Recently Dave joined me this month in trick training and just overall training our parrots new things... and one of the ideas he had was training them all to fly through hoops! So we got home hula hoops from our local Walgreens and started the training immediately.  Dave had already trained Tiko, his brother's blue and gold macaw, how to do t...

Photo by Jamieleigh Location: Orlando, FL Touch training: Hyacinth Macaw "Hymie" Hymie is such a quick learner! Dave taught him how to touch train in just a few minutes and it only took one training session! The next day following touch training him, Dave began teaching him to spin in a circle and got Hymie about half way there before Dave co...

  I've been wanting to get my cockatoo Bandit to say "I love you" on cue for a while now and half the battle is figuring out what I want the cue to be. I decided it would be really cute if I could say, "Bandit, what do you say when a pretty girl kisses you like this?" and then kiss him, and he would say, "I love you!" So basically the cue is...

After leaving Hymie's cage open for him, we found him on top of our toucan's cage perching peacefully and looking proud of himself. He had to fly to get out of his cage, and he has been a FLYING MACHINE lately! He is loving getting himself around via his wings. He's now flying to and from the foraging tree, to and from Dave and me, and to and fr...

Photo by Dave Location: Orlando, Florida On my shoulder: Hyacinth Macaw "Hymie"  When I made my goals for Hymie, I didn't really take into account what it would take to get there. What I mean is, before I can even begin working on those things I want to do, I have to earn his trust first, kind of what Dave, Chet and I refer to as the "I can't g...

Photo by Dave Location: Cruise Ship Shown: Galah "Bandit" To date, Bandit my galah knows the following tricks: Spin Roll over Lawn mower Recall/flight training  I decided that the "wave" would be next. I thought it would be an easy next trick to do... right? Wrong. I've never had such a hard time teaching the wave to a bird before! ...