It is known that parrots are often food motivated. It is known. But some, perhaps yours, are motivated by verbal praise or by a short little scratch. These are known too. BUT there is nothing wrong with any of these as the initial motivating factor. And for some parrots and some tricks, the bird may just do the trick for sheer pleasure of doing it.
The main thing is too figure out Habibi's very favorite motivator, the one he will do anything for. And that now becomes your training tool. A food motivation is easier to work with, because you will want to remove the food from his day to day feed; use it only during training. And it may be only a small little piece of the favorite food. My Salty loves pine nuts, and they are small, but I cut them into 2 or 3 (or more) pieces for training. Some other points I added , to another response on training:
Training - You are making progress! Some tips, which I might have said already:
Consistency - its so important to be consistent in training , so the parrot does not get confused by mixed messages. Ask for the action the same way, every time. You both should ask for the action the same way. Same verbal and same hand signals.
Immediacy - If your using a clicker, click it as soon as the action is done, followed by the treat. The click says YES you did it right, and the treat reinforces it. I personally just use a verbal Good Boy instead of the clicker, but you get the idea. You all need to use this, you and any family! Training is an evolving incremental process, at first he may not do the complete action, but closely watch and any movement or action that approximates what your trying to teach is considered good and should be rewarded.
Patience - Parrots can sometimes take and accept change at a glacial pace, especially compared to our monkey brain adaptability, so patience is definitely needed.
I personally set aside a specific time each day, 365/yr, for training sessions with my Salty. Admittedly, you'll want to do more, to get Habibi to do the basic step up, which is essential, but after that is successful, I always recommend these set training sessions to teach other things, which can range from simple things like shake hands to more complex tricks. After awhile, HaBibi will come to know that these are special times, to learn new things and get treats and develop that special relationship with his flock. Doesn't have to be long, 10-15 min at most. In our house, everyone knows that the decks get cleared at 8:45pm sharp for training session time, including Salty, and he comes ready to run thru the evenings tricks and learn new ones ( which he is, at this point, amazing at).
Hope this helps. Feel zero amount of shame or frustration in using a food related training treat. After awhile the reward is gradually decreased until he completes the entire trick or action and only then rewarded. Example, we have 8 stacking cups, I lay them out and Salty has to stack them in size order. At first I gave a treat for each cup correctly selected and put on the stack. And then it was for every 2 cups, then every 3 cups, etc, etc. Now the trick is fully taught and Salty stacks all the cups and receives his reward only after all the cups were correctly selected and added to the stack. See how that works? and be aware that parrots will cheat if allowed to. Oh Yes, cheat! In the example above, Salty will try and 'pre stack' some of the cups while I am laying out the other cups, so he has to do less work!.
