- Hey guys and welcome to the Bird Tricks YouTube channel,
where today's video is a masterclass video,
meaning my husband, Dave and I go in
and work with your parrots one on one in person
to help you overcome the biggest behavioral problems
that you're having with your bird.
Now today's video is about a 14 year old African Grey
named Kehei
and his last donor he bit him in the ears so many times
and so brutally that he was given up to Kyle, his new owner
and Kyle's kind of on the fence
on whether or not he should keep him either.
(upbeat music)
Now we see a lot of African Grays in our master classes
and most of them are not able to even be handled.
So when Kyle just bent down
and got Kehei right out of the cage
we were just kind of blown away
that he was even on the fence of keeping him.
This is a bird that won't accept treats,
is not really "food motivated"
and yet he still targets for Kyle for nothing.
He seems to be doing it just based off enjoying
the interaction with Kyle himself.
And it's interesting because I always find this with people
who feel like they aren't doing enough
or there's just that overall feeling
of not enough for their bird
and they always feel like they are not worthy
or they aren't giving a good enough home
and usually those are the people
that are actually going above and beyond
and offering something that nobody else could
and this was definitely the case for Kyle.
I know that I said in the very beginning
he was on the fence about keeping Kehei
and that was very true throughout this entire class
he kept talking about possibly getting a different bird,
a bird with an opposite personality,
one that would be more interested in interacting
and just talking about all these negatives about Kehei
but the more that we saw, the more we were like,
wow this bird is exceptionally amazing at learning already.
And at 14 years old, we were actually surprised
at how desensitized Kehei already was.
So how do you work with a bird who is not food motivated
or who won't accept treats?
Well, you can't use treats for one, even though we tried,
we tried a variety of treats,
we tried all the things
and of course, I spent some time talking to Kyle about diet
and how important it is to get correct
so that you can use treats.
Usually when we hear about people talking about their birds
not accepting treats
it's because their diet is made up of treats.
They think it's healthy because they're cooking it up
or whatever they're doing and it's not
and that's the main reason
that they don't have treat value at all
is because the main diet isn't correct.
So we did have that conversation
and Dave goes on to talk about the power pause.
Now we have another video on the channel
talking about, in detail,
how to do this power pause technique.
It's basically a training technique
that you use when you can't give food rewards
and it's also something that eventually when you can,
you can tie it into this training technique as well.
And so we move on to the power pause
and Dave demonstrates what that looks like
and explains the body language all the way through.
- So I'm gonna have you just lean back
so he's not as focused on you, perfect.
So the idea of what I'm about to teach,
we call the power pause
and it's a way to get calm on cue if you can't get treats.
And so this would be for bird who's too afraid of me
and I can't give him a treat
or in this case he doesn't want a treat,
so how do we deal with the quadrant?
I can use minus re enforcement
by getting rid of something that he like,
he doesn't want me around so I'm gonna get rid of it
to reward him.
So the idea is I'm gonna walk close to him,
as slowly as I can
until I see the very first signs of fear or discomfort.
And so you could do this,
like I'm holding the camera,
to increase the opportunity for him to be a little scared
but this could be with your phone roller.
So you're holding the phone roller
and see he looks alert but not too uncomfortable.
There he is, looked at me like, hmm,
doesn't look too uncomfortable yet.
You're not gonna show it, buddy.
There's gonna be some point real close.
Start to shiver, see that?
So I pause.
I'm gonna wait for a sign of comfort
and he may not stop shivering
but he might like fluff up,
he might look away,
he might show a lack of concern.
He's paying attention to Jamie there for a sec
and the reward is I back up.
So I don't wanna push so far that he's like visibly fearful,
I wanna see the very first sign of like,
mm, not so sure.
And he didn't gimme a real obvious cue,
like oftentimes they'll shake
or they'll have disinterest and look away,
so I wanted to start where he was like, it's kinda neutral
so I step back.
I'm gonna see if I need a little bit better relaxation
on this next one.
Right there, he's definitely like aware,
a little concerned, not horrible.
- I expected him to streamline.
- So the shaking and like kind of, he wouldn't do that
if he was like, assessing me as a threat,
he wouldn't be like, oh right,
he'd be streamlined looking and really concerned.
So I wait a little bit longer.
Let me get closer,
slightly closer this time.
- [Kyle] Somebody's getting a little more comfortable now
each time you're coming up.
- [Dave] It's like a really slow blink on this eye.
So I'm looking for any signs of like, yeah, it's okay.
He's not as fearful of this as I expect to be.
- Well, even now, he's asleep,
he's gotten so much better.
- [Dave] I'm gonna try one more time,
kind of make it slightly more obvious as I can.
Oh my gosh, you're gonna be an awesome bird.
- [Lady] Yeah, he learned so quick.
Like with the right tools he's good.
- He's just super chill.
- [Jamie] So in just a single four and a half minute
training session of the power pause,
you could see how Kehei was barely phased about it at all.
And Kyle says there's very random things
at his home that Kehei decides to be fearful of
or upset about
and so showing him
or demonstrating what the power pause can do,
what it looks like and how to use it,
will give Kyle some tools that he can use immediately
upon going home that don't involve food rewards.
So it's something where he can help Kehei
overcome some of his fears
or triggers at home that might be upsetting him
and still make progress with his relationship
without having to be dependent on a diet conversion
to go really quickly.
So we do give Kyle a bunch of tools to go home with as well,
including our seasonal feeding system recipe,
to try a bunch of tips
and tricks on how to get him to eat it
if he doesn't just immediately go for it
but we really put a lot of emphasis
on the proper diet for birds, because one,
we just want them to be the healthiest
that they can possibly be
and two, 70% of behavioral problems that we run into,
probably even a higher percentage,
are related to an improper diet
because there's just a lot of misinformation
out there about it.
So we spent a lot of time just talking to Kyle about this
and literally by the end, Dave was so impressed
with how quickly Kehei was catching on to things
and how calm he was
and how he was pretty much stepping up for nothing,
that we just really wanted to convey to Kyle
what a great job he had already done
with kind of things stacked against him.
He didn't have the proper diet,
he didn't really have a foundation of knowledge of training
and yet he was able to have the relationship
that he already has with Kehei.
And so by the end of it, I really wish my audio had worked
because only one of my cameras was catching audio
the other one did not
but I wish I would've had it in Kyle's words
because by the end of this class
he was like, no, I'm definitely keeping him,
I'm all in,
I'm gonna change his diet for the better
and we're just gonna keep going
and I was on cloud nine of just seeing the transformation
in Kyle of realizing what a good bird he had.
So I think that this is a lesson
that all of us can kind of take home.
I deal with clients every single day
who have an independent bird
and want a clingier bird who's cuddly,
who wants to be with them
and then I talk to the people
with the cuddly, clingy, velcroy bird,
who are just like just want my bird to be independent
and stay on a stand by itself.
So realize what you have
because we all want what we don't have
but the grass is not greener,
just work with what you've got.
I mean, enjoy your bird's qualities
and characteristics and traits for what they are,
appreciate those, learn how to work with those,
learn how to shape those, learn how to train those
and understand the training quadrant
so that you can have a great life with your bird
and more importantly,
your bird can have a great life with you.
(upbeat music)