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...

 

I’ve found myself in the worst place to be when it comes to developing a healthy relationship with a bird. My Galah, Charlie, came to me from a decent home but had a rescue ...

 

There are few things that I enjoy more than watching wild birds go about their everyday business. Lately, I have been lucky enough to have a pair of ravens nest within metres of my bedroom window. Ok, sometimes we’ve had our disagreements (any wild bird can attack). Generally though, I’ve been very happy to have them around and have made a point of scaring local ...

 

I was talking to a lady at work who was telling me that she was beginning to train her new Boston terrier puppy.  I asked her how she intended to train it: “Oh, definitely with positive reinforcement, I would never punish a dog!”  As she continued to talk, I realized that she took punishment to be the opposite of positive reinforcement.  A lot of people make this same mistake.

The misconception seems to come from the words positive and negative and people’s misunderstanding of the word reinforcement.

First, a reinforcement is ...

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