My male galah Bandit already says "baby boy" but he says it whenever he feels like it, not whenever I want him to. So I decided it was the next phrase of his I wanted to put on cue!  He currently says the following on cue already: Cue: Waving of my fingers // Word: Bandit Cue: Word "kiss" // Action: Leaning in, giving a kiss on the cheek with t...

An example of what capturing a behavior looks like:  Why do we advise training sessions be between 2-5 minutes when we show training sessions using capturing that go 15+ minutes?!  What is "capturing a behavior"? Capturing is basically clicking and rewarding a behavior your bird offers on its own. An example of natural behaviors you can cap...

Backstage during one of our shows about three weeks ago, our Congo african grey parrot, Cressi, who is about 8 years old now, said her name from her travel carrier. It was in an adorable little voice that called, “Cressi!” just like I say it. 

I quickly said, “good!” and rushed over with a treat. I couldn’t find a clicker fast enough, and in th...

In my attempts to catch Cressi saying her name, I ended up teaching her to shake her head "no". I know, sounds crazy, right? But every time I would take Cressi out to have  'training session', she would offer everything BUT saying her name. I noticed how often she naturally shakes her head, and I decided to capture it. I figured that since I'm ...

Out of my entire flock of parrots (which consists of nine) only one of them is a real talker. Many of them talk/mimic human words, but only one shows a great interest in doing so consistently - and that is my male galah, Bandit. 

Bandit is such a talker, that he does it most of the time, including when humans aren’t around him. He usually share...