M&M Ninja
Strolling the yard
I plan to meet with a breeder soon and if a good match is made, I'll have a new companion to bring home. In the meantime, I've been reading blogs of parrot trainers and behaviorists to refresh my knowledge of good parrot rearing. Something I've begun to wonder is what terms other people use for their requests.
For my dogs, we use 'go to bed' to send them to a bed or a station. We use the traditional 'come, stay, down, sit.' ‘Touch’ means nose to target stick. We use 'up' to raise to all fours from a down position and 'stand' to go from sitting to standing. We have fun stuff like 'turn around', 'BANG' (for play dead), 'get in' (to come to my side) etc. We've also worked through a ton of baggage with our bark-aholic. She came to us at 5 years old and had been conditioned to bark her head off to communicate her needs. The most she does now - usually when she gets nervous or has decided she REALLY wants to go for a walk - is pant loudly and sometimes whine.
For a bird, here is what I'm thinking:
'Perch' - to go back to your perch
'Step up' - step onto my hand or the offered perch-like object
'Step down' - step off
'Turn around' - turn in a circle
‘Wave’ – raise a foot
I don't know what has happened to my imagination, but I'm struggling to come up with the other requests I want. Do you guys use 'come' to indicate you want them to fly to you? And 'stay' when you want them to sit still somewhere? Do you use a cage specific word for going back into the cage? What other tricks and terms have you taught your bird?
For my dogs, we use 'go to bed' to send them to a bed or a station. We use the traditional 'come, stay, down, sit.' ‘Touch’ means nose to target stick. We use 'up' to raise to all fours from a down position and 'stand' to go from sitting to standing. We have fun stuff like 'turn around', 'BANG' (for play dead), 'get in' (to come to my side) etc. We've also worked through a ton of baggage with our bark-aholic. She came to us at 5 years old and had been conditioned to bark her head off to communicate her needs. The most she does now - usually when she gets nervous or has decided she REALLY wants to go for a walk - is pant loudly and sometimes whine.
For a bird, here is what I'm thinking:
'Perch' - to go back to your perch
'Step up' - step onto my hand or the offered perch-like object
'Step down' - step off
'Turn around' - turn in a circle
‘Wave’ – raise a foot
I don't know what has happened to my imagination, but I'm struggling to come up with the other requests I want. Do you guys use 'come' to indicate you want them to fly to you? And 'stay' when you want them to sit still somewhere? Do you use a cage specific word for going back into the cage? What other tricks and terms have you taught your bird?