Big Ask: Training Curriculum for Flighted Parrot

Content apart from technique.

I have the basics of clicker training and understand capturing a behavior and shaping it, putting it on cue, etc. What I am looking for is a curriculum. I think that starting with a well-planned list of behaviors and corresponding cues to train will be helpful. That way one thing will logically lead to the next and also I avoid using cues that don’t make sense.

My training goals are:
desirable household behaviors for safety and pleasant living
calm, trusting handling
indoors flight commands, say to-and-from different stations, the cage, and myself
tricks for enrichment and fun

My birds are two green-cheek conures, just to indicate size. One is flighted and I hope the other will be soon. The flighted one will fly from cagetop to my outstretched arm, and is learning “cage” for back to cage-top. They are both trained to walk to and touch a stick-target. They know my finger placement for step up, but it’s not really strongly on cue. They do it more often than not, though. This is where I’d like to have a solid plan to work from so that what I am doing makes sense.

I bought a training book and although some of the information is valuable, the format still leaves me without the list I’m looking for, so I’m asking for help in constructing it. I think the sequencing should be:
a mix of foundational, easy, and important behaviors up-front
followed by some which are more complex but still relevant to safety and pleasant living
then the sky is the limit with bells and whistles, fun and challenging stuff.

Target, step-up, even a wave are all foundational behaviors. Sure, a wave is a trick, but if it’s the first desirable behavior the bird learns to offer for something it wants, or is something you can cue that is incompatible with something you don’t like, it’s already really practical.

Here’s my start at it.

Behavior….. Cue

1. Touch target ??? target?
2. Step up step up
3. Fly to me come here
4. Fly to cage cage
5. Wave wave
6. Don’t fly from where you are stay
7. …. ....

Maybe someone who is into training has something that works well all made up and would be alright with sharing.
Thanks for reading.

Greetings and welcome to the forums.

I believe I may be a bit confused. the language of your post here obscures your intented request. Are you looking for a suite of behaviors to train, or perhaps asking for a logical progression thereof? I don’t think the term curriculum particularly applies here, for several reasons, so we need some clarity on what you are looking for.

Welcome! Hope you join the flock!

Yes, Chris-md. I am looking for a suite of behaviors and a logical progression thereof. I looked up the definition of the word "curriculum" and the way that I used it doesn't match the dictionary definition. It more closely matches use in US primary and secondary education. It's interesting that the two don't match up. Thanks for asking for clarification.

What you’re asking for...really isn’t exactly the way to go about training. You can teach anything at any time, there’s no real logical progression, outside of taming coming first if the bird doesn’t yet step up.

Target training can have a lot of applications, particularly to behavior modification. But has been used especially for flighted recall and harness training. So if anything it makes sense to start with targeting and use that to develop other trick training.

That aside, I don’t see any particular order. There’s no reason “wave” should come first before spreading the wings. You could focus on husbandry behaviors, such as acceptance of general grooming. But there’s nothing saying this should come before or after something simple like waving.

Get what I’m saying? You can do it all at any time. Sure, maybe targeting first, from there go where ever you want! Use your birds natural inclinations to decide what to do. If it flys a lot, focus on flying. If it uses its feet a lot, wave! Loves picking stuff up and dropping it, teach it to play basketball!

Seconding what Chris wrote.

Each bird is an individual. Just like one method of math-ing fractions might have worked for your classmate, but not for you until you tried an alternative method and then it clicked in your brain. So you have to play to their strengths and work from there.

Example: Cairo needed to learn other things before "wave". He had to be comfortable with me and trust me enough for "step up" to be modified into "shake". Then after learning "shake", we could progress to "wave". But I know other birds who have picked it up straight away.

To add to the individuality, some birds will never pick up things like going into their cage when being told. You can look around the forum to read stories of people who have been with their birds for decades, and see how it's really a matter of training yourself, the human, first.

I also noticed that you just got all of your little guys last month. So definitely take some time first. You may be comfortable with them. But do they feel comfortable with you? Cairo would "step up" and "target" for his first couple of months with us. Then after he started really trusting us did we see him initiate training sessions and be more consistent with his response to training.

Give it some time first. If you make the wrong step during training, it might cause a backslide in trust you might not want right now. And if they don't feel comfortable enough to trust you, you might not be able to have successful training sessions (Cairo didn't want to "flip" because he didn't trust us at first. Now he can't bear to be away from us and is 95% flawless on recall, even from different rooms).

If basketball means picking up an object and dropping it inside of another object, that would be a behavior to train before going on to solving a puzzle with different colored objects to match. There's a ton of flexibility, like you say, but some things do build on others, also like you say.



Alright, so a numbered list isn't the way to go.



Parrot behaviors I want to train and cues to go with them

Categories such as husbandry, flight, tricks
Headings of More basic ------------> More advanced, where applicable
Individual behaviors and cues to go with them


The category of tricks wouldn't be exhaustive. The category of flight behaviors would be more comprehensive. If a certain trick is helpful to conditioning the acceptance of husbandry handling, it would be listed as basic. Cues should be logical and help move from more basic to more complex behaviors. For example, if I can use part of the cue I teach for "basketball" to help teach "color puzzle solving", all the better. What flight cues are going to make good sense for both me and the bird considering the overall list of flight behaviors I will be training?



I think these are types of things people have already put thought into and I'd be happy for the benefit of others' experiences.

Birdscanfly said:

I think these are types of things people have already put thought into and I'd be happy for the benefit of others' experiences.

Click to expand...

Certainly many of us have.

The common thread you seek isn’t a singular trick to teach. The common thread is the fact that it’s alL variations on a common theme. For example, playing basketball (putting a ball on a hoop, an American game) and doing a puzzle are both teaching a parrot 1) pick up something, 2) drop it on command, and 3) drop it on command in a specific location. It’s all the same trick done different ways.

You teach one, you have the basis for another. Doesn’t matter which one you start with.

Don’t overthink it. It’s not nearly as heirarchical as you think. It’s all transferable both ways, it’s not a one way road. Anyone who gives you a curriculum, as you outlined, is only presenting one possible path. If anything, giving you an exact path will limit your exploration.

Like I said, start with targeting, it can be used to teach a number of other basic tricks. Wave, shake, wing spread, turn, even basic recall flight is all simple stuff that can be trained in any order you want. It all builds on itself.

What’s important isn’t the order you do it all in, it’s the fact that you are building a common language with your bird. Once the language is established everything else comes fairly easily. It’s the communication that forms the foundation you are expecting.

charmedbyekkie said:

Seconding what Chris wrote.

Each bird is an individual. Just like one method of math-ing fractions might have worked for your classmate, but not for you until you tried an alternative method and then it clicked in your brain. So you have to play to their strengths and work from there.

Example: Cairo needed to learn other things before "wave". He had to be comfortable with me and trust me enough for "step up" to be modified into "shake". Then after learning "shake", we could progress to "wave". But I know other birds who have picked it up straight away.

To add to the individuality, some birds will never pick up things like going into their cage when being told. You can look around the forum to read stories of people who have been with their birds for decades, and see how it's really a matter of training yourself, the human, first.

I also noticed that you just got all of your little guys last month. So definitely take some time first. You may be comfortable with them. But do they feel comfortable with you? Cairo would "step up" and "target" for his first couple of months with us. Then after he started really trusting us did we see him initiate training sessions and be more consistent with his response to training.

Give it some time first. If you make the wrong step during training, it might cause a backslide in trust you might not want right now. And if they don't feel comfortable enough to trust you, you might not be able to have successful training sessions (Cairo didn't want to "flip" because he didn't trust us at first. Now he can't bear to be away from us and is 95% flawless on recall, even from different rooms).

Click to expand...

Fabulous points!

Jealous on the recall! I’m maybe 70% at best, often slow to react with lots of resetting. Granted we’ve only just picked it back up over the last few weeks after a 10 month plucker-induced hiatus

Just wainting for Noodles to get here with the ABB-training (or something like it)
It always annoys the crap out of me (I am ADD-diagnosed / something completely different of course/ so waaaay to structured for me), but it might just be what you are looking for!


It is all about breaking down behaviours into managable/ trainable pieces and getting to each stage at the right time with the right amount of coaching.
But she explains it really, really well.

Hello. Lovely to hear you're waiting for your second bird's flight feathers to through ��. This is a super long post....be warned....

It sounds to me like you're confident in the "mechanics" as it were of training and you're looking for a 1 to whatever list of tricks/behaviors, what order to cover them in and even what cues make sense for each trick (I'll call everything a trick because it's shorter than behaviour!)?

I'm afraid it doesn't work like that. You need to be more flexible, or at least this is my method. I suppose you could say I'm a passive trainer, but it's what works for me and what feels good to me too. You have to watch your birds and pick up on what they do and train with them. If you decide you will teach your bird to wave and you're going to capture a head scratch and modify it into a wave and for some reason your bird never scratches his head you can never use this technique and can never teach the trick! If you have a strict curriculum you mighty get stuck. Each of your birds might learn things at different times even if you're trying to teach them the same things at the same time and they'll have different favourites that they'll offer and adapt to their own personality.

Have a list of the tricks you want and train them in the order that each of your birds makes easiest for you, but also try and be able to notice something that might give you an idea for something you could put on cue that you hadn't thought of. The same goes for cues, when you have birds, clicker, treats and whatever else to think about just use whatever works well for you! It won't make a difference for the birds, it's just a signal for a behaviour it can be a word, a phrase, a number, a joke, a sign, anything!

That being said the basic starter is to follow a target and to follow it to new places. If you ever need to move your birds into a carrier etc quickly this trick can save stress and lives.

I'll go through how and why I trained the tricks I have in case that's helpful? First was loading the clicker, then training to follow a target I used the technique you'd find anywhere online or in a book for this - click, treat, click, treat repeat repeat repeat.... and then putting something in front of a parrot = them investigating with their beaks, click, treat. I use the word "touch" . Next I captured a head scratch and it's a wave now. I say "Hi" and wave with my fingers. I captured a turn next because there was a part of the cage where I noticed he would turn 180 to get from one perch to another. I started clicking when he turned and then started holding a treat behind him so he carried on and did a full turn to get a click and the treat. My cue is now "twirl" and I flick my pointer finger the way he turns when I say it. I did a similar thing with taking a bow, I just noticed he did it and I captured it and cue it with a closed fist that I bend down at the wrist and "take a bow" . Actually I use A LOT of capturing, he will sort of stick his tongue out at me now, which I captured from him licking his beak. I'm just putting it on cue now and I lick my tongue and and make the "hmmmm" sort of noise a kid would when I do it, it actually doesn't seem to be working, I don't think he notices it, so I think I'm going to make it verbal something like "are you being cheeky!?" because I think that would be funny if he licks his tongue out at me after.

He spontaneously started speaking a while ago I just clicked and treated everything he said that I could understand. I cue speech by just saying the words. Sometimes just "good boy" and sometimes "are you a naughty boy or a good boy?" or is the dog or is my husband etc etc!!! We've now got to the point where I can teach him what I want him to say by repeating it over and over and he'll copy, but it's no way near as clear as when he just comes out with it on his own and I scrabble for the clicker to mark it.

I've been doing recall training throughout from when he started to fly to me on his own accord. I call his name and hold up my hand.

We're currently working on colours and he can tell red and blue and will pick up the appropriate coloured bottle top! I just repeatedly presented him with a red one said "red" and when he touched it, clicked. It took him about 2 days! The same with blue. I also let him make a few mistakes and so learn that the word was an instruction and he had to go to the right one because this is a new method for me as I'm giving him the cue (the colour) from the beginning rather than developing the behaviour and then adding the cue.

So the vast majority of tricks came in the order he started to offer them, which gave me the idea to develop them and cue them. The colours is different, but we have a strong communication base to work from, which I think helps. The above is the work of nearly 2 years and I try to do everything everyday.

For you I would think about having different clicks for each of your birds other wise they won't know whether you're clicking their behavior or their friends and it would be unfortunate if you were training with one while the other is destroying your house and thinking he's doing a great job!