Back on tour I less than half-heartedly worked on teaching my galah Bandit to "give kisses". Read and see video of where it was at here.   Photo by Jamieleigh Location: On tour Shown: Galah "Bandit"  Well, since being home and in between creating the BirdTricks Cookbook, I decided I'd give it a go at REALLY teaching this trick. So I spent a day...

Photo by Jamieleigh Location: Orlando, FL Shown: Toco Toucan "Rocko" During the in home January consults it became apparent to talk about how every trainer has a training fault; a weakness. Something they are prone to doing that sabotages their own success. For my husband Dave it's definitely over training. He pushes a bird's threshold which ga...

Photo by Dave Location: Musha Cay, Bahamas Shown: Blue and gold macaw "Chayko"  It seems that most bird owners have a harder time with starting training at all in the first place, but sometimes people once they dive into the wonderful world of training, get a little too excited and can push a training session too far.  Just recently I had someo...

Photo by Dave Location: Orlando, FL Training: Hyacinth Macaw "Hymie" When I took on a 4 year old hyacinth macaw named Hymie, I had a good idea of what I was getting into. This bird was not shoulder-trained so he went up there anytime he pleased and refused to come down until HE wanted to. The cure? Stationing. I taught him to “station” which me...

Photo by Dave Location: Moab, UT With me: Blue throat macaw "Jinx" No one has an entirely perfect parrot. Every parrot makes noise, every parrot makes a mess and every parrot bites whether it means to or not. Sure, there’s that abnormally calm cockatoo that hardly every screams or that super sweet and cuddly macaw that comes around every so oft...

I absolutely love the videos of Marnie (Thanks, Jenevie!), the blue Indian Ringneck parrot that gives kisses to all the stuffed animals and says, “You’re just so cute!”  It’s a common saying in our household if we ever call one of our birds cute, we follow it up with, “You’re just so cute!” on our best Marley-voice.  For whatever reason I’ve b...