With my visit to the avian vet today a dvd was reccomended to me for fundamentals of parrot behavior and training (Amptly entitled "Parrot Behavior and Training: An introduction to Training" by Barbara Heidenreich. While alot of what she talked about (Positive reinforcement, Negative reinforcement, rewarding ) i read about here, there were some steps or vague areas covered. She talks about teaching your bird to target an object, which she reccomended the hand. this is basically where you put the treats in your hand, let your bird know that there in your hand, and when a gental pass is made to retrieve the food from the hand, that it will slowly be assoicated with good coming from gentally going to the hand. now i have no probelm giving merlin a piece of food through the bars of his cage, and mabye even handing him a piece of food while on the perch ontop of his cage, but i am not bold enough to put some food in the center of my hand and allow him to retrieve it. Now im not afriad that he will bite me( i might be scared on the inside, but its bound to happen one time or another) but im more worried by the fact that i am sure that merlin is afraid of human hands in general. yesterday when i had him out of his cage (i made a t-perch), i got him to step up but the moment i start moving with the perch in my hand he hesitates and swoops back to his cage's perch. i put my finger out for him to step up on it and it seems like he was terrified of my hand. I moved my finger close to his feet when he just takes off flying. he didnt so any signs of aggression, it seems more like fear to me. Another topic i found enlightening is creating a bridge between you and the bird, and more importantly, brigding at the right time. Examples of briding provided where simple use of the word good,(or any other word that you choose to be the bridge) or using a clicker. the idea on this was when a bird recated to an exercise or activity in the right way, the bridge was said(clicked) and the target was presented to the bird(in the case of the dvd, the target was a balled fist with treats inside that were rolled up to the finger when the bird did a good job, it was allowed to retrieve a treat from the target) Also mentioned, is giving a jackpot, or a bigger treat or allowed more of it when a desired outsome happens while training for something else, or if the bird catches on quickly and does it exactly as desired. All this information i gained through the dvd seemed to help but, it still leaves me asking certain questions:
How can i associate my hand as a good thing? Make him less afraid of it.
How do i get him to come out of his cage!? When i open the doors to his cage, it seems that if im in the room, he will not come out. but if i leave the room for awhile, SOMETIMES he will come out and go sit on the top of his cage. Another exception to this is , if his cage door is open, and the dog comes into the room, if he recieves any human attention merlin immediately tries to leave his cage and assumes a dive bomb position to attack the dog. Ive never let this happen, as soon as i notice this behavior i remove the dog from the room, and merlin seems to loose most of his aggression and retreats back into his cage. I assumed i was the bird's favorite human because im preaty much the only one who's not afraid to put my hand in his cage without the fear of being bitten. He will occasionally still lash at me once in a while, but for the most part he just stares at my hand when removing the water/food dishes.
They Said 20 minutes a day for a training session is ample time. I have no problem doing this but i goto school and work all the time so, my schedule is very awkward. there is no set time of the day when i can work with him at that time everyday. i could if it was at night, but i don't want to disturb his sleeping habits so i can work on his behaviors.
It thought me some basic techniques for working with him. the one they recommend for non hand friendly birds was the turn around. this involved having the bird on the perch where your hand could go underneath, making a circular rotation with the target(hand with treat in it) and coaxing the bird to follow the circle motion of the hand on his perch(circling around) on completion of a circle, the target was offered(food from hand) and the process was repeated 9+ times, each time making less of a circle and more of a gesture to do it, which the bird on the video did. I'd love to try this with Merlin, but im afraid(not sure since Ive never attempted it) that the motion of me moving my hand underneath him with either lead to him attacking my arm, or being spooked and taking flight.
They didn't mention anything about the environment in which the training should be taken place. I planned on doing it right in the living room where his cage is placed. i plant on putting up a sheet in the doorway to the living room so if he takes flight hes not tempted to fly out of the room. And it really scares me when he is in flight when he slams into the wall or window trying to flee. I REALLY don't want him to hurt himself, and there isn't much room in our house to make an avian dedicated room. we probably could in our basement, but the temperatures are way to unstable for him to be housed down there. (theirs a min temp diff of at least 10degrees lower) i could probably isolate a section of the basement for training purposes, but how do i go about transporting him down there without handing him?(he wont stay on a perch that long while im moving)i could take his whole cage down there, but that's very inconvenient for me and i assume for him as-well.
How can i associate my hand as a good thing? Make him less afraid of it.
How do i get him to come out of his cage!? When i open the doors to his cage, it seems that if im in the room, he will not come out. but if i leave the room for awhile, SOMETIMES he will come out and go sit on the top of his cage. Another exception to this is , if his cage door is open, and the dog comes into the room, if he recieves any human attention merlin immediately tries to leave his cage and assumes a dive bomb position to attack the dog. Ive never let this happen, as soon as i notice this behavior i remove the dog from the room, and merlin seems to loose most of his aggression and retreats back into his cage. I assumed i was the bird's favorite human because im preaty much the only one who's not afraid to put my hand in his cage without the fear of being bitten. He will occasionally still lash at me once in a while, but for the most part he just stares at my hand when removing the water/food dishes.
They Said 20 minutes a day for a training session is ample time. I have no problem doing this but i goto school and work all the time so, my schedule is very awkward. there is no set time of the day when i can work with him at that time everyday. i could if it was at night, but i don't want to disturb his sleeping habits so i can work on his behaviors.
It thought me some basic techniques for working with him. the one they recommend for non hand friendly birds was the turn around. this involved having the bird on the perch where your hand could go underneath, making a circular rotation with the target(hand with treat in it) and coaxing the bird to follow the circle motion of the hand on his perch(circling around) on completion of a circle, the target was offered(food from hand) and the process was repeated 9+ times, each time making less of a circle and more of a gesture to do it, which the bird on the video did. I'd love to try this with Merlin, but im afraid(not sure since Ive never attempted it) that the motion of me moving my hand underneath him with either lead to him attacking my arm, or being spooked and taking flight.
They didn't mention anything about the environment in which the training should be taken place. I planned on doing it right in the living room where his cage is placed. i plant on putting up a sheet in the doorway to the living room so if he takes flight hes not tempted to fly out of the room. And it really scares me when he is in flight when he slams into the wall or window trying to flee. I REALLY don't want him to hurt himself, and there isn't much room in our house to make an avian dedicated room. we probably could in our basement, but the temperatures are way to unstable for him to be housed down there. (theirs a min temp diff of at least 10degrees lower) i could probably isolate a section of the basement for training purposes, but how do i go about transporting him down there without handing him?(he wont stay on a perch that long while im moving)i could take his whole cage down there, but that's very inconvenient for me and i assume for him as-well.
