Hi Guys,

I have a Millitary Macaw. It would be awesome to include him in a stage act. He has the typical macaw mannerisms. Friendly, social, Talkative (this last might be trouble.)

Anyone have any really great suggestions on including such a bird in an act?

Check out womach's dvds...he's got some card tricks you can tech your parrot...guaranteed to steal the show with the cute factor

Looks great thanks! I ordered the first set and I'm l0oking forward to it as "play time" for pickles and me

And if I can get him to stop screeching the one time he does it (when someone answers the phone for some odd reason) that's a terrific plus!

The screech could be a good thing, if he does it when someone interrupts your act with a cell phone. If you can teach him to fly towards a member of the audience that you point out when you say the word "Kill!" you've got a great act.

Heh. ive been doing more mentalism lately. Im sure I cna come up with a line for the cell phones...


"Wait... I'm getting a vision .... tell her you can't talk now because your wife is in the room... "

My DVDs showed up saturday and my wife and I watched the first one together.

Thank you all for suggesting them, they ARE terrific. Soon as I can Pickles and I are going to start going on a training regime. He's really a good bird and behaves quite well already but I can see some mistakes I've made in reinforcement that the Womachs DVDs will help me fix already.

Plus ofcourse there is all the new stuff to do! I'm going to start with target training just because its a good formal place to start, even though hes pretty handleable with out it. In the long run if I can teach him to fly to me on command and do the spotted card grab that's enough for an act. if I can get him to use his large vocabulary on queues and do some cute things like the wave, that's a bonus

I have a blog for my "other life". I think I'm going to start blogging my work with pickles.

if anyone is curious... http://cto-rebelmonkey.blogspot.com

Update: I decided to do it from pickles point of view and made him his own blog.

Eventually I hope to get a picture of him on the page to replace my own.

Pickles' blog is at .. http://picklesthemacaw.blogspot.com/

Cyberqat,

Your blog is a great idea! Very funny. I think you will see that the training diet is very helpful.

Jus curious, why are you rewardin him when he's biting the stick?? Issnt it training him to bite?

Well, really I'm trying to train him to touch the stick. This is a basic leading technique to get the animal to go where you want when you want. its important because as hes now on a trainign diet I need to be able to lead him to a scale for his own health and well being.

At this stage he gets a bit over excited by it. He's a good bird though and rarely bites fingers and such.

I thought about not rewarding him when he is over-agressive BUT I'm afraid its too much for him to process at once. I figure Ill get him to come to the stick as a first step and then stop rewarding it when hes over-agressive as the next step.

Kyle,

Training a parrot to touch a stick is a great technique, and basis for many other training techniques. It's not training it to bite. It's training him to think, and not just follow a lure. The only way you train a bird to bite is by pulling away when he bites you. That reinforces in the parrot's mind that all he has to do is bite you and you will leave it alone... Hope this clears it up.

I need to write another blog entry, but a short update on Pickles' progress.

I'm able to lead hima round pretty freely by now. I'm away on business for a week but this morning my wife took over training detail and he did about a dozen repetitions for her before he lost interest. (Its good for him to be learning she should be minded too.)

He IS a smart bird. On the one hand this means he learns pretty fast. On the flip side, he occasionally tries to change the deal and be the one setting the terms of the engagement. This is no big surprise to us from our general handling of him before. We're staying consistent and insisting he do what we want. The first time he refuses to go to a spot I take the stick away and turn my back. I then return it ina moment to the same spot. if he refuses again then play time is over.

I think he will never entirely be cured of testing the limits but I do think he is getting the message that it wont get any result.

So last night my wife without thinking picked up the target stick to move it. Pickles came all the way down the side of his cage and toddled over to the stick.

I would say he knows this one. On to stage two!

GREAT WORK!