They're easily the most accessible bird training group I've encountered, especially with their videos on youtube showing a variety of examples and situations for training and problem-solving bird behaviour.
Some other ideas... maybe not as much info or advice as BT, but just as good, if not better!
Someone recently told me that there was only one trainer on the internet that had free training advice. This is, quite simply, false. This “trainer” they spoke of is an amateur that has taken advice from salesmen who market themselves as bird trainers. Not to say that they don't enjoy helping...
forums.avianavenue.com
I see these issues with a lot of these influencers who pose as experts when, in fact, they are at best, hobbyists. I guess BT isn't so different as fitness instagrammers selling fad diets. Yeah, some of their really general advice works but they're just repackaging an existing product to resell while promoting potential harmful info. Other experts will see thru it but a lot of non experts will fall for the flashy marketing.
That's actually one thing that bothers me... their marketing techniques.
They say "touch training" over "target training."
Or "power pause" instead of "systematic desensitization."
They take already accepted scientific phrases and give them new names. This allowed them to sell "secrets the experts don't want you to know!" in the past because you COULDN'T find out any information on the terms they used! But you could have if you had the proper terms!
I actually came across an article that talked about how successful Dave was at a sales tactic... and using that to make more money. He did this so he could buy an engagement ring for his fiancee. The article even spoke about how he was able to increase the price of his products (and these are the ones I DON'T recommend purchasing!) to increase sales income. If we were talking about cars, boats, houses, whatever, then fine! Sure! That's great! But no... this was in regards to training birds... and it was using aversive/force type training techniques. I hope they no longer sell or make those videos anymore.
I’m not sure if the video is still up on YouTube but fairly recently (last 3-4yrs) they had a dove that Dave had to train for their shows and he mentions about training it faster by not leaving food for the bird to freely eat and only feeding the bird out of his hand for every meal.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing... as long as the diet is still complete. However, it needs to be done with care.
In dogs, this can be a great training tool! Dog is food aggressive? Feed all their meals by hand until they learn not to be food aggressive. Dog isn't motivated to train after eating? Then make them work for their food! Many animals, birds included, may choose to work for their food over being free-fed! So you can make meal times into training times!
My dog? He might do a few reps and then just ignore me... he's not really food or toy motivated... and can easily get bored or not like a food to the point he's literally starving himself and losing weight!
In regards to birds though? Using this method can be kind of tricky... at least with parrots. I mean, an adult dog typically wouldn't eat more than 2-3% of their body weight in a day... but birds need 10-15% at least! That's a lot of food to try and balance out throughout the day... not impossible, but I don't think most people could easily do that. It's easier to take a portion of their diet (say, 10-15% of the diet, rather than 10-15% of their body weight!) and use that as training rewards!