I agree with you, Monica. Training is teaching and it doesn't matter whether it's a programmed session or something done all the time, the way we teach our own human babies but most people don't see it that way. They see the YouTube videos and want the 'show off' quality of it all. They see themselves posting their own videos of their bird doing all these tricks and this is NOT what bird keeping should be all about. It should not be about an Alex's vocabulary and it should not be about a Kili's playing dead. It should be about love without expectations and nothing else. And, if you acquire a bird and are so eager to teach it tricks, you should not have a bird to begin with. I have no issue with target training and I think it's super useful for aggressive parrots but it has become a double-edged sword fad in the bird world and I think that, all considered, it's beginning to do more harm than good. Now, every single problem people ask about gets a 'target train it!' answer as if it was the alpha and the omega of bird keeping! It's not. Target training is not going to make an unhappy bird happy which is the only reason why birds act up, in my personal opinion. I also do NOT agree with teaching a baby to step up to get his formula and shame shame shame on Barbara Heindenreich for doing it! Can you even begin to imagine the kind of damage this can do to all the baby birds out there! A baby shouldn't have to do anything at all but ask for food in order to receive it!
I agree with you, to a point. I don't believe that training should be viewed as a way to show off what cool things your animal(s) can do, but rather as a means to enrich the lives of your animals. What if a bird could learn to ring a bell to get your attention rather than screaming? What if a bird could learn to play with toys instead of plucking? Or what about training an untamed bird to accept nail trims? Or teaching a parrot to go back inside his/her cage on their own without having to chase the bird around the room? Maybe it's to teach them to accept getting medication via a syringe? Even nasty tasting meds? Or perhaps it's to accept getting nebulization?
(BHM, not BTM)
It's less about "stupid pet tricks", and more about learning how to communicate with them, giving them direction, enriching their lives, and making it easier to live with them! Training can also be used as a way to build confidence in animals and a way to help get rid of excess energy, so there are less undesirable behaviors to occur.
Target training can be a great way to interact with a parrot in a hands off manner! This means, reduced bites, perhaps even no biting! Target training is a rudimentary behavior! From there, you could teach turn around, fly to cage, fly to perch, step up, fly to hand/arm, play with toys, etc! Targeting can even be combined with other behaviors, such as retrieve and drop - have a parrot fly to a person for a $5 bill, then fly back to the handler and place the money into a container. The behaviors can be made more and more complex as the animal learns new behaviors!
Having a bird sit in it's cage full of toys could be like a human sitting at home all day long watching TV, playing games or just doing nothing and sitting on the couch. Sure, they have a means to entertain themselves, but it's not always very enriching. However, a parrot learning new behaviors could be like a human going for a bike ride, going swimming, going hiking and learning to climb rocks, dancing or anything else that helps get them moving and enriches their lives!
Take a look at this macaw! Fargo is a B&G in Australia, owned by one amazong young owner!
When Tab (owner) set out to buy a B&G, out of all the babies she came across, all 16 macaws were girls, except for two (the other already sold). Tab was dead set on getting a boy, even though the girls were more friendly! Fargo hid in the corner, trying to look as unobtrusive as possible! Because two people had already purchased Fargo then backed out and returned him, he was described as "feral" and that he may just be a "breeder". The breeder tried to refuse selling Fargo to Tab because of his demeaner and how the girls were so much friendlier! And also because Tab was a young, inexperienced parrot owner. Fargo was her first macaw. Fargo was, if I recall right, Fargo was not only her second bird, but first large parrot.
Fargo is over two years old, so he hasn't reached sexual maturity yet. However, imagine just how much easier it may be for Tab to deal with him once he reaches sexual maturity. They formed a great and amazing bond through training! If Tab didn't take him, he might have become a breeder. He would have been unhandable and terrified of human touch... yet, if you look at that video, you can see how much love and devotion is between them! She didn't buy Fargo to teach him tricks, and she certainly didn't go to any behaviorist or trainer to learn any of this, either! Tab also owns horses (currently 3 very large stallions! [gelded] 16-17+ HH) and grew up with her mother's horses, too, so already has an understanding of training.
She has had a few people decide to own a B&G macaw because of Fargo, but she's the first person to say it's not as easy as it looks! It takes time and training to get an animal to that point! And she will try to persuade them otherwise! Another person even said she stole his photos and videos off the internet! Well, Fargo has become pretty popular! But there is only one B&G macaw like him!
You're right, target training may not make an unhappy bird happy, but it's what you can do with that training once the bird learns it! What else could they learn? What else could help to enrich their lives? Improve their behavior? Give them direction? Teach them a form of communication? Target training is JUST the beginning!
Training is a very broad term. Just being consistent in the things you do and how you handle a bird as well as having some routine is all training that does not feel or appear like training.
Trick training is nothing more than that. Trick training (In my humble opinion of course ).
Step up is a trick!
So is going back to their cage or coming out! I know when many people think of "trick training", they think of a bird playing fetch, basketball, turning in circles or any other kind of "circus" behavior! However, basic training can still fall under trick training!
If we can define a 'trick' as
"An unusual action learned by an animal." (as defined by Oxford Complete Wordfinder), then by definition, step up is a trick!
What is a Trick
