Boy titles are hard to come by...

Yesterday was pretty cool with the birds - Peepers had a great time working on flight stuff, and Sparky showed me she could work under some very distracting conditions.

I started with flight work with Peepers, flying between perches on cue, and I started work on discriminating between a recall and send. I decided to get started on this because Peepers has been starting to go to the perch no matter where I was or what I was doing. My cue for flying to something is to be facing in the direction of it, with my inside arm (the one on the side of the bird) held out. My cue for come has me facing directly at Peepers, with my arm held in front of me in position for him to land on it. There's also verbals, but I have learned doing agility with the dogs that I can easily use the wrong verbal, but the correct body cue, and the dog will follow that. I think the birds will be more or less the same, so I am teaching both verbal and body cues for most behaviors. In any case, Peepers struggled a little bit with the idea. At first, he would fly to the perch if I was off to the side of his flight path, no matter which way I was facing. But he was enjoying the lesson so much, we worked for what must have been a 1/2 hour on it, and by the end of it, he was doing the correct behavior when cued. Of course we will need to work further on it, but it was a really good start. Peepers wanted to keep going with this, but his feet were so so hot that I thought he really needed to take a break. My sister has volunteered to come over and tape some of these sessions, so hopefully soon I'll be able to show everyone what's going on.

Sparky got her turn next, and while I was setting up, some people showed up to work on the apartment that's on the property. They parked right next to the doors that open on the bird room, and started unloading, setting the dogs off. As i was trying to get them to quiet down, I also asked Sparky to work a little and she did, really with no problem. She has started to put her head a little bit into the harness, I think for her this is going to take a little while. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7CFcjxC1FY

I tried to come back to Peepers and his harness training. I've decided to back up a little bit because Peepers is a little hesitant to work with it now, and I want him to be confident with this step. So, my plan was to just lay the harness nearby and ask him to do other things near it. He came into the session still worked up over his flight training and also a little put out by the people outside. Coupled with his not so positive feelings about the harness right now, it wasn't a very good session. He did very few behaviors, mostly stomped around and messed about. What he did do, though, which I was pretty pleased with, was continue to do his cued behaviors even when he stopped taking treats. I ended the session on one of those reps, because I really wanted to be able to effectively reinforce what Peepers was doing, but I didn't know exactly how to do it in this situation. I'll figure something out I am sure for the next time this happens :). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5NDTL7jxBk

On another good note, the flight building is now wired in, and I have cleared out the innards of the chicked coop. All I need to do is get rid of the outer walls of it, and fill in the hole, and it is ready for use. I am very excited to have this opportunity to not only teach Peepers some more skills that need more space, but to be able to offer it to anyone who would like to give their parrots the opportunity to fly in a larger area, and potentially with other parrots. I can't wait until I can post that the building is ready for fun and games!

Progress in a new direction

Well, today was a lot of fun for the birds and I. I started the session with Peepers' flying stuff, teaching him to fly from one perch to another on cue. I had changed the setup of the room, and in order to fly from one perch to the other, he had to fly between both cages and past the table we train on. Sparky was on her cage, so he wasn't terribly inclined to go there, but he was quite confused about where he was supposed to fly when I cued him to "go". He was pretty much just going anywhere - his cage, the table, my shoulder. I wish i was set up to tape this session, because I think he had a watershed moment. On one rep, he was flying from the perch to his cage, and I put my hand up in the way. Just as he began to turn to go to the perch I had directed him to, I clicked, and after that, we had no issues at all. He was so into this, and got very very hot, so I also worked on wing lifts and waving in between reps to try and help keep him cool. He really enjoys the flying work, so I guess I need to hurry up and get his flight building fully functional :).

After that, I moved onto Sparky while Peepers cought his breath and cooled down. Sparky had a great session, she actually put her head into the large loop of the harness a couple times and was super sassy. You can see on the video where she took issue with one of the dogs getting too close to her table LOL. Usually she ignores them, but I guess today was her day. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNc4QXKMdpM

When Sparky was done, I brought Peepers back for some work on the harness. The past couple sessions, I have been trying to not move the harness onto him, making sure that he puts his head through, that I do not do it for him. Naturally, since I am thinking about it, I am moving my hand more, and more often, making the situation worse. Nothing like being aware of doing something totally wrong lol. So this session is pretty much a "what not to do" when asking your parrot to do something it's uncomfortable with. Tomorrow, I vow to have more self-control. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oE6q4TGY2fQ

Changing it up, and making progress

I started today's session with the parrots like yeaterday, with flying Peepers from perch to perch on cue. In that part, I tried to vary my location in relation to the perches, so that sometimes he needed to fly ahead of me, and sometimes he followed me to the perch. I am also trying to instill the idea that he should try and get to the perch ahead of me, even if I start off before him. Peepers is clearly digging this kind of start to the training session, which is fine with me. I need to add in another perch, and a pole, and some more space to really work on directing him where I want him to go. Considering his enthusiasm, I spose I had better get busy :).

I thought that Peepers and I would go straight into harness training, like we have been doing. He wasn't prepared to do that, and went back to his cage to have a drink and ring his bell for a while. So, Sparky got to go first. She did really well. I draped the harness over the target stick, and asked her to touch the stick (anywhere) for her treat. She thought about touching the harness once, and I missed my opportunity to c/t that (bad bad me :)). She also continued to work when Peepers flew to the perch nearest the table and watched. You can see in the video that she gives him a good look, then comes back for another touch of the target. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MjphkcyTTE

Peepers waited really patiently for his turn, but when Sparky was done, he flew right down to the table. I thought we would go ahead and work on sticking his head through the loop first, like we have always done. When I pulled it out, Peepers made it clear that he really didn't want to do that. So, since I had asked for the behavior, I got him to do it once, and then put the harness away and worked on wing lifts.

Peepers totally rocked this exercise! He got all excited again, and was kind of slow to offer each behavior, but by the end he was putting up both wings for his c/t. sweet! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoxY6G-BIh4

I am going to change the order that we do things in, because Peepers still needs to get comfortable with sticking his head in the harness, but I also want him to enjoy his training to the fullest. So I'll play around with it and see when Peepers wants to work on that aspect, or at least won't mind as much. I also will be fiddling with sparky's training, to keep challenging her in little ways, and add other things to do to her repetoire.

Interesting day

yesterday was kind of cool. I had decided I was tired of the plateau that I had hit with both the birds, so I made a couple of little changes to see what would happen.

The first thing I did was work with Peepers on flying from perch to perch on cue. I didn't video this part, because it's been worked on and filmed a bunch already, and the room isn't set up well for taping flight stuff. Peepers had a great time with it, and was quickly flying from one to the other and back again on cue.

The the real fun started. While Peepers was munching on an almond, I set up the table for his harness training session. I was about to start the tape, and he was still on the perch, looking ready to train. So I asked him to come with me over to the table, and he flew to the other perch. Smart bird! But so wrong lol! I asked again, and he flew back the the 1st perch. It took him a few minutes to finally head to the table, where I started the tape and began his harness training.

I tried to do something a little different. I have been putting my finger under his wing to get him to lift it, then c/t when he does. I can't figure out why I am still doing this after a few successful sessions, so this time I decided to just point to his wing and wait for him to offer it. It was little slow, but Peepers picked up on it, and started to offer it. Then he got super excited, and almost all training stopped. I need to work more with him on actually working through this - it can get a little ridiculous sometimes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-lFIP5A-pY

Sparky then got a turn. I really want her to start touching the harness with some body part or another, and I started to ask for a little more from her to try and get that. I may have figured out some fairly reasonable way to hold everything and start to get her head closer to the loops while targeting. She did have one funny incident in this session - she touched the harness with her foot! Ack! She was very silly about it, and I think that overall it was a good experience for her. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDtULrKFFsU. sparky ended this session on a very odd note - she was wiggling her neck around like there was a piece of almond stuck in it. She's ok, but it was really weird and kind of disturbing.

The dogs are having a fine time with "hold". Bungee is slowly learning he can hold and move, although he tends to mouth whatever he's holding while he moves. I'm not sure what that's about, but I am sure we can work through that. And Dempsey last night went from a dog who could barely pick up the dumbell and fling it at my feet, to one who picked it up and SHOVED it into my hands. All in one session. He must've gotten another brain cell to work LOL. Sophie is supplying plenty of motivation to the boys to get it right - she jumps in and shows them when they screw it up. And I'm sure she has some choice words for them when she does this. Sidney is hanging out practicing anything he wants to, and enjoying every minute of it. I need to get them back out in the agility field, but boy, it's hot.

Fun fun fun

we had an interesting day today. I did a little bit of work with Peepers between the 2 perches. I remembered to close the blinds, but that did help with his discomfort with going to the red perch. I am not certain what this was about, but we worked through it, and I will be sleeping on it and figuring out what I need to change to make Peepers more comfortable with the exercises. That video is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYWJH5-8pUw

Sparky did another session of 101 things, and since I had a rough time keeping her attention yesterday, I set the timer and accepted just her moving the block towards her with her beak. It doesn't feel like a new behavior, but I think I need to be careful with this that I don't lose her interest before I can get the thinking portion of this down. I set the timer for 4 minutes, and that was a little bit ambitious. She was done at about 3:30 or so, but she did do more in that time than she did yesterday. So, I think I am on the right track with her. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tX1RO2tNbCg

Then the fun got started. My BF wanted to go get lunch, so I thought it would be a good idea to take Peepers with us to practice easy little behaviors in his carrier. So I pulled out the cage from yesterday's training, and Peepers immediately flew to the island and climbed in. We headed to Bostin Market, and when we got there, Peepers was off and running, targeting and waving like a little professional. I couldn't keep him busy with those through the entire lunch, so we also started a new behavior of dancing, which got him really going. Our finale was a duet of the Andy Griffith tune (remix), done loud and proud LOL. He was aware of his surroundings (we had a pause when one of the kids went to the dumpster about 50 feet away), but he was really focused and seemed to have a good time.

This is starting to get really fun. Sparky's getting into the whole training thing, and Peepers is starting to do fun stuff. I finally bought the PVC for a frame for the hoops and also some PVC for a pole to send Peepers out and round. And I have a harness to start working towards training for. Fun fun stuff.