Blue and gold macaws

Many of us who have parrots also have full time jobs. Many of us have families or social responsibilities that take up much of our time. Then life goes and throws hurdles in our paths, maybe in the form of an unexpected bill or a transmission problem. We can never predict the course our lives will take.

Parrots are very resilient and can usually handle the twists and turns that impact their human’s lives. They feel our stress and will often pull out their best moves to make us feel better. However, being social creatures, the one thing they cannot tolerate is the loss of our attention, and most birds will react – usually with biting or screaming. This may cause an already time-challenged owner to further avoid the bird, who then assumes he has to yell louder or bite harder to be noticed. What often follows is a downward spiral in the relationship.

Congo african grey

I did a post not too long ago on the topic knowing when it’s right to give up your bird. While I have never put a “Bird Needs New Home” advertisement in one of my posts before, and doubt I ever will again, it gives me a good opportunity to re-address this issue. What follows came to my attention earlier today.

“My Darling Mr. Jake, Jake, or Jakie Pie needs a new home. He has apparently decided I am not home enough, and has become bitey for attention. He needs a home with experienced bird people who need a Cockatoo. Undecided what to do about our companion Forrest, the Nanday Conure. It will break her heart, I fear, (not to mention mine) to be without her Jakie Pie, so if the situation is right, she could go with him. It is sad today to post this, but nothing like the grief of when he is gone. However, as he will only go to a better situation, I know it is the right thing for all concerned.
Please forward this to any and all who might be interested, or anyone who might know someone who might be interested. In short, please send this out to everyone. Pics attached.”

Umbrella cockatoo Jake

When your bird is displaying problem behaviors, there can only be one of two causes:  the bird’s health is failing, or it’s environment is failing. Once we rule out medical possibilities, it means that we have fallen short in our responsibility to provide our bird with what it needs to be happy and secure.

Many of my posts have been about assessing behavioral issues – the probable causes and possible solutions. I strongly urge anyone with these problems to address them because most can be solved, often through simple training. The bond between a human and a parrot is a strong one and should not be dismissed as inconsequential.

That said, life happens. I believe that if your life has taken a turn that is detrimental to your parrot, and isn’t likely to change, it’s time to look out for your bird’s best interests and give him a chance to move on towards a brighter future. I have watched too many people choose to keep their birds because they can’t bear to part with them and do nothing to overcome the problems, which only ever intensify.  Meanwhile, the bird languishes in an unsatisfactory environment.

Umbrella cockatoo Jake and nanday conure Forrest

I commend Liz for recognizing this fact. I know she will be very sad once her birds have been rehomed, but she will also know that she did the right thing by them.
Her contact info is:liz_elms@fastmail.fm. She lives in the Sacramento, Ca area.

Thought you’d enjoy this video, and if you want to go see Dave live, click here to see if he’s performing in a city near you

If anyone watching this video feels like sharing your favorite youtube parrot training videos, I’d love it if you’d share them with me by leaving a comment with a link to them below.

Blue throated macaw

Parrot Training Myth #1: It takes a long time to train a parrot.

Almost every parrot I’ve personally worked with that belong to our clients and customers, have been able to show improvement, progress and success immediately within beginning training.

Most parrots show positive results from training within their very first training session! And most basic behaviors can be taught within a couple days to a bird. I’ve been able to teach the “wave” to a bird in less than two minutes! Success happens fast with parrots and they love training once they’re opened up to the world of it.

It’s best to keep training sessions SHORT and end the session before the bird does. This will leave you both wanting more! Most training sessions are only a few minutes long, and shouldn’t exceed 15 minutes.

Hyacinth Macaw

Parrot Training Myth #2: You can’t train a bird without getting bit.

Super basic training techniques like “touch training” and the “power pause” are techniques you can use and never have to worry about being bitten by your bird.

These are techniques you can use with your bird still INSIDE their cage, and yet see positive results within minutes. The Power Pause literally takes 15 minutes with most birds while touch training happens even faster.

Congo African Grey Parrot

Parrot Training Myth #3: Some birds are just too old to train.

A bird is NEVER too old to start training, and neither are you! So don’t let your bird’s age stand in the way of its success. A client of BirdTricks.com taught her 87 year old macaw to be quiet on cue and it had never learned anything before. Anything is possible, no matter what your bird’s age is.

I taught a 35+ year old blue fronted amazon how to freefly outside safely. You can watch a fun video of him here, he’s famous for being the “Interrupting Parrot”.

When it comes to parrot training, age doesn’t matter.

Blue and Gold Macaw

Parrot Training Myth #4: I can’t get near my bird, therefore I can’t start training it.

If your bird has an issue with you getting close to it, we have techniques you can use. We focus on all areas of fear with birds, as well as aggression. We even worked out these strategies LIVE at our Seminar in Florida and talk about the “3 Phases of Fear and Mistrust” and how to find out which phase you’re at, so you can have success with your bird.

A very common phase is the “Getting Closer Phase” where you can’t even get NEAR your bird without it lunging, attacking, screaming or running away. Both fear and aggression play a role in this phase and it’s something you really CAN work through.

Blue and Gold Macaw

Parrot Training Myth #5: Training parrots is hard.

It’s doesn’t take a rocket scientist to be able to train your parrot. Techniques are easy for you to understand and apply and we make it as easy as possible for you apply the techniques you learn to your bird for the ultimate success.

There’s no fancy lingo that you can’t understand, we put it very basic so you aren’t overwhelmed (and neither is your bird) instead training is made fun and interactive for you and your bird and you don’t have to spend all day working on it, either!

A few minutes a day is all your parrot will want to train anyway, so you can still maintain a social life. Though whether or not you choose to after discovering the fun filled world of parrot training… is up to you.

The hardest part? Getting started. For a variety of training tools and fun bond building games to get you started, check out the parrot training store.

Blue and Gold Macaw

So many people have heard the old saying, “can’t teach an old dog new tricks” and assume it applies to older parrots too. But I have news for you – it doesn’t!

No parrot is ever “too old” to learn new tricks.

In fact, old parrots is where BirdTricks.com was founded with Tiko (pictured above) a 15 year old blue and gold macaw and Linus, a 10 year old umbrella cockatoo. Tiko had been a trophy pet all his life, and never handled since the age of 2. His owners were people who didn’t know better… Chet and Dave’s parents, and one day when the two brothers thought about making a magic parrot video to incorporate the birds into Dave’s magic act, they found something very cool…

When they began training and mentally stimulating these birds, the birds became nicer. They began to become handle-able and social.

And that is why we here at BirdTricks.com recommend trick training SO much. We like to think we beat it into your heads to do it. And this is just one reason of many.

If you have the courses, you will find Tiko on the cover of Volume 2 and Linus on the cover of Volume 1. Along with Chet and Dave. They use those birds in all the demonstrations to show you real, untamed birds going through the same training you’re about to endure. Just to prove to you how fast and easy it can be. You see the successes, you see the failures and everything in between so you learn from everything they did.

So when you hear someone say an old bird can’t learn new tricks, think again. Our trick training courses are proof they can, not to mention the thousands of testimonials of people having success with their birds too from one year young to 87 years old (yes, a macaw that old was taught how to be “quiet” on cue).

It is NEVER too late to start training your bird.

Who said Budgies couldn’t wave? If a budgie can be taught to wave, then I am certain that so can other parakeets, lovebirds, parrotlets, and cockatiels. Here are the top three reasons why it may seem impossible to teach these small birds to wave:

1) Their feet are really small

2) They often hop onto hand rather than step up

3) They aren’t as agile with their feet as larger parrots

I’m not even going to get into people thinking the birds are too dumb to learn tricks or that they are too wild to learn. That is complete rubbish and it’s the owners fault if they actually believe that. While the wave is considered a very elementary entry level trick for larger parrots, it is actually a fairly advanced trick for the smaller birds as you will see here. I would recommend at least teaching a few easy tricks beforehand like target, turn around, and go through tube before attempting to teach the wave. I’m not going to explain teaching the wave trick but rather will focus on how to apply typical techniques for training the trick and modifying them to work for a smaller bird.

Now I will address the issues with training small parrots to wave. Their feet really are small and much harder to get to than even medium sized parrots let alone big ones. While you can hold a macaw’s foot in your entire hand, you have to use just your smallest finger to handle a budgie’s foot. Initially when I began training the trick, I really wanted to use precision about lifting one foot rather than hopping or stepping up, so I used a pen for the bird to place its foot on. Later on I regressed to using my small finger. The issue with hopping can often be solved by using better precision about the foot lifting motion by directing it with a thinner finger or stick.

Finally, the last issue is that they are not so agile with their feet. I know for certain that budgies and cockatiels are ground feeders so they don’t have a need to eat out of their feet as the perching parrots do. Therefore they do not have as developed leg muscles and are not used to picking them up so high. This is probably the biggest problem with training them to wave because they just aren’t strong enough to pick their foot up high enough to make the trick even if they comprehend the cue. For this reason it took a whole month to train the wave trick to satisfaction to Duke.

He got the basics of the trick down within a few days that it had something to do with moving one foot around. The problem was that he just wouldn’t lift it very high. This is where patience and persistent training for over a month came in. We trained him twice daily with a big emphasis on wave trick to exercise his leg so he could lift it higher. It took a while before we started seeing results but it really worked. Training was more like physical therapy than training. He knew what to do but just wasn’t physically fit enough to do it. So the foot lifting exercises he received paid off and he learned to wave. His wave is still very quick and you will miss it if you blink. But hey, budgies do everything faster, it’s how they live.

So if you own a small bird, now you know that it can be taught to wave. You just have to have the patience and persistence to practice with the bird enough that it can strengthen its leg to be able to lift so high. I don’t want to see any more videos on youtube of the so-called “shake hands” trick where the owner basically grabs the bird’s foot and lifts it up and down. I want to see more people take the time to work with their bird so it could do a full wave by itself!