- You are very timid with hands, huh?
(upbeat electronic music)
- That's why I'm here.
Because I want to bring back knowledge.
All our birds need it, but I'm focusing on him.
- [man] Having the grand skill is going to be critical,
and since you are in a show environment,
that's neat, because that's also our background.
- Yeah.
- [man] So, what we do when we're working birds
or trained behaviors, we have a log book,
so I can pick up where she left off or vice versa.
(bird squawks)
Ultimately, one person should train the behavior
until it's learned. - Yes.
Then you physically show the other people how to do this,
but you'll want consistency... - Yes.
- if you're going to have any success with him.
(mumbles)
(laughs)
(wings flapping noise)
- (woman 2) Landing gear is not out.
- (Whispers)
(bird squawks)
- (woman 2)Is that stand sturdy enough?
Do you think we're going to have a problem with it?
- He's just unfamiliar with it.
So there's already a couple of lessons.
- (Woamn 1) Mhm.
- (man) First lesson you'd say, you can hold his feet.
- (woman 1) And I didn't?
- (man) And you didn't. - (woman 1) Yes.
- (man) So he shoulder rushed,
and then we lost control of everything.
- (Woamn 1) Yeah.
- (man) So first lesson that we've been giving
in every single class has been to hold the feet,
and it's not ,it's not totally for the, the...
from a restraint standpoint,
as much as it is, you'll feel that he's afraid
of the perch prior to him rushing your shoulder.
- (woman 1) Okay.
- And so, we'll probably...
I'll have you do some targets,
and probably do some step up training...
- (woman 1) Mhm.
- to just really focus on that...
- (woman 1) Just be careful with your hand
because he's jumpy at the moment,
so, when you raised your hand, you spooked him.
- So work on that so it just becomes more hand tame.
- (woman 1) Yeah.
- And then I'll , I'll finish my thoughts here
after we get a few reps.
- All right.
Too big? yeah, sorry about that.
(laughing)
- (man) See how she cut you know,
treat size for us as a pine nut,
or think of an almond cut into eight pieces.
(bird squawks)
Just a soft target
- (whispers)
- (man) Before you do it,
Will he step up for you?
- (woman 1) He should.
- So what I want to see is a step up,
- Mhm.
and immediately put him down to treat him on the perch.
- Mhm, it's okay.
- (man) Treat, good, thanks.
All right, so same thing,
I'll go.
That's a good job reading the body language.
So there, you guys saw...
(bird squawks)
He wasn't showing signs that he wanted to,
and you recognize that and said "okay".
So, with that being said,
what was his favorite treat so far today?
- (woman 1) Almond.
- (man) Having almond? - (woman 1) Mhm.
- (man) So, if we show the almond,
just so he sees it.
Don't, don't, like, lure him with it,
but let them know it's there.
Yep. Now offer a step up.
- (woman 1) That's better.
Step out.
- (man) I guess he doesn't want to.
So that's not a good example
of how step up is a trick. So...
- Well, he does it for me.
- (man) Steps up?
(bird squawks) - Yep.
But he's not doing it now.
- (woman 3) Do you always have your hand flat?
- Yes.
- (man) How is he with mandy? you know?
- He's fine with me.
Yeah. He actually really likes me.(laughs)
- Go ahead.
You'd rather sit on me.
Okay. That's fine.
So funny how light these guys are.
There you go.
So as you can see, Bell's ahead of me on this,
part of the trick is stepping up,
and if they don't want to step back down,
that is also a trick,
that prevent shoulder rushing.
We'll talk about...
(bird squawks)
We'll talk about shoulder rushing in a second.
So, what I want you to do on the next step up is...
Feel free in the beginning,
when you're retraining your step up,
(bird squawks)
feel free to lure slightly. - Okay.
- And once I pick him up, I'm going to shift everything
before I sat him down.
I just don't want to spook him yet,
but I'll have you standing off to the side,
so everyone's able to see.
But I'm going to give a little bit of a lure,
so he's, he's motivated to push beyond his comfort zone.
And back down.
Good.
Does that kind of make sense? - Yeah.
- So it's the little subtleties with the training
that make a big difference.
- (woman 2) Aw, He's looking at you.
- He's looking at you now?
- (man) Sorry, dude.
(laughing)
- (whispers)
- The only difference that I did is I showed him
that there was a, he could pick what treat because
if he doesn't really like the sunflower seed as much,
it'll be beneficial for him to see what treat he does want.
- All right.
Hey, Come here.
Here you go, come on.
- Yeah, so it's definitely the, Oh, you got two almonds.
- Yeah. - See if you can sat him down.
So that was part of it there, right?
So first, it was me being...
Go ahead and give him a treat there.
So part of it was me being over there after just working
with him and he's like, well, but, you were more clear,
Maybe that's not the case, but I was there,
(bird squawks)
And he looked at me.
So by me being out of that immediate spot,
that helped.
But then also letting him see,
like he didn't like the sunflower seed,
so he wasn't willing to do it.
- Yeah.
- We're dealing with pretty low motivation right now,
- Yeah
- but it helps illustrate that,
that every interaction is a training session,
and that the step up has to be a trained trick.
Let's let him just hang out for a bit,
and I want to share another quick lesson
about shoulder rushing.
(bird squawks)
- Good boy.
- (man) Good.
And then because he's a slow eater,
I'm going to get some more repetitions,
see if we can set him down without a treat on the perch.
- Yeah.
You want to go anyway.
Good job.
Right?
(bird squawks)
Come on.
Good boy.
You want it?
- (man) That's great.
(laughing)
They're cute huh?
- Good job.
(talk in the back)
I'm really happy that budgie did well.
- (boy) Come on.
(laughter)
- (man) So as you reconditioned that the step up is a trick,
you can start to increase a little bit of distance,
and using the proper food motivation
and like everything we've talked about,
- Yeah.
- (man) you'll be able to, like, I would take
one of the days, and just give a slightly higher motivation,
and do a training session at 10 instead of 9:00 AM,
- Yeah.
and you might be likely to get that first hop.
- Okay.
- He also might just offer it, when he's on chop...
- Yeah - (woman 2) Aw.
Did you train him to spin around? there's no...
- No, I haven't.
- (woman 3) Oh wow. - (woman 2) Did you see that?
- (woman 3)Yeah.
- (woman 2) I thought he was offering it.
- (laughs)I've tried. - Yeah.
- (woman 3)Well, it just did it.
- His motivation was less when I was trying but...
- (woman 2)Yeah, Look at that.
You should just click, put it on cue.
Like how random was that? - (man) Yeah.
- (woman 2) That he did it twice too.
He's like, wait
- (woman 3) Oh.
- I've worked with birds next door to him,
so he might've been learning through watching them.
- (man) yeah.
- An aviary next door,
yeah, because I've taught...
- (woman 3)He's looking for a cue.He can't...
- (woman 2)What is the cue to have the other spin around?
But he went the other way. - (man) He spun the other way.
- Oh did he?
- (woman 2)No?
- (man) If he offers it we'll...
- (woman 2)Yeah. We'll get it.
(bird squawks)
What else did you want to work on with him?
Did you want to work on having him go
to anyone else or just her or something?
(laughter)
How many clickers we got there?
- They're everywhere.
(bird squawks)
- (woman 2) Are we going to reward him?
- (man)No, no, no.
It's the wrong way, so,
once you commit to a direction...
- Oh okay.
- We reinforce that direction.
- All right.
(laughter)
- (man) Somebody... - Yeah.
- want me to have done what it looks like.
- Here we go, here we go.
- (woman 2)Okay, wanna be quick.
(laughter)
- We talked about this a little bit in the last class but,
if I am putting this bird on a stranger,
you come on up here.
This is what this would look like.
So...
Colin says,
"I want to hold your bird, Can I get a photo?"
Yeah. Go ahead and stand right over here,
right there,
and face me.
I'll ask you to put up your left hand,
make a fist, and do not try to pet him,
and hold your hand nice and steady.
Look at the camera for a photo.
Keep your hand like that.
- (woman 2) Cheese. (laughs)
- And perfect.
And then we'll take the bird back.
- (woman 2)After he's done eating.
- I gave him too many.
(laughter)
And then that would be the behavior.
So the reason I do it that way is it's very controlled,
and it's always identical to strangers.
So when it's not teaching, is it strangers have food?
Let's go explore the other strangers.
It's teaching him.
Oh, when you do this, I'm guaranteed a treat.
You wanna give it a shot?
- (woman 1) Yeah.
- So pick someone in the room.
- Put this arm up like that,
make a fist.
- Hello.
- Good boy.
- Hello.
So gorgeous.
- (man)All right.
- Yeah.
- (man) And then you take him back.
- Good job buddy.
- Thank you.
- (woman 2) So while we're just kind of having
a casual conversation,
you can see that Roman here offers his wings,
and so somebody in the room clicks,
unfortunately, they actually clicked
when his wings were already back down,
and he was kind of nibbling on her fingers.
So I told them be careful about that.
But, Roman seemed to get it,
he offered it again,
we clicked, rewarded again.
So this is a bird that offers a lot of natural
behaviors you can put on cue.
- He's doing better in this situation
than he does with me in the aviary.
- (woman 2)Have you ever asked him any of these tasks?
the spin or the wings out?
- (man)So that was a free treat you just gave him
- I know
- (man)for no reason.
- I know, I'm distracted.(laughs)
- (woman 2)You can put him on the perch behind you,
if you feel like he's getting anxy.
We are going to have to give a treat
because they just clicked.
- (woman 3)because he waved his wings.
- (man) A spin hack.
- (woman 2) Oh my gosh, he already knows it.
(laughter)
- (woman 1)Very gentle.
- (woman 2)Look at that.
Wow, cool.
(bird squawks)
- Yes
(bird squawks)
(talk in the back)
- (woman 2 )Oh, my goodness.
What was that? Did you see that?
- A little.
- That was too different.
It was, you know what I mean?
Cause we've had a consistent spin,
and then that was like a spin halfway,
Do a chunky thing.
There we go.
So just keep it really clean,
especially because you're going to be dealing
with other presenters and trainers.
- yeah.
- If they start messing with that,
you can imagine how messy it gets really quick.
And then, he's like, I can do whatever I want.
So that's the other thing too is,
if he ever goes halfway, pauses for a bit,
then completes it. No...
- Click.
- No click
- No, no. This is the standard.
Its a nice like solid spin.
So if he's all hesitant and stuff,
doesn't meet the requirements,
like you don't get a treat.
- (man)And if you want to experiment here,
don't click on the next one.
- Okay.
- Well, should she get started with giving him a cue though?
- (man) He's like, what?
Now, watch the difference
on the next spin, probably be a little faster.
So click on this next one.
See how it sped up?
- Yeah.
- So that's what I was talking about,
after a one and two, he's trying harder,
but you can blow it out by doing too many.
Was that noticeable to you?
How much faster it was.
(laughter)
- Way faster.
- So you can get that to even speed up more,
by, I wouldn't mess with doing a challenge...
- Yeah.
- at the end of the session.
He's still offering,
if you ignore the next one,
I guess try it. - try it?
So ignore the next one,
he'll offer again, maybe faster.
- Okay.
- After this he'll offer others,
so let it happen, don't do anything.
- That was a fast one.
- He wants the next one.
- He's trying to figure out what was different.
- So let's offer him some water,
and then probably wrap it up. - Okay cool.
(laughter)
- Have some water.
- No I want an almond.
(laughter)
I want an almond.
- This is a great example,
He's still offering his wings.
- Is that a problem if he keeps doing that,
and not getting rewarded? Okay.
No, if you're standing in his bubble...
- Oh, of course.
- And he's expecting reward, then yeah.
But I mean he's, right now, he's like, well
can I get your attention to get an almond now?
And it's not a focus training session, so.
- Cool, cool. All right.