What I'm about to share with you is a very valuable tip and it makes your training sessions go so much better! I use it with my birds all the time. But sometimes we get SO excited about the newest trick we're training, we forget this tip and our training sessions end up sucking or not being as progressive as we'd hoped them to be. So here's the thing... Learning takes a lot of mind power and work, and although it's really fun for our pet parrots, it can also be exhausting. Just like us, our birds need breaks in between learning. They need times where the pressure is off, where it feels like they've succeeded so they're excited to succeed some more. Giving this feeling to your bird is simple - cue him things he already knows in between teaching something new. Think about if you were just learning multiplication for the very first time, and sometimes you got it right, sometimes you got it wrong but you weren't quite getting the hang of it. BUT, you're really good at addition. If your homework had a mix of each, you'd be excited because you'd be confident in between the harder ones and it would continue to boost your confidence throughout your assignment because it has things that you already know and are easy for you to figure out. That same relief comes when you cue a trick your bird already knows. In the video in this post, you see me do this with Bondi. And if you ever saw past videos of me trying to get her into this box, it took a while. Sometimes she would go half way and then decide not to and sometimes she'd pace all around forever and ever. But I found that if I cued things she already knew, she'd go right into the box without thinking much about it. It made my sessions with her so much easier on both of us and a heck of a lot more successful. Watch the video to see just what I'm talking about. If you want to learn how to teach your bird the tricks Bondi knows, click here.

Article by Jamieleigh Womach. She has been working with parrots and toucans since the age of 17. She isn’t homeless but is home less than she prefers to be. She travels the world with her husband, daughter, and a flockful of parrots whom she shares the stage with.