If your parrot is scared of the clicker I’ve got a few solutions for you!

However, some parrots might be scared of the sound the clicker makes which can really work against you in training. I recently worked with Patty’s goffin cockatoo Theo who had never been introduced to training before and had no idea what a clicker was. The first time we clicked it near her, her crest shot up and she was very alarmed by the sudden sound. After that, I figured out we had to find a way to make the clicker quieter so not to scare her.

Here is what we did!

Here are a couple other ways you can desensitize your bird to the sound of the clicker:

1. Have someone else click the clicker from another room; the bird should still be able to hear it but it won’t be so close and threatening. Slowly have that person work their way closer and closer until they are eventually right next to the bird clicking the clicker.
2. Put a towel or some other material over the clicker when you click it to help muffle the sound.

After using these techniques with Theo, the goffins cockatoo, here is the progress I made which was my ending goal (to be able to use the clicker without any muffling going on at all) check it out at the video below: