Mika Pi Learning to Retrieve

Mika (white cap pionus) is learning how to retrieve. She only recently figured out that she needs to put the pink ring in my hand. This is Mika's first session on a surface where she has to walk in different directions to get the object into my palm. In her previous sessions we only worked on the door of her cage so she didn't have as much room to move around (i.e. there was less room for error). So, not only is she on a different surface but I've also raised the difficulty!

You'll notice that she tends to do better when she has her back to the camera. I think when she's facing forward gets distracted because she can see "the other bird" in the computer monitor.

Considering this is her first full session since she "got" what she was being asked to do, she did very well in this video. In the words of Borat: Great Success!

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• bird
• parrot
• clicker
• training
• retrieve
• fetch
• clicker training
• bird tricks
• mika
• pionus
• white cap pionus
• white capped pionus

[1996azcpa]

Mika's good! My sun conure would have played with the toy and screamed at my hand! He still has a lot to learn. So far I have taught him to wave.

[3ponymous]

Sun conures are very clever. I don't have any doubt that yours can be taught to retrieve too! It's just a matter of him figuring out what you want :)

[bscavotto1]

She knew what the delayed click was for though because she went right back into training. I was hoping you would click for that and when you did I wanted to c/t you too!

[3ponymous]

LOL!

Where's my treat?

[TheBellaSaraCompany]

What kinds of treats do you like to use for rewards? I was thinking of using cheerios when we start to train ours.

[3ponymous]

I use sunflower seeds for new/hard tricks and safflower seeds for tricks that my birds already have a lot of practice with. They'll work for both, but sunflower seeds are much higher "value" items that I save for when I want them to be extra motivated.

[sadisticotaku]

So cute!!

[3ponymous]

Thanks! You can tell I had to think about it because that click was really delayed. I'm very proud of her for handling the upped criteria so well.

[bscavotto1]

Mika is so cute! She did really well with the new area and new distractions. Around minute 2:40 when you came back into the room you did a great job lowering your criteria and rewarding for the ring touching your hand once to get her back into training! Great job!