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.

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.