Blue & Gold Macaw Training Technique

I got this email in today from a client of mine who has recently just purchased our Taming Program, and has already gotten her Blue and Gold Macaw to go from Hating her… to enjoying being pet.

To get these results she used a training technique that I call “Perching”, where you teach a bird to be OK with being pet by sticks, before you try to pet him with your hands.

But the real reason I’m re-publishing her comments about her training success here is because from what I can tell, this “Perching” technique seems to be extremely effective on Macaws, and much less effective on other birds. So I wanted to share some of my thoughts on why this is… to see if this is a training technique you should add to your repertoire.

Here’s her story >>>

DEAR CHET AND DAVE,

OMG IT WORKED FOR ME. LOL.

I GOT A BLUE AND GOLD MACAW A FEW MONTHS AGO. HE WAS SO SWEET AND TAME WITH THE OLD OWNER. I WATCHED HIM FOR A WHILE BEFORE BUYING HIM. GOT HIM HOME AND THINK HE HATED ME. HE WOULD LET ME PICK HIM UP ON MY ARM, THEN TEAR INTO ME. THINKING HE NOTICED I AM NOT HIS OWNER, WAS GIVING HIM TIME. BUT IT JUST GOT WORST.

WELL, I DON’T HAVE A T-POST SO I USED A GOOD HEAVY CHAIR, A WOODEN SPOON AND A POLE FROM INSIDE HIS CAGE. PUT THE CHAIR BETWEEN THE FRIG. AND THE DEEP FREEZER.

WELL HE DIDN’T LIKE THE SPOON RUBBING HIM SO I CHANGED IT TO THE ONE I GOT OUT OF HIS CAGE, AND USED THE SPOON IN FRONT OF HIM.

OMG IT WORKED. NOT ONLY DID HE LET ME RUB HIS BACK WITH THE ROD, HE LET ME RUB HIM. I PUT THE ROD DOWN, HE TURNED HIS BACK TO ME, AND I DID IT AGAIN. LOL AND HIM FACING ME HE LETS ME RUB HIS BACK. I DON’T THINK IT TOOK 5 MINS. YOU DON’T KNOW HOW HAPPY THIS HAS MADE ME. I HAD TO STOP TO WRITE TO YOU TO SAY THANK YOU. AND I HAVEN’T EVEN GOT THE KIT YET, JUST LISTENED TO YOU AUDIO.

THANK YOU AGAIN,

GLENDA SLAVENS

My Comments >>>

First off… Congratulations Glenda on your success!

There’s nothing like breaking through to a bird for the first time… it’s the part I love about training the most. That spot where you finally are able to teach your Macaw that you aren’t out to get him.

And your success story brings up 2 points that I’d like to go into, because I think these techniques were successful for you for 2 main reasons that other people reading this blog post would find helpful.

The first reason has to do with a concept that I call “Targeting CORE Issues”.

You see… I believe that the fastest way to get a bird to love you is to first realize what is CORE issue is with you. The REAL reason he’s biting you, or as you put it, “Hating You”.

You mentioned that you thought your Blue and Gold was Hating you because it was no longer with its owner. But I really doubt this was the reason.

Instead I think that all Macaws have a CORE issue with trying to Bully their way out of situations that frighten them. And not all species of bird do this. Some birds attack when they’re angry and some birds try to avoid you. But Blue and Gold Macaws seem to use that BIG beak to their advantage. They know it’s scary… and they know if they try to intimidate you with it it will go away.

It’s how Macaw’s handle fear. By attacking.

So rather than thinking that “Perching” is the next BREAKTHROUGH in parrot training… which it’s not… I think that “Perching” happens to deal with the CORE issue of a bird who tries to intimidate you with it’s beak when afraid, better than most other techniques out there.

Here’s why:

When you are “Perching” a bird, what you are really doing is taking two wooden dowels and attempting to gently touch your parrot with the dowels.

The theory being that since you aren’t very good at reading your parrots body language when you first start dealing with him, any accidents you might make only end up having the Wooden Dowel being bitten and not your fingers.

It’s a way for you to “learn the ropes” without losing a finger.

And it makes it IMPOSSIBLE for your parrot to intimidate you with lunging and biting at you… because no amount of biting the wooden dowels is going to hurt or scare you enough to withdraw your hand.

So if a Macaw is simply biting to get you to go away, he can learn in a matter of minutes that that game doesn’t work with you. That biting doesn’t make you go away.

Which brings us to the Second reason I thought Glenda was able to have success with her Blue and Gold Macaw.

I think that the CORE reason Glenda’s Blue and Gold macaw was biting, was because he learned that bluffing an attack makes her go away. Or at least up until this point in his life, bluffing an attack has made other people go away.

So when Glenda didn’t FORCE the issue… and instead tried the “Perching” techniques with things her Macaw was VERY familiar with, like perches from his cage, her Macaw realized that Glenda wasn’t going to just keep coming at him and scaring him. Instead she was being considerate of her Macaw’s feeling and emotions.

But I should also warn you…

Not every Macaw Glenda could have tried the “Perching” technique on would have responded the same way. More likely, this technique would have worked on about 70% of Macaws who all seem to try to bluff their way out of situations with Fake lunging bites. They’re scary, but they’re only used with birds who aren’t extremely confident in their current situation.

So it probably wouldn’t have worked with a Macaw who was let’s say 9 years old, in the height of his sexual maturity and who might be lunging at you the same way Glenda’s Macaw was, but this older Macaw’s CORE issue for attacking might be to protect his territory. In which case the perching technique wouldn’t have fixed the problem.

The Macaw would have attacked her, she would have blocked it with the perches, and he would have gone into a bit of a “Cage Rage”. Not all that different from when us Humans go into a Road Rage.

You know how upset you can get when someone cuts you off while driving?

And how yelling at them actually makes you feel good in a way? The act of getting angry and all hyped up about something is self rewarding in and of itself. And when you use a technique like perching which really only works when a CORE issue is a bird bluffing for you to go away because he’s uncomfortable…

… you end up getting no where, and claiming that my “Perching” technique doesn’t work.

So the Lesson I really want you to take away from this today is that for almost every problem your parrot could be having, there is a CORE issue that needs to be fixed before that parrot can overcome that problem.

And to remember that not all training techniques work for fixing EVERY core issue your parrot could be having.

Instead you need to learn how to uncover the CORE issue that’s causing the problem, and then match up that issue with the appropriate training technique for fixing that problem.

As you can see this is kind of an advanced topic, and one I’ll be covering in depth at our upcoming “Live” parrot training seminar in Orlando, Florida. Miss that presentation at your own peril.