Training Our Senegal Parrot (we are new parrot parents).

Please give us your thoughts with regards to a few training questions we have. Apologies that this is a bit long.

To give you some background, My husband and I adopted a 2-year-old male Senegal parrot about 2 weeks ago. We had no prior experience with birds but we did A LOT of research before we adopted one.

When we first brought Darwin home, he came out of his cage right away but did not want us to get close to him. Over the course of a couple of days, he allowed us closer and we taught him to step-up on a dowel. It looked like he had not been taught step-up before and was quite uncomfortable doing so at first. He did get comfortable with it fairly quickly (a couple of days) and began stepping up on our fingers when we asked him to. He now knows 'step-up', 'turn-around', 'wave' and 'target' quite proficiently.

Darwin is flighted. He voluntarily rides around on our shoulders, flies to where we are to check things out/get treats, and sleeps on us when we watch tv in the evenings. This tells us that he likes us and that our bond is growing. Darwin is a great little bird and we love him.

Darwin has however bitten me twice and bitten my husband twice in the time we have had him. We believe that all of the bites were due to fear and not aggression (we moved too fast or sent confusing signals). He has some phobic tendencies- he is wary of new things that are introduced to his environment and does not like his body being touched. He likes beak scratches and allows us to scratch his head for a few seconds at a time but he is not at all comfortable with us trying to touch the rest of his body with our hands (he does allow us to snuggle our faces into the side of his body when he is on our shoulders which seems like a positive sign). Darwin also has a short attention span when it comes to training-5 minutes is about as much as he can handle at a time.

1. We have gotten Darwin an Aviator a flight harness and would love to be able to take him outside one day. How can we encourage him to allow us to touch his body so that we can get his harness on one day?

2. We have heard that in some cases, clipping a bird's wings (at least temporarily), can make it easier for owners to handle the bird as well as make it easier to desensitize the bird as it cannot instantly fly away, thereby learning that there is nothing to fear. Darwin has a vet appointment for beak and nail trimming. Should we get his wings clipped and try it out temporarily?
- we are very torn about this as Darwin flies away a lot which makes things difficult but at the same time we also don't want to take that choice away from him.

3. He sometimes confuses the sign for 'step-up' with the sign for 'wave', though we are no longer using the same sign for both (we point at his foot for wave and offer a finger for step-up). He waves when we signal 'step up' and then does not want to step up. He actually regressed on stepping up when we taught him to wave as he did not trust that we would pick him up. How can we clear up this type of confusion?

Thanks in advance!
~Darwin's parents~

1. Focus on him touching you first, I'd leave the harness for a while now as winter will roll in before you know it. Harness training takes months if not years to do right and you've only had him 2 weeks so give him some time to become more settled and happy with you, you don't want to harm your trust with him by moving too quick. Remember that he sets the pace

2. I disagree wholeheartedly, I'm a firm believer that clipping is only done for safety and not convenience, allowing him choice will let him show you what he does and doesn't like and lets him choose to come to you and choose to let you do things letting him be more well-adjusted

3. All you can do for now is keep with wave and step-up being different, try rolling back your step up training to where you hold a treat in your other hand to make him reach for it, then just be consistent

Thanks for your response.

Darwin has a damaged beak, we think this is due to the fact that he is flighted, so safety is our main concern. I guess I thought it went without saying which is why I didn't mention it. You make great points which are the same reasons why we don't want to clip his wings. We will have to make a decision soon.

SO you are making good progress with Darwin, really. One of the main things in training parrots is to be 100% consistent in how you ask him to do something, so the both of you need to get your heads together. If you give different signals for the same action, he is going to regress, as you have found out.

Training and trick training are 2 different things, in my mind. Training is step up, or go potty or go nite nite - every day things that he will need to learn well, and not expect a treat for doing them. Trick training is exactly that. A good starting point is having him turn in circles, first by leading him with a treat in your fingers, progressing to leading him just with your finger, progressing to just making a circle with your finger a foot or more away from him. Use a verbal trigger too, every time. So say"Circles" every time you do this trick. Why train for tricks anyway? It is a great way to bond with your parrot, and almost every parrot loves to learn new things. Establish a set time every day ( thats important too) to have your training sessions with Darwin. Every day, same time. It might take a few weeks or even a month or 2 before he gets the first trick above, but it will be time well spent. Find out Darwins most favorite treat, and that is used exclusively for trick training. Once he masters one trick, move on, but always do the first one every session. Study how Darwin plays with toys, that can give you inspiration for the next trick.

You should look at the videos Salty and I have done ( link below) to get an idea of the range of tricks that most parrots can do easily. Salty does everything from playing dead to picking the Kings out of a deck of cards to flipping a hoop over his head ( his idea, not mine). We train every night without fail and if I am out of town, my wife Geri does his sessions with him.

Remember - consistency, clear signals and verbal commands, treat him even if he did not do the trick perfectly, and verbal praise too ( parrots love applause).

Be satisfied with head scratches, touching a parrots body can be a sexual trigger, and you do NOT want to go there. Beak, head,neck - all good. For harness training, I would wait awhile, until Darwin knows its training time every night. Leave the harness near your training area for awhile. Let him play with it. Once he is not spooked by it, Hold the head loop open with 2 fingers and with the other hand, put a trreat on the table just before the head loop. Gradually you will offer the treat more and more inside the head loop until one night you can slip it over his head (treat) and let him walk around with it on like that for awhile, treating constantly and praising him. After he has dome that for a while, you can progress with the harness fully open and try slipping one wing then the other in. This might take a whole year of gradual progression ( it took me over a year with Salty) doing harness training every night, gradually progressing.

Hope this is helpful to you.

Congrats on bringing Darwin into your family. I have a Senegal and he's such a great bird, very intelligent, very loving...and very stubborn, lol. Training him has been all about taking things at HIS PACE and not mine. And I got Kane as a 13 week-old, hand-raised baby, and he's still stubborn, lol. And though I can touch Kane anywhere I want to, the Aviator Harness was a struggle, and not to get it on him.

There are two different processes involved in harness-training them, the first is getting them to allow you to put it on them. That's the easy part. The second process is getting them to accept wearing the harness and not constantly chewing on it, ripping at it, etc. while it's on them. This is the much more difficult part. If you got the Aviator-Harness it should have come with a DVD, which explains all about how you must break putting it on them down into little tiny steps. For example, the first step is to get him to allow you to put the look over his head. Then you verbally praise him and give him his favorite treat. And you might spend a month just getting him to allow the loop to go over his head. Then the next step is getting the loop over his head and then also one wing through the loop, and that might take another month. It's all about baby steps and rewarding/praising him every single time he allows you to advance the harness. And then once you get him to allow you to put the harness on him completely and then adjust/tighten it, then you have to figure out how to keep him from constantly chewing on it. Basically I did this by immediately rewarding him when I got it completely on him and adjusted, and then immediately took him outside each time he allowed me to put it on him, and then rewarded and praised him again outside. He learned that putting the harness on completely meant he was going to get a treat and get to go outside, which he loves. It just takes a lot of time, and you can't ever push it or force it, you must go at his pace.

For now, since you've only had him a very short time and you have not yet earned his full trust, I wouldn't worry about harness-training him, i would instead keep forming your bond with him and earning his trust and building your relationship with him for a while, however what you do want to do is start right now to desensitize him to the Aviator Harness. You can start to do this by placing the Aviator Harness near his cage or playstand, wherever he spends a lot of time (usually the cage is their "safe place", so that's where you want to put the harness, so that they know the harness is okay in their "safe place", and it's safe too). I hung the Aviator Harness to the side of all of my bird's cages with a clip, on the outside, and eventually they all got used to it enough to start sitting near it, and then beaking/poking at it. Once they started doing that, I would actually kind of play with them with the Aviator Harness outside of their cage, just setting it next to them wherever we were sitting watching TV or whatever. No matter where we were, the harness was in view. And this way he'll not fear the harness at all by the time you're ready to start training him to put it on.

As far as clipping his wings temporarily, this is a very personal decision that only you can make. It's a very hot-topic and people have strong feeling about it, but here's what my personal philosophy has always been when it comes to TEMPORARILY clipping their wings for training/bonding purposes:

-Yes, it does usually help tremendously in building trust between you and the bird, simply because the bird must rely on you for getting around. If he's on the floor and wants up on your shoulder, or on his cage, play stand, etc., he has to come to you for help, and he has to always step-up for you. And the more the bird relies upon you for things, the more he is going to trust you, the more he readily will step-up for you, etc. It really does work quite well for new birds in your home and your life.

-It's completely temporary, and it causes no pain to the bird at all. If you explicitly request that the person clipping their wings ONLY CLIPS the outermost 3-4 primary flight feathers on each wing, NO MORE, then at most it's going to be 2 months before they completely grow back in, maybe less. This is why it's so important that you directly tell the vet or the vet tech, whomever is doing the clipping, that they ONLY CLIP the outermost 3-4 primary flight feathers and that's it. This will not only ensure that his wings grow back-in within a short period of time, but he will also still be able to glide to the floor gently and he won't drop like a stone. So having it done at the Avian Vet's office is best, and do be sure to reiterate a few times that you only want the outermost 3-4 primary flight feathers on each wing clipped. It causes them no pain at all.

***Again, this is a decision that YOU have to make as his owner, no one else can make it for you, and no one else knows your situation with your bird. And again, I've hand-tamed dozens of birds, mostly Budgies, that were not hand-raised as babies but rather parent-raised, and had no interaction with people at all. And the very first thing I have always done is clipped 3-4 primary flight feathers, in order to give me a month or so of being able to work with them in a situation where not only do they have to rely upon me and learn to trust me to help them get around and step-up for me at any time, but also it keeps them from flying all around the room while you're trying to work with them/train them. There's nothing that will lose a bird's trust more quickly than chasing them around a room as they fly from window/curtain to window, etc. That makes training impossible and actually pushes you backwards. So again, totally up to you. I'll most-likely get a bunch of crap for posting this, but again, it's no one's choice but yours as his owner, and again, you are not permanently cutting his wings off, lol. Sometimes people do get so upset about someone clipping their bird's wings that they do act like it's a permanent thing that causes them pain, when in-reality it is only going to last for a month or two! All of my birds are fully-flighted and go wherever they want to go in the house, but they were all initially clipped one time when I first brought them home. And it always is a great help. But again, you have to make this decision, no one else can do it for you.

As far as the beak-trimming, be careful with that. Even though a vet is doing it, they use a Dremel, and it is extremely stressful for the bird, or at least it can be. It really shouldn't be necessary to have their beak trimmed, unless he has a huge overgrown beak, which usually only occurs in cases of Fatty Liver Disease due to a poor diet. Otherwise, you shouldn't have to ever have his beak trimmed/polished/ground at all. Getting them a sand-perch so that they can file the point down themselves helps a lot, but again, there shouldn't be any need to have anything but his toenails trimmed at the vet's office (and the wings initially if you're going to do it). That's it. So I totally advise against the beak trimming, too dangerous, too stressful, too many horror stories for me, and it's usually totally unnecessary.

I agree with what has been said, but if you want to really figure this out then it will help you to know more about behavior....
Here I go again....I believe in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) for parrots (and humans..)--
Basically, if a behavior is happening, it is being reinforced (rewarded) whether or not you realize it (otherwise, it wouldn't continue.....people and birds only do what works).
The 4 main functions (reasons) for behavior are 1.tangibles, 2. attention, 3.escape (removal from an undesirable situation or task) and 4. sensory.


A behavior's reinforcer (reward) MUST match the FUNCTION of that behavior. Remember, a reinforcer only is a reinforcer is its presence increases a behavior (good or bad---doesn't matter).



Example:
If you are really cranky because you are hungry (sensory) and someone gives you an expensive car (tangible), that isn't meeting your needs (aka the FUNCTION of your behavior). You might be excited, but you will still be "hangry". This car is a failed reinforcer because it doesn't meet your immediate needs (however much you may like it). Now, if they gave you pizza, that would match your needs (hunger=sensory)...


So here is the trick/problem---if every time you are hungry, you act cranky and get pizza, then your behavior is being reinforced because your need (sensory) is being met. This teaches you that if you are unpleasant and cranky, then your hunger goes away via pizza. This means that you will continue to be whine and cry and annoy people when hungry in hopes of getting your "cranky pizza"...That's a problem.

Now, the same need could be met by teaching you to remain calm and express your need for pizza, followed by the presentation of pizza (socially acceptable replacement that still offers reinforcement)..but that takes time etc.


Do you see where I am going with this?


if interested, Google ABA---it works....but you do need to understand it.


To figure out what is reinforcing a behavior, you must look at antecedents (What happens right before) and consequences (NOT PUNISHMENT----A consequence just means the result/reaction etc---good or bad).

ABC charts are a way to determine the reinforcer for a behavior.

Thank you all for your responses. I cannot figure out how to respond to each of you individually, so:


Darwin has figured out the difference between 'step-up' and 'wave' now! He is no longer confusing the two.


Wrench13: Great videos of your training sessions. Salty is adorable.

We leave Darwin's harness on top of his cage/by his cage for a few hours a day. He has no problem being close to it and sits next to it. I know it can take months, maybe even years. We are hopeful that we will get there one day!

I posted on another forum as well and got a response that we are basically doing everything wrong. Not intentionally obviously but unwittingly. The person basically told me to stop training immediately as we are still in the honeymoon phase and should not be placing demands on Darwin. Instead, we should only focus on bonding and building trust.

We strongly believe that training is what has helped us to bond and develop a relationship with Darwin this quickly. He has not bitten us since the first few days. He acts like he trusts us and wants to be with us. We took him to the vet for a check-up; the vet and nurse had no problems handling him. He was well behaved and cooperative. He left with a clean bill of health and everyone was pleased with him. I believe this is because we have been working with him. We don't push/force him to do anything but encourage him with rewards and praise instead. We stop the session as soon as he loses interest. I really think training has been good for our bird and our relationship with him.


EllenD: We are taking harness training very slowly as I mentioned to Wrench13. Baby steps!

As for wing clipping......well.....at the risk of being told-off by many people, we went ahead and got it done. My husband felt that we should try it at least once to see what it is like for Darwin. We took him to the vet for a general exam, beak trimming, nail clipping, and wing clipping. Darwin does not seem depressed and has not changed in his attitude toward us. He does not fly around like he used to, which is the only difference. I feel strongly that this will be the last time we clip him. I love watching him have more freedom than he has now. I also worry about him so much more than I did before. We are constantly supervising him because we have dogs and a cat though they are well-behaved animals who respect the bird's space.

As for the beak trimming, the doctor did use a Dremel and file. He was very gentle and knew what he was doing because Darwin did not seem stressed or hurt. He was ok with the process and has a nice, shiny beak now when before it was a little too long and flaking. It looked damaged. We were present and watching the procedure closely the whole time. We might have got lucky with a really great vet who we will be seeing from now on.


Noodles123: How funny. I used to work as an ABA therapist for 5 years! I worked with Autistic children. I am very familiar with ABA and have been using a lot of the same techniques. We look at the ABC's of Darwin's behavior (antecedent, behavior, and consequences), we use positive reinforcement only and we do not acknowledge any inappropriate behavior etc.

~Darwin's Mom~