Can you actually TRAIN a bird to let you pet him on the head? Yep. You can. Is it really so hard to believe when people train goldfish to swim through hoops and dolphins to do double back flips (on cue)?  It's important to look at this training in a certain way: You are simply communicating to your bird through the language of training, what yo...

Just like raising a child, you want them to be confident beings, it's the same with your parrot - you NEED to teach bravery to instill confidence. A confident parrot is a much healthier parrot in body and mind.  When we bring these animals into our homes to live, there is so much that is crazy to ask them to be OK with: running, screaming childr...

Long story short: Dave and I met this macaw, Amur, who immediately loved Dave for being a male and hated me for being a female.  I told myself, this is fine, I don't have to even work with this bird anyway.  ... right, self? Right?!  Um, have an entire day with this bird and not TRY to work with it? Yeah, that's not gonna happen! See bird, mu...

Because jackpot rewards lead to things like properly shaping a behavior, and random rewarding (a broader version of the concept), I want to leave links to those related resources to expand on the idea. So here are more helpful resources: Shaping a behavior Random rewarding introduction  In the following video Patty improperly uses the ja...

First off, this is not an ad for this training pouch but seriously, it saved our training sessions recently.  MANY people fumble or lack coordination in holding treats, a clicker, a target stick, more treats... and then being able to actually use each of those tools successfully and timely!  I've heard of people attaching a clicker permanently t...

The more times you let your bird say "no" with its body language and you respect that decision, the more often your bird will say YES! The more often you give your bird a choice, the more often it will choose you.  This is an incredibly important lesson in parrot ownership. If your bird doesn't want to go on the counter, don't make it. Ask your...