s a big delay, and it’s hurting the speed of his progress.

But none the less… it was a BIG improvement over his earlier training session today where he didn’t want to put both feet on the cage at the same time and climb towards that scary evil person holding the club (aka ME).

I noticed that I’m running into an issue of him not wanting to climb to target because of a fear of things in his cage… mostly a large swing that’s getting in the way of his targeting. I’ll probably take that out of his cage tomorrow.

He trained for a good half hour without showing any signs of fatigue which I thought was pretty good for his first week of training.

And it was going so well that I was even able to add a second target training drill at the end of the session where I got bean to touch a target stick as it was positioned over my hand… trying to desensitize him to the fear of my hands and finally get him to step up.

I have my fingers crossed that by tomorrow, he’ll willing put his foot on my hand. I doubt I’ll be able to pick him up, or have him be comfortable with being picked up, but I think he’ll at least get to the point where one of his toes will unknowingly be set on top of my hand.

I’ll keep you posted!

Chet

Got another quick update for you on my Congo African Grey, Bean.

I’m really enjoying the challenge of rehabbing this guy. He presents interesting problems that you just don’t get to face when dealing with a bird that hasn’t been abused before.

I have now got bean to ‘target’ all the way across his cage. Meaning he could be on his perch at the far end of the cage, and be willing to traverse the entire percht, which is probably 4-5 feet long, to come touch the target stick.

African Greys are pretty phobic creatures, so after I had him master the targeting while on a perch, I needed to find a way to stretch his comfort zone. So I started training him to climb the side of his cage to touch the target stick. That part of the training has been much slower.

Something about the side of the cage causes a fear in Bean. He acts like a totally different bird when on the cage. So overcoming his fears would be a huge step towards rebuilding his self esteem.

But so far the efforts have been slow, but I have got him to the point where he’ll put one foot up on the side of his cage and reach as far as he can to touch the target stick. But have only twice gotten him to put his other foot up there.

For example, he will touch the stick with 98% reliability if it’s only 8 inches up the side of the cage (which is as high as he can reach with one foot on the side of cage)… but if I move the stick up to 9 inches he rarely does it.

This is most likely a frequency of reward issue that I need to fix at a lower height. So today I’m going to try to see how many repetitions we can do at 8 inches of height to get that into a rhythmic state that’s 3-5 times faster than he’s currently going. I want him touching the stick and eating his treat SUPER fast.

I’ve had success using this type of training technique in the past while trick training (thus the reason why I preach so heavily that you need to trick train… It provides TONS of insight you can’t get otherwise).

It basically gets the bird to do the repetition and eat the treat so fast that he doesn’t even think about what he has to do anymore, he just goes ahead and repeats the behavior.

It’s like building up momentum before you get ready to raise the criteria.

You do 20 repetitions at super fast speed at a lower easier level, get your bird to the point that he’s doing the behavior on auto pilot, and then raise the criteria on him slightly.

I’m hoping this will help him be more successful in getting him to reach up to the 9 inch level today. I’ll keep you posted

If increasing the rate of reinforcement does NOT work, and my Grey still has trouble reaching up to 9 inches today, I will probably try a different, less scary behavior for him and build up his confidence that way… possibly by walking over objects as he targets (like a wooden dowel).

I’ll post again later tonight to let you know how it goes… and hopefully have some more pics for you.

Chet

P.S. On a side note, Bean’s feather destruction habit has drastically reduced, and I don’t think he’s chewed off a feather in 2 days now!

And at the end of last nights training session he also went into a funny state of mind and willingly let me touch his belly and pet him… can’t be upset about that