- Don't think we didn't check out your background before,
'cause I said,
"How does this guy know anything about birds?"
Who trained you to be a bird trainer, okay?
Well I'm a crane operator and you know who trained me?
Me, because back in the day,
they didn't have crane operator school.
So you had to train, you're self-taught, okay?
Sometimes the best thing is a self-taught person
because they're really concerned
about what they're learning.
So that was important for us
when we had you come in. - So, yeah.
- That we knew that your background was,
you weren't full of (beep).
(upbeat music)
- I don't have a filter.
(Jamie laughs)
So, you can bleep that out if you wanna show it.
But that's the truth,
because everything people have told us,
there's been contradicted.
You guys have never contradicted yourself, okay?
You've always been, "This is the way we do it,
"this is the way it should be done,
"it's the way we wanna do it."
Well you know what, if it works for you,
then why wouldn't it work for us?
I mean, we've tried other avenues that haven't worked.
- Right.
- So let's try something different.
(women laughing)
- What are you doing? (Capri laughs)
That was dramatic. (people laughing)
- [Dave] Yeah, I thought this was not
gonna be successful.
- [Scott] Are you not interested?
(paper crinkling)
- [Jamie] Oh, she's finding the freebies down there.
- [Scott] C'mon.
- [Dave] I think with her it's gonna be.
- Trial and error?
- [Dave] Step up, step down.
- [Jamie] Oh, she's the one
that won't step down? - Yeah.
- [Jamie] Okay, yeah, let's work on that, then.
- Okay.
- [Jamie] And who, is she bad about it with both of you?
- Both of us.
- [Jamie] Both of us, okay.
- [Dave] So.
(bird tapping)
- [Capri] It's turn.
- [Dave] Should we do step up, treat, and step down, treat?
- [Jamie] Or step up, no treat, step down, treat.
- [Dave] Yeah.
- [Jamie] Since the step off was the problem.
Okay, so if you can ask her to step up
and then ask her immediately to step back down,
and give her the treat when she steps down.
And you can show her the treat if you need to.
- Step up.
C'mon.
I know you know what I mean.
Step up.
C'mon, step up.
- Let me show you something. - Maybe-
- [Dave] There's another thing you can do.
I'll have you step back, I'll switch you.
Sometimes, they'll be more responsive.
(paper ripping)
- [Jamie] If there's not freebies on the bottom.
- [Dave] When they step back.
See how she stepped back?
- [Scott] Mm-hmm.
- Then go ahead and give her a treat.
- [Jamie] Oh, she's playing with paper.
- Gimme that.
- So I don't know,
you could probably see it from your angle,
but she was non-responsive-
- [Mikal] To stepping forward.
- To stepping forward,
but I tapped the back of her
elbow and had her step back
and sometimes they'll do that.
So there she's.
Come back.
Yeah! - Yay.
- And treat.
So, sometimes birds are way more responsive to that
and I can do it with a bird that I don't know
(Jamie laughing)
because the reaction time to go from here
to here is very quick.
But to turn and bite me here,
I have a lot more time to react
and make sure that the interaction stays good
because she'll give me more clear warnings
and I won't get nailed.
- [Scott] Right.
- If she actually has to turn to reach me from behind.
- [Scott] Right.
- So with birds that I'm not as familiar with,
I'll often do that.
And you can see she was receptive to it.
So we're gonna try step up.
- Step up, come here.
Step up.
- [Mikal] Put your hand behind her foot.
- Step back.
Step back, come here.
Where are you going?
C'mon.
Oh she's cramping.
She clamps down.
Come up.
Good girl, step up.
- [Dave] So if she's clamping back,
then just treat that as
she doesn't want to right now
and let her,
I'm gonna use the word,
let her win.
With a bird, it's important
that you allow them the opportunity to
communicate clearly
before it escalates to a bite.
If you get bit, you've missed all the signs.
So allowing those opportunities
for her to say no is critical.
And then stepping back,
it's like, well, why didn't you wanna step up?
One, we haven't really trained it as a trick yet.
- [Scott] Right.
- Two, we don't know
if she really likes that treat, necessarily.
So the value of that treat might not be very high.
What's her main diet?
- [Scott] Well it used to be anything.
- What was it yesterday? (laughs)
- [Mikal] She had eggs and fruit and nuts for breakfast
and then she had dry stuff throughout the day.
- Good job!
(Jamie chuckles) And...
- [Jamie] You're gonna have to
use a treat to get down. - She doesn't wanna come off.
- Offer a treat.
(clicker clicks)
- Good. - Perfect.
That's what we call opportunistic training.
So, she didn't wanna step up for you,
allow her the chance to not have to.
And then just wait.
We took away,
she's on a training stand,
there's nothing here that's distracting and fun.
So eventually, I was the more fun thing.
You heard Jamie,
I don't know if we caught it quite on the camera,
but you can tell that she was gonna wanna step up
and not come off. - Yeah.
- So that's why I was like,
we had to act quickly.
- Tearing up the stand. - Another thing
with the step back that I showed you,
it works great for getting them off your hand.
Go ahead.
(Jamie laughs)
- Aww. (clicker clicks)
(bird tweets)
- [Dave] All right, Let's get her a treat.
We don't know if she's very friendly though, so.
- You do it. - You want me to do it?
(Jamie laughs)
- [Jamie] Good job!
That was awesome Capri,
she's interested in you.
- [Dave] You wanna try again?
Let's wait until she's done with that treat,
but I think she's ready.
(bird tweets)
(bird's feet tapping)
So, here, hold the stick up close.
(clicker clicks)
Good.
- [Jamie] Good job.
- [Capri] I noticed she bited it.
- [Dave] She did bite it, but that's okay.
- [Jamie] That toe tapping.
- We can fix that with her. (Capri laughs)
- [Mikal] And so the bird was mimicking that sound,
by tapping her toe. (clicker clicks)
- [Capri] I didn't really let her.
- She barely touched it, so.
- Yeah, that's what I was trying to
take it away for a little bit.
So didn't bite it.
- She seems interested.
- [Jamie] Yeah, she's doing much better now.
- [Mikal] Yeah.
- All right, so let's bring it up like here.
- Like this?
- Little closer.
There you go.
Okay, hold it still.
(clicker clicks)
- [Jamie] Good.
- Sometimes you have to lure them a little bit
to get them to touch the stick.
There's so many different ways to
get them to initially do it - What are you doing?
and then once they understand it,
then you don't have to use all the little techniques.
- [Jamie] I feel like we've just done it
in three different ways,
with the three birds that've been out.
- You wanna do the treat?
- [Jamie] Was it four?
- Let me grab it. - Oh now it's four.
- [Capri] I know, I thought he was
just grabbing one of them.
- [Mikal] It is four.
(women laughing)
- My math is terrible. - You and me lose track.
- [Jamie] We've only trained with five. (laughs)
(clicker clicks)
- [Dave] Good job, kiddo.
(Jamie chuckles) So you can even see there
how she already picked it up.
- [Mikal] Yeah, yeah.
She likes you.
(Jamie chuckles)
- [Jamie] You like cockatoos?
- (laughs) She's smaller.
(Jamie laughs)
And I holded a black cockatoo.
- [Jamie] Held, yeah.
- [Dave] So did Mom, and YouTube went crazy.
- He freaked out! (Mikal laughs)
I holded a black cockatoo,
you holded a white cockatoo.
(Jamie giggles)
- [Jamie] Held both.
- [Dave] It's your last one, here.
(clicker clicks)
Good.
(Dave laughs)
- Pretty good, huh? - Good job, kiddo.
- [Mikal] I know, she's great with her.
- [Jamie] Do we wanna put her away
while we work with the other one?
- Yup. - Okay.
- [Mikal] She did, she was listening better to her
than either one of us. (laughs)
- [Capri] I get the case.
- [Jamie] If one of you wants to put her away
so we can work with him.
- [Scott] Maybe 'cause she's less intimidating,
'cause she's short.
We're glad you guys came out,
I mean, I think we learned a lot today.
- Yeah.
- Way more than anybody's ever tried helping.
The thing is that even though we saw your videos,
what I was telling her when you guys were gone.
When you show someone how to do it,
with anything, one time,
at least physically, it's easier.
- In person, right,
with your bird. - You're gonna remember, so.
- Yeah, I mean, right?
I'm looking at another bird,
that doesn't mean my bird's gonna react the same way.
So, having you here
made a huge difference. - And the fact that you know
how our birds reacted
to that particular situation, at that particular time.
Wouldn't have happened if you guys wouldn't have come here,
'cause we could've tried it
watching a video a hundred times
and not had the same results.