High 5 from Percy :)

You may remember that I mentioned I trained Percy to do I "High 5".

Here's a pic I took just now of a high five that turned into a 'hold my hand please" moment

Sorry for the quality, that is my left hand in the pic...and my right hand was holding the phone, trying to capture the moment!

The sweet moments between us are still few and far between and I'm very happy I was able to capture this one...especially because he followed up this sweetness with a nice bite 5 minutes later! LOL!

That's so cute! How did you train him??? Im trying to teach Lilo that but I don't know how....

Aww, so happy for you! It's like Percy is saying that here is a reason to keep trying

kq_fan said:

That's so cute! How did you train him??? Im trying to teach Lilo that but I don't know how....

Click to expand...

It was actually not that hard

Percy has 'a foot for a job' - so he steps up with the LEFT foot first. If he lifts the RIGHT foot, it is his intention to grab your hand so that he can bite it

What I did was use the clicker to let him know what I wanted. His bribe of choice is a piece of pumpkin seed ( I break each seed into 3 and often offer the tre treat using a long tweezer because he likes to bite me ). So, I would reach one finger towards his right foot and if he didn't lunge, I'd click and treat. Eventually, I could touch the foot (then click and treat) and then later, I gently eased my finger under the foot to lift it. Directly after raising the foot, I'd would click and treat. When I took my finger away, he kept the foot in the air (probably purely out of curiousity) and I touched the bottom of his foot quickly, clicked and said 'high 5!' in a very happy voice. I then rewarded him with a whole pumpkin seed, all the while telling him how clever he was. He gets sooo full of himself if I tell him that he is "such a clever biiiird" that he stomps around and even lifts the little feathers on his head LOL!

After that, it took only a few more tries for him to fully understand the 'high 5' command so that he would lift his right foot each time.

I've since expanded on it a bit by saying "where's my pretty footie?" Upon which he will hold out the foot and if I'm lucky, I'm allowed to rub it gently between two fingers.

Very cool! I'm glad you are getting such a good response to the training. Zack doesn't do tricks yet but will, about half the time, let me pet his head and beak....as long as I don't get too close to the tip of his beak and put temptation in reach.

Dougc1369 said:

Very cool! I'm glad you are getting such a good response to the training. Zack doesn't do tricks yet but will, about half the time, let me pet his head and beak....as long as I don't get too close to the tip of his beak and put temptation in reach.

Click to expand...

Percy won't let anyone touch his head and sometimes I'd love to because he's molting and often scratches his head. Pity he won't give us a chance to show him how nice scritches can be

He does allow some beak play but I have to be very careful with that one lest my finger gets nipped

Very cute! Will have to try with Nelson, just discovered how much he loves banana! Plus he thinks me feeding him anything is such a treat haha

Very cute! Will have to try with Nelson, just discovered how much he loves banana! Plus he thinks me feeding him anything is such a treat haha