On my earlier post, I mentioned about Clicker and Target Training being introduced to Kermit, my Senegal Parrot. There’s a tremendous improvement in the training. Many have learned about Target Training from articles online, books from library and even a post titled “Introducing Target Training” written by me dated a few months back. But many still unaware and have little information about Clicker Training, some readers emailed me asking about details on Clicker Training.

Clicker Training is not something new in the animal behavior training culture, it has been established many years back. Currently now Clicker Training is commonly used in training domestically bred dogs, thus is never difficult to see pet dogs stores selling all sort different designs of clickers. I’ve got my clicker from the local pet dogs store too.

What is a clicker?
A clicker is actually a simple device that creates a unique distinct “click” sound and is easily recognized by all animals.

And What is Clicker Training?
Clicker Training is a process use to train animals (like dogs, birds, cats and even chickens) with the use of a conditioned reinforcer - the clicker. The conditioned reinforcer which is the clicker, which is able to mark the desirable behavior and rewarding it.

Clicker Training is actually based on both principles of Pavlovian Conditioning (also known as Classical Conditioning) and Operant Conditioning. Palvovian Conditioning (or Classical Conditioning) is a form of associative learning which means animal can learn to associate sound with food. For example in Clicker Training, we can teach our parrots to associate the clicker sound with treats. As for Operant Conditioning where our parrots have to perform a series of right behavior in order to receive treats.

In summary, based on the 2 theories, the clicker act as a stimulus bridge and a also a reinforcer which bridge the clicking sound as treats. Whenever the parrot perform the right behavior, the clicker can easily mark the desirable behavior at that very moment and rewarding it accordingly. This way letting the parrot understand that whenever it does the right behavior it gets treats.

Before we can effectively deploy clicker training on our parrots, they have to undergo a simple procedure called Clicker Conditioning. Clicker Conditioning allows our parrots to associate the click with a positive experience which is the treats.

Steps to conduct Clicker Conditioning:
When I tried introducing the clicker to Kermit, I did not hastily move into the step Clicker Conditioning. Instead I allow Kermit, my senegal parrot, to play with the clicker himself. This was to ensure that Kermit was not frightened by this “foreign” object, unfortunately Kermit was quite afraid of the striking blue clicker and refused to get any closer to the clicker.

I tried placing a few sunflower seeds around the clicker, this was to lure Kermit close the clicker. I allowed him to enjoy the treats but with close proximity to the clicker. After couple of minutes, Kermit was able to beak and try picking up the clicker on his own. The very first psychological obstruction was removed, but I foreseen another ahead which is the clicking sound from the clicker.

Basically I tried sound off the clicker. Bingo! I was right about my hunch. Kermit took off and so afraid of the clicking sound. I tried another by muffling the clicking sound by clicking the clicker under a sofa cushion. The clicking sound was much softer and less alarming. Kermit was able to accept the muffled but with a little trembling on his legs.

I had to consistently calm him down and talk to him and repeatedly introducing the clicking sound slowly. After couple of few sessions, Kermit was able to accept the clicking sound. This was when I’m really certain that I can go about moving into steps on clicker conditioning.

Basically moving into clicker conditioning is a breeze. It is fairly simple, basically just click and offer the treat immediately. Repeating the same sequence for about 2-3 session with 10-20 repetitions. Kermit was able to link the clicking sound with the treat immediately after the first session, thus I don’t see much difficulty.

My advise for introducing the clicker training, always exercise caution and eliminate all the possible fears in the parrot itself. By doing so will ensure that the parrot is not stress up and its safety is ensured, then it will be more willing to learn and accepting new things. It’s all about patience.

Related Posts:
Clicker & Target Training for Kermit
Introducing Target Training

On my earlier post, I shared about Kermit undergoing a series of Clicker and Target Training with positive reinforcement. It was a huge improvement and it started to unleash Kermit’s learning capabilities. With the help of the clicker, it seems to make Kermit understand better what I want during the training. Furthermore, I find the sound of the clicker (partly because the clicking sound is always very distinct and consistent) as an effective stimulus bridge to the rewards - treats.

I taught Kermit the most basic trick, the Turn-A-Round Trick. It’s also the first basic trick that I taught Kiki. I’m sure Kermit should be able to master the trick like Kiki without much difficulty, but it’s just matter of time. Below is a short video of Kermit during a training session, performing the Turn-A-Round Trick. Apologized for the poor quality of the video due to poor lightings.

I used the similar simple steps that was used on Kiki, on Kermit, but with the additional help of the clicker. With a consistent training schedule of 2-3 sessions per day and 10-15mins each session.

After 3 days, Kermit is able to perform the Turn-A-Round trick upon my hand and vocal cue. I’m totally impressed with Kermit’s performance. I really hope with the introduction of trick training will help to improve and eliminate Kermit’s “one person bird” and screaming behavior. Wish me good luck!

Related Posts:
Clicker & Target Training for Kermit
Kiki performing the Turn-A-Round Trick

Lately I received couples of feedbacks and emails asking me what kind of food that I offered Kiki as treats during her training session, and leads me to a decision to write a post on incentive treats. I do hope it will be a useful information to all parrot owners.

First to begin, I need to define what is a treat and make it clear to everybody the purpose of a treat. A treat is something out of the parrot’s daily diet, which means it’s not a common food that he or she can find it his or her food dishes. Next the treat to be simple and small in servings, why? Small servings will not make our feathered friends feel too full, and making them yearning for more! Parrots are like humans, just imagine when you have lots and lots of packs of French Fries at one go, and later on someone offered you another pack. I’m sure you will definitely stop and not go on as you are full and rather sick of French Fries at that very moment.

Treats to be simple as in the parrot doesn’t have to waste time and effort to hull or crack open the treat (like nuts, sunflower, safflower seeds, peanuts) to enjoy. I’m sure you will not want to see your feathered friend losing interest in your trick training program and indulged in cracking open the treats, this way most of the productive and quality time spent in the training will be wasted. To avoid this from happening, and if you need to use sunflower, safflower seeds or nuts as treats, do ensure they are hulled or cracked open.

Most parrots, in fact I should say ALL parrots preferred seeds as their favorite food. They are naturally “programmed” to like seeds, I guess is probably part of their instincts. Thus selecting seeds as incentive treats will ensure that you will never gone wrong. Type of food possible as treats: Millets, Sunflower Seeds, Safflower Seeds, Peanuts, Peanut Butter. Most importantly is to find out what your feathered friend likes to eat. Kiki enjoys millets, it’s like candy to her. She can never find millets in her daily food diet, she can only expect them from me either through tricks training sessions or when performs a positive behavior. This way it creates a form of motivation for our feather friends to work hard in order to exchange for the treats. They soon will know that treats don’t just come in easy, there’s always a price to pay.

I missed Kiki alot without seeing her for about three days. I’m glad on the day I got back home from Thailand, she welcomed me with her high-pitch chirps. I’m totally elated by her overwhelming welcome “cheer”. Mum told me she has been well-behaved and eating well for the past few days. I’m glad that she lose appetite when I’m not around.

I’m also surprised she’s able to perform well all the tricks that she learned before, even for the past three there isn’t any training for her. It’s totally like a 3 days off for her from her trick trainings. I’ve conducted all the tricks accordingly and she did it with flying colors:

1. Turn-A-Round Trick
2. Hand-shaking Trick
3. Waving Hello Trick
4. Wing Flapping Trick
5. Fetching Trick
6. Ring Tossing Trick
7. Basketball Trick
8. Open and Fetch Trick (A Shell Game Trick Component)
9. Through-the-Hoop Trick
10. The Bell Trick
11. The Somersault Trick
12. The Coin Depositing Trick

Kiki crawling into the pocket again…

After dinner at 6.30pm, she started to cuddle in mum’s pocket again to take a short rest. She’s one lazy bum. *Haha* I think she truly enjoys herself today, especially when she completed the Coin Depositing and Ring Tossing Trick within a very short time. She’s really FAST! She really break her usual record for tricks.

Related Posts:
Pocket Love
Caught Napping in the Pocket

Lately, I have been moving on introducing real basic tricks to Kiki. Earlier on was the “Through the Hoop” trick and now the Bell trick. I just don’t want to make things hard for Kiki, but still let her constantly learning new things and enjoying the moments with me. The thought of bell trick recently just come across in my mind, when I was packing Kiki’s extra toys and spotted this untouched little bell in a plastic box.

It’s a real simple trick that Kiki learned almost immediately. She has to shake the bell a couple of times and land back to the ground properly and not toppling it. I’ve only demo in front of her once, then later whenever I cued for bell, she’s able to pick that up and shake for a few times before letting go. I really enjoy seeing her doing that. I was wondering getting her to perform to my friends during our Christmas events. Who knows she might end up getting a couples of Xmas “Candies” from my friends? *Haha*

Kiki in action…

How do I teach her?
As I said earlier on, it’s a relatively easy trick all is required is a normal bell with a simple notch (this allow Kiki to use it as the handle of the bell) on top. First the objective is to introduce the new props to Kiki, possible techniques are placing food treat near the prop to encourage her to touch. For Kiki, I used the target stick instead as she had been target trained. I used my target stick to tap on the bell, whenever successful touch or grab the bell, I will praise and reward with her favourite “candy”. Once she’s totally comfortable with the new prop, I started to move on with my actual training.

First I did a demo in front of Kiki to let her understand the purpose of the game. The moment I placed the bell in front of her, she immediately grab hold and shake it. I’m totally amazed she make a successful attempt on the first time. I praised and reward her to let her understand that the behavior I wanted for this trick. Whenever she threw or drop the bell immediately without any shakes, I will ignore and refrain from giving any treat until she achieved the action I wanted. I continued these procedures and still yet to perfection, but overall I’m satisfied with her performance in her first training. Good job, Kiki!

If you met training scenarios that your parrots doesn’t pick up the bell shake, be patient. First encourage them by praising and rewarding them when they touched the bell. Then after a few rounds, try hold off the treat alittle longer until they started picking up the bell. If they achieved that, praise and reward them accordingly. Soon after a few rounds, you will be seeing them shaking the bells before letting go to the ground. Thumb rules: Give them time, have patience!

Related Post:
New Training Coming On

I’ve yet to post new video clips on Youtube. Several viewers from Youtube have messaged me complimenting about Kiki’s achievements and they have yearned to see Kiki performing new tricks. Thank you for your love and support for Kiki. She’s doing well now. She still preparing and training for new tricks. She still needs more time before she can submit her first progress report on the new tricks she learned.

This time round, I’m slowly guiding Kiki in learning some complex tricks, which requires some basic tricks that she learned and then chaining these behaviour as one performance. It’s definitely going to take long as compared to previous tricks she learned. She’s progressing pretty well, but for sure definitely there’s glitches and mistakes. With the continuous training and hard work from her, she’s able to meet that goal soon.

Here’s some summary on what she’s learning:

1. The Shell Game Trick

I’ve introduced to her since last Sunday. It’s a trick where Kiki has to open the right pink shell to locate the red lego that I placed in. That’s definitely a tricky one that she learned. She’s able to open the shell and retrieve item within the shells. But the probabilities of opening the right pink shell that contain the red lego still remains low. Really hope Kiki will master this fun trick based on an old game that’s commonly found at funfair & carnivals.

2. Through the Hoop (A component for an Advanced Trick)

It’s quite funny that I’ve never teach this basic trick to Kiki when she first started training. It’s a fairly simple trick, which Kiki understands immediately in a 5mins training session. The objective is whenever I cued “Hoop”, Kiki will have to go through the hoop and exit from the other end. It’s one basic trick that I do recommend teaching your companion parrots. Fairly simple and fun. Kiki does enjoy this simple “game”. The hoop trick that Kiki learned is a component of an advanced trick that I intended to teach Kiki in future. But one step at a time. A simple trick learned now, will benefit for her in future.

I will be uploading the candy shots during the training session to Youtube soon, only when my brother a.k.a cameraman able to capture the moments this weekend. So do stay tune!

Lots of love from Kiki and me!