Help! My bird has zero interest in training

Maybe a bit of background story:
So I have this 1,5 year old Lovebird called Pigwidgeon (I really just call her pig). I got her when she was about 12 weeks old I believe. She was hand reared and could step up. She is a really lovely bird that always flies to me or even after me when I move within the apartment.
Now I noticed that she became less and less tame. Her mate isn't really tame. I'm afraid he had something to do with her getting less interested in me as she matured.
A while ago she laid two eggs which weren't fertile. I took them away after she got kinda bored with them and she was fine with that.

Now to my problem:
Pig is not at all interested in clicker training. She won't even take a treat from me when she isn't sitting on my shoulder. So i thought fine i'll do it from there if she feels safe there. She still doesnt get it. I have tried a few times but in the end she will always just fly away at some point and I really don't think she got the connection between the clicker and the treat.

Help!? What can I do?

What are you trying to teach her? Maybe there is some other way to do it? I have had my sweet lovie for about 3 weeks now (she is about 6 mo), and she was untamed according to her previous owner. I dunno her background, but she started stepping up and being really nice to me within one week or so. I just handle her a lot, but I don't even know what should I train her for. LOL She doesn't poop on me, and I'm wondering if that's natural or somebody taught her that.
If your bird has a partner she would obviously loose interest in you and concentrate on him. I'm not an expert in the subject, but I would try all sorts of different ways to train her.

Right now I want to start touch-training for which i have to condition her first. I get that I have to start with that. She will always sit on me no problem but she will always sit on my shoulders and won't let me lift her off. Ultimately I want her to learn some basic tricks that will make it easier for me to handle her. Right now I click and then give her some apple which she likes (apparently millet is horrible if its not stuck to the cage). She does that twice no problem and then starts flying off sitting where I cant reach her or flying from one stop to the next.

As I mentioned in your intro, you might try training before meals.


As far as stepping up from the shoulder.... why not teach her to walk down your arm to your hand instead of actually having her step up on your hand from your shoulder?

Mine has still hard times going off the shoulder too. She was not hand tame when I got her, but now she is stepping up easily. I just have to sort of force her to step up when taking her down from me, but I don't really push that hard. I somehow hope she will learn this eventually. Every bird is different, but maybe if you consistently the same thing with her she will get used to it.

Veimar, you might try teaching Parry to walk off your shoulder, down your arm and to your hand as well to get her off your shoulder.

You could try doing multiple short training sessions throughout the day to match her attention span. If you know she's interested in the taking the reward from you 2 or 3 times, stick with that. You could also focus on training right before bed when she's starting to calm down and is less likely to wander off in search of something else to do.

Experiment with different rewards and it doesn't necessarily have to be food. Maybe scritches will motivate her? If you feel like she doesn't understand the connection between the clicker and the treat, you can focus on that. Click & then give her a treat. Repeat until she begins to anticipate the treat when she hears the clicker. You might be moving too fast for her.

Firstly is her food rationed or does she have free access to food? If she has free access then cut her food back until you find an amount where she will eat all of it most days. Then cut that back again a little and use what would normally be the remainder of her food for the day as treats (but with whatever food you find she will enjoy the most). Say she will eat 2 tsp of food a day and you want to do her training in the afternoon, give her 1stp in the morning and then 1tsp after your training session is over. This way she is hungry when training time comes around.

Do you have a quiet "boring" room you could train her in without many distractions? Take small steps even if its just getting her to take food from you at first and then getting her to stay on the training perch/area before you take things further. Keep the training sessions short, she will get bored easily and you are better off finishing on a positive note.

If she is sitting on your shoulder and you touch her feet what happens? Does she squawk or fly away? If she stays on your shoulder, do you give her a treat to calm her down? If so, that may be a problem as well.

Mekaisto said:

If she is sitting on your shoulder and you touch her feet what happens? Does she squawk or fly away? If she stays on your shoulder, do you give her a treat to calm her down? If so, that may be a problem as well.

Click to expand...

She'll just walk to the other shoulder or fly off. i can have her step up when she sits somewhere on my bed or on a shelf. She just won't step up from my shoulder. I don't give her treats to calm her down, she doesn't really freak out or anything so I never had to.

I don't know if i can ration the food that well because there is 2 birds. The other one isn't tame so I can't take him out to do training aswell.

Before training your bird you must equip yourself with treats, such as nuts or fruits, that are not part of your bird's regular meals. You also need patience since some commands will take longer to teach than others, and there may be tricks that your bird will just refuse to do, no matter how good the offered treat is.