Fun with the birds

Well today was busy for the birds. Peepers had 2 sessions with new behaviors, and Sparky had one. The dogs, of course, did nothing so far :(.

The first session with Peepers I worked with the red and sisal perch on sends and recalls, and a couple of reps from perch to perch. I think I need to close the blinds for him in future sessions, but he was still a total rock star. Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gfcc_1xO2ic

Then I decided to work with Sparky on her own, and I think she needs to learn to think and do, so I did 101 things with her. I had had to start woth just hanging out on the kitchen island, which was done earlier in the day. We got to touching the block with her beak. I messed up this session, because I tried to make it too long for her attention span. She quit, and didn't come back for one last time :(. I'll be sure to shorten the session next time, but she did a great job. Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jDavtVwi0Y

AND, now Peepers is getting to work on "ship it", which is getting into a carrier on cue. He had seen and been in this carrier, but it was well over a year ago, and he hadn't even set eyes on it since. I taped this, and in the tape, you can't see that the sides of the carrier have flaps in the cloth that are open, so he's not going into a closed up cave. But, Peepers was a star and was climbing in and out of the carrier by the end of the 8 minute session. Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6hm5NNEhRQ

While I was typing this, Peepers went back to the carrier and got right in. Joe got him an almond and I took it as a reminder to make sure I remove all the training stuff from the area. I want to be sure to reinforce every repetition and make sure nothing goes horribly wrong with the stuff I am training.