What to teach and how to teach.

[jiannotto9492]

Hey guys , I'm looking to teach my Jenday to sing along with other tricks. He currently knows to step up but I don't know how to go about teaching him to sing/talk and what other tricks I should teach him. Any suggestion is appreciated.

 

[Xraysrrad]

My Bodhi can wave hello, turn-around, do a flip on his perch, "stickem up", and fly to me on cue.

This week, we have been working on fetch and dunking a basketball.

 

[Birdman666]

Conures seem to be natural trick trainers. They're not generally very good talkers. They usually have a pretty limited vocabulary - usually - qualified statement and generalization. Occasionally they are exceptional...

Best trick training series I know of it Tani Robar's stuff... she breaks it down really well.

Essentially, any behavior you can break down into steps, you can teach a conure. Just make it fun, and make it playtime, and they'll soak it up like a sponge.

 

[Julianna]

Some of my favorite tricks with Pippi are waving, putting wings up, spinning in a circle, fetching, walking through a tube, flying through a hoop, recall, hanging upside down, and collecting toys in a basket. These are all fairly simple to teach using a target and shaping behaviors with small steps. Like Birdman666 said, breaking the action you want to achieve down into smaller steps is key to making trick training work. If you just reward small steps, your conure will want to stay involved and you'll both have fun. If you do a little research you can find some great training methods and advice. I recommend looking up Barbara Heidenreich as she's got some great information. If you just do some searches relating to positive reinforcement or force free training you'll get some good results too. Good luck!