Basic Parrot Training - By: Andre Gomez

Important to remember
Always keep the parrot training in a positive manner. There are a few things you should remember before you start training your parrot which are key elements to make the training sessions bear fruits:

- When the parrot does something – give a reward
- When your parrot does something undesirable – ignore it
- NEVER punish you parrot

This might seem a little bit simple, but the goal of the parrot training is to shape your parrot the way you want. By giving rewards when doing things you want and ignoring it when doing things you don’t want, the parrot will soon learn what to do to get your attention. A negative reaction from you can actually turn into a reward for your bird if it’s looking for attention. Just to compare (same principles for training dogs) think about a barking dog. If the dog really wants attention and therefore is barking, the worst thing the owner can do is actually giving the dog the attention it seeks. The owner gives the dog the reward – attention – and therefore encourages the dog to do the same next time it wants attention from the owner.

What to teach you parrot first?
Two of the most important commands you can ever teach your parrot is the step up and step down commands. These simple commands will ease your future parrot training as well as the everyday handling of your bird. These are relatively easy and extremely important skills to teach. Stepping up is quite a natural movement for a bird so it is generally easy to train this on command (stepping down is a bit trickier to teach). Getting your bird to step up and step down on command makes handling much easier and helps you to set some boundaries for your bird (for example, you can more easily remove your bird from areas of you home that are not bird-proofed, return a bird back to his or her playgym or cage, etc.). If you have a baby bird, he or she is probably pretty cooperative but starting early with the step up and step down commands is still a good idea. Not only does training a cooperative baby allow you to give lots of positive reinforcement, it sets a good foundation for training more skills to your bird in the future.

As mentioned above use positive reinforcement. When your parrot does something good or obeys, give it a treat or reward. If your parrot behaves badly ignore that bad behavior. Your parrot would like to have your attention so ignoring that behavior is “punishment enough”. Never punish your parrot. Any attention even negative is still attention and punishing your parrot will make it get used to negative attention and may lead to your parrot seeking your attention by doing “bad” things. A positive strategy also means using praise. Once your parrot has learned something try using praise to reward your parrot. If you use a treat every single time as a reward your parrot might get “spoiled” and not want to obey or perform unless a treat is given.

Wish you all the success with your beloved bird
Andre Gomez

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