Senegal Forgot How to Wave

The wave was the first trick I taught my Senegal Parrot and so it had become her best and most practiced trick over time. That is why I was surprised that she forgot the cue for it when I started to train her to lift her wings. I use the word “wave” as the cue to wave her foot or I can use a hand cue by waving my fingers. To lift her wings I say “wings” or I point two fingers at her. She started to do wings not only when I would say wings but also when I would say wave. I realized that the “w” sound in both words was what confused her.

I felt bad that she forgot her best trick and wanted to correct this before the problem got any more serious. So instead of continuing training for the new wings trick, I went back to practicing wave for a while. I dropped variable frequency of reinfocrement techniques and went back to rewarding every trick. I started to practice the wave for maybe 80% of the tricks in the session rather than the usual maybe 10% (because she used to do it so well, would get less practice). But I did not practice the wave exclusively. I would stick some other tricks in on occasion so that she wouldn’t get so used to waving every time that she wouldn’t listen for the cue.

The way I got her to learn the verbal cue back for wave was fairly simple. She still clearly remembered the hand cue so I would say wave but she would do wings. I would ignore her. I would try this a few times. If she waved, she would get rewarded. If she did not, I would ignore her and then on the next try say wave and wave my hand for the hand cue. What I was doing was retraining the verbal cue for my bird for a trick she had already known. I would also practice the wings verbal cue in between as well so that she can learn the difference in the sound. Parrots are really good at discerning sounds so I think anyone who tells you that the bird cannot remember verbal cues is misleading. It just takes more practice to maintain the verbal cues but they can learn them and be consistent. My bird knows 6 tricks on verbal cue and growing. Teaching a verbal cue is easy but time consuming. If your bird already knows a trick with a hand cue or is learning a new trick, just be sure to say the verbal cue every time you are cuing it for the trick. Eventually it will associate both the word and the hand cue and will perform for either.

So in that same 10 minute training session that I realized that my Senegal Parrot forgot how to wave, I practiced it extensively with her until she could do wings or wave consistently on verbal cue. I was sure she learned the difference because on the following training session that day she was doing significantly better. Seems like she just needed a reminder of which word goes to which trick.