Mercury Training Experiences
Last Updated: 06/20/2003
Maybe some of these experiences will help others. Regardless, each experience with Mercury is another treasured moment, another treasured memory and another time I have had the pleasure to spend with her... |
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| Food Rewards and Stay Training | Assign Commands to Everything | Kisses | Potty Training Progress | Associate Whistles |
| Touch the Towel Game | ||||
Food Rewards and Stay Training |
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| 06/12/03 | |||
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Mercury and I have been using food as reward since she was about 9 months. At that point, I started reading children's books to her while she was on my shoulder. I had a seed mix - everything from these really little seeds with no hull up to pumpkin seeds in the hull. I always kept a condiment dish of seeds nearby. To keep things interesting, during our reading time, I would ask her questions out of her bird book like "where is the pink bird". In the beginning, I would put that part of the book near her and let her nudge towards the book with her beak, which she liked to do anyways. She likes pictures in books. When she got it right, I got really excited and said "yes, that's right, that's the pink bird, good girl" and gave her a big seed in the beginning. Then, the size or type of seed was based on how many tries it took her to get the question right. That was the beginning of our food reward.
I don't know about anybody else, but when we go to the kitchen, it doesn't take long before Mercury joins us. She will do anything for a bite of cheese, oddly enough. We have used that to our advantage. "Stay" training is motivated by cheese. She always wants to fly to our shoulder if she sees us lean towards the cheese location in the frig or hears us open it while in the kitchen or sees it on the counter or our plates. If it is on the counter and we are walking around, she will hop from one person to another to stay as close to it as possible. So, if she will "stay" on her perch, we give her a bite. This has exercised our patience. I was digging through a previous e-mail I posted on a list where I explained a little more about �stay� training and food reward. So, instead of trying to recreate it, I think I will just include it... Mercury loves to get bites of our food. So, she likes to fly to our shoulder and wait for a bite. Well, we send her back and say, "fly to your stand". While she is itching to fly back, we say, "stay. want some cracker (or whatever). Stay if you want some cracker. Stay. Good girl." Then, we give her some cracker. If she does not obey, we say, "no, you have to stay if you want some cracker" and we try again. Occasionally, if she is just sitting there on her perch and looks like she might be thinking about flying, we say "stay" and follow it with "good girl". We do that a couple times and then reward her with food. Those are just easy reinforcements when we know her little birdy mind is not racing. The kitchen is where her most worth-while "stay" training has happened. We practice other places, but it is in the kitchen where she is most tempted to fly over and over. I cannot tell you how well it has worked. When we are elsewhere and she starts to lift her wings, I can say "stay, pretty bird" and she will put her wings down or at least settle. Not only is it nice for her to have an idea of what "stay" is, but the kitchen is a great place to really teach the whole food reward system. She wants that food so bad she will do whatever we want to get it. I wish you could see her fighting to hold herself on that stand cause she knows if she can hold out a few more seconds, she will have that food!! She is so excited to get cheese. It's really funny... By the way, if your birds are never around your kitchen or maybe your kitchen environment is not as safe as mine for one reason or another, please do keep in mind that I am in no way advocating you start bringing them into the kitchen, but perhaps a similar situation could be applied. We decided to teach her in the environment that was the most rewarding for her. It is so much different than teaching colors, objects or anything else. We had to find her motivation. Then, we built her training around her motivation. We had to wait for her to fly when we did not want her to before we could teach her to stay. That's different... What does your bird really want? Use that in training. Surely there is a food that your bird will stand on its head for. If there is, by the way, please take a picture of that... he, he. A sunflower seed is pretty good motivation for Mercury most of the time. What I like about seed is the different sizes and types. As I described earlier, I use that as her level of perfection later in the training. As far as rewarding your bird with food, it was easy for us to get started. Make sure it is a small 1 or 2 bite food. You don't want them eating and eating and eating to finish it. It should be a favorite. Give it to them after they do the smallest good thing and show lots of enthusiasm and give lots of praise. Be excited. I prefer the reward item to fall in the middle of all of that. So, it is important, but it is not 1st or last. |
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Assign Commands to Everything |
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| 06/16/03 | |||
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I don't know if you do this, but I am really glad I did. Everything we do, I have tried to assign a command. Drink water (in case I need her to drink),
fly to your perch (and anything else she flies to), want a bite (means come here if you want some), wanna go "all locations I carry her to" (human
transportation � when she wasn�t flying), want some "food item" (for
favorite or common foods), hold on (in car usually, bump coming up), give me a kiss, turn on/off light (handy when on hand/arm and going between rooms), etc.
Often times she tells me what she wants, and I am able to get it for her if she can�t get it herself. She also tells me where she is going before she goes. I love it. It has been extremely helpful. So, everything we do, I verbalize too. I highly recommend this. Of course, sometimes it is funny to see her at her perch just hanging out drinking water and saying �want some water, drink water (gulp, gulp), want some more (gulp, gulp), drink water, good girl� or something like that. But, she goes about her business and all is well. Of course, we always know what�s going on with her, regardless if we are looking at her or not, because usually she is telling us. Body language is great, and I think I read hers very well, but this just helps reinforce it. And somehow or another, you can tell when she is just chatting and when she really means what she says. |
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Kisses |
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| 06/16/03 | |||
| The kisses are really sweet, plus it has become a strong signal. She kisses me when she comes to me most of the time and almost, and I really mean almost, always before she leaves me. That is what we do. You know how you never cross a road without looking both ways? Well, Mercury gives kisses before she leaves. If she is not verbally telling me she wants to leave, she will lean, kiss and get ready for takeoff. If I have her birdy feet in my fingers, she just repeats the process. If she sees that I do not free her feet, she just continues to repeat the process until the feet are free. Sometimes, she may resort to pulling a little bit. It is just hilarious!! And, she does this with strangers, which you know they just love. If she is on their hands, she politely leans forward and gives them a lovely kiss and calmly flies away. I think it works out well. Her grandma just loves it and will hold the birdy feet for a few extra kisses sometimes, even though all she has to do is ask and Mercury will usually just keep giving them. That has become an established Grandma/Grandbird thing. Oh ya, one other thing. I use kisses as part of Mercury's reward. Right after her first verbal reward, I give her a kiss, which is followed by another verbal reward, seed and more verbal reward. Of course, enthusiasm is constant!! | |||
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Potty Training Progress |
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| 06/16/03 | |||
| The other day I started to get mad at Mercury for flying off of me suddenly, but she flew to her perch and went potty immediately. That made me proud... I have noticed that most of the time, she announces she is flying back to her perch, upon landing announces she is going potty and after going, she announces she is a good girl. It's pretty funny. We all know what's going on with her. That's for sure. No complaints. I guess she does know where she needs to be to go though. Over time, I guess she has decided that is the best place for her to be, but that is not something we made her do. Mercury had several options. I think this is easiest and most convenient for her, though. | |||
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Associate Whistles |
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| 06/16/03 | |||
| When Mercury made lots of noises and whistles in the beginning, I did a lot of "what?" followed by "I never heard that. Who told you?" kind of stuff. I think it encouraged her. I tried to talk with her as if I was responding and interacting. In the morning, I always said the same exact phrase when I got her out of her cage. Good morning, pretty bird. One day, she said "good morning" right back to me as if she had said it every day of her life. Sorry, got side-tracked a bit... If your parrot has any whistles that are any type of tune you want to name, you could start trying to associate them with commands. Never hurts... I did it very much like potty training. Whenever she would whistle the tune, I would say "whistle star wars (or whatever the tune was)" followed by "good girl, that's such a good girl, whistle star wars". It could be a wolf whistle or anything you make up a name for. Then, give a little seed or reward of some sort if you are serious about trying to associate it. Mercury has actually whistled Star Wars followed by her saying "whistle Star Wars". That cracked me up... I must admit that there have been times when I taught Mercury an association like this and did not use seed at all. But, usually, if I started out with seed during a particular association, I stuck with it. | |||
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Touch the Towel Game |
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| 06/20/03 | |||
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One thing I have added to our day, regardless if she showers or not, is I always reach the edge of my towel out to her and say "touch the towel". She has never liked towels. For a while now, she reaches out with either her beak or foot and touches the towel. Then, I say "let the towel touch you" and I either touch it to her foot, where I started, or to her chest or back, the newest location and stroke it or pat it on her very gently, which is pretty new, too. She is a lot better around towels.
Of course, shortly after getting her used to being in the shower environment, I would sort of whisk my towel by her, as if I was not be very careful and getting much closer to her with it than I would normally. She began to expect it and thought nothing of towels flying about. So, every morning mostly, we still do the "touch the towel" and "let the towel touch you" routine. You know, if we ever go to the vet and they need to hold her down, they use a towel. So, I guess we will always be in towel training... |
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