- Hey everybody. Jamieleigh here with Bird Tricks.
And today I want to talk to you about a really awesome,
and one of my favorite training techniques called capturing.
Now, if you haven't heard of it before,
it's a technique that allows you
to train pretty much all day.
Normally we say with formal training sessions
to keep it under five minutes,
make sure that the bird still wants to keep training
when you stop,
so there's anticipation for future training sessions.
But with capturing, it's actually an all day thing.
So I'm going to get into some of the behaviors
that I've trained using capturing, and how it works.
(upbeat music)
Some fun examples of behaviors
that I've trained using capturing
include a lot of talking and the rock out,
which my galah Bondi does.
Hey, Bondi? Rock out.
Rock out.
Good girl.
Jinxy, you wanna show off some of your tricks?
Hey, do you want to show off some of your tricks?
- Okay.
- Okay, cool.
Let's start with, what's your nickname?
- Clever.
- Good. Can I have a kiss?
Good boy.
Hey, what's so funny? (Jinx laughs)
Good laugh, man.
That's such a good one.
Hey, can you celebrate?
(parrot squawks)
Yeah!
(parrot squawks)
(laughs) That's what I thought.
Celebrating.
I also used capturing to train a hyacinth macaw
to put his wings up.
Pick 'em up.
Good.
I didn't cue you yet.
Stick 'em up.
All the way up, all the way.
Stick 'em up.
Good!
That was great.
And for an Alexandrian parakeet to do a really unique wave.
Can you wave?
Good!
Can you wave?
Good!
Capturing is a training technique
that you can use to get unique things that your bird does.
I've seen people capture things
that are very unique to their bird.
There was a macaw, I think it was a green wing,
that did a hilarious wave of the foot
that somebody captured,
just like I was able to do
with the Alexandrian parakeet, Rasta.
And because it was captured,
I didn't have to do any formal training
or manipulation of trying to get the bird
to do what I wanted it to do.
Instead I was putting something
that it naturally did on cue,
which is a really fun way to work with birds,
is working with nature versus against it.
So to compare kind of capturing to formal training,
a formal training session of teaching a bird
to lift its foot and wave with its foot,
would be something like a bird
is already trained to step up.
And you're just clicking and rewarding
the moment that foot lifts up
when you go to ask the bird to step up.
So all you're getting for the wave
is just a mere lift of the foot and that's it.
And it's cute.
But the wave that you can capture using capturing
is a lot cuter,
for example, Alexandrian parakeet Rasta,
he used to scratch his head.
And so I actually captured that
and put it on cue as his wave.
So right before he would scratch his head,
he would get his foot ready and he would go like this.
And he would have this motion
right before his foot met his head feathers.
And that's the part that I captured.
So his wave,
instead of just being a lift of the foot,
was actually a,
(laughs)
out in the open,
because I was able to capture that behavior
right before he was able to make contact with his head.
So his wave was like this.
Whereas a traditional wave is just the lift of the foot.
Can you wave?
Good.
Can you wave?
Good girl.
For those of you that are readers
and like to read your information,
I am including a free digital download on my website.
It's a capturing report that I've created,
talking about how in the process,
in which I captured many different behaviors,
such as the wings up with the hyacinth,
the lawnmower with Bandit,
the rock out with Bondi, and many, many more.
So go ahead and get that digital download.
It's an instant download straight to your email
and check that out on the website,
I will leave a link in the description
for you to go ahead and get that.
And that way you have a full, more rounded understanding
of what capturing is, how to use it
and the steps to take to train something using it.
Don't forget if you do grab this capturing report
for free on my website,
don't forget to review it
so that others can know what kind of value
is in these free downloads.
I like to offer an array of free resources
to the avian community,
just to broaden the overall knowledge of all of us.
So if you guys have a recommendation for what other freebies
you'd like to see on the website,
definitely let me know in a comment
and don't forget to review it,
just because that goes a long way in showing other people
the value of these products
and hopefully getting more people to use
techniques like this with their birds.
Now, although capturing can be used
to capture some really cute tricks,
it can also be used on those natural behaviors
that you want to enhance.
So for example,
getting a bathing response and capturing that
and clicking and rewarding,
lets your bird know that you want more bathing response.
Also you can do this with playing with toys
or anything that your bird naturally might do
that you can in the moment capture.
Talking obviously works great with capturing
because you're just waiting for them to offer it.
Then you're clicking and rewarding as often as you can
to get the point across that,
hey, every time you say that word, you get a treat.
And then eventually when you get to the begging phase,
which is something entirely different,
you can eventually put those things on cue,
but capturing is the road that you take to get there.
Trying to get Lily to do kissing noises and say "Baby."
Lily?
Baby, (kissing) kisses. Kisses.
Lily?
Kisses. (kissing)
Kisses.
(sighs) She's more likely to do it around Dave,
'cause she gets kind of ticked off at seeing him,
Hey Dave, will you come over here?
Kisses. (kissing)
Okay, there he is.
Kisses.
(kissing) Kisses.
- [Dave] Oh, you just wanna use me.
- [Jamieleigh] I do.
Kisses. (kissing)
Good girl. Stay right there.
That's a perfect spot.
Baby.
Kisses (kissing)
Good girl. Good girl, Lil'.
Kisses.
(Lily kissing)
Good girl, good girl.
Grab hold.
Babies. Babies.
Good girl.
I can't reach a treat now.
Babies. Kisses.
(Lily kissing)
Good girl Lily!
Kisses.
(kissing)
Lily, kisses.
Good girl.
Kisses.
Good girl.
Good.
'Kay. Kisses.
(kissing) Good girl.
(Lily kissing)
(gasps) Good girl!
Kisses.
Good girl.
Kisses.
(kissing)
Good girl.
Kisses.
(kissing)
Good girl.
Kisses.
(kissing)
Kisses.
(kissing)
Good girl.
Oh yeah.
Good girl.
Oh, man.
Hey. (kissing)
Good girl.
Kisses.
(Lily kissing)
Good girl.
Kisses.
(Lily kissing)
Two kisses. (kissing)
Good girl.
Kisses.
(kissing)
Two kisses.
Kisses.
Good, oh, three kisses.
Okay, I'll give you a whole pistachio
if you do it real good.
Kisses. (kissing)
I want two kisses.
Kisses. (kissing)
- [Dave] I'll give you kisses.
- Two kisses. (kissing)
(Dave kissing) Really?
Good girl.
So you might be wondering,
why can I use capturing all day?
Won't that kind of put some strain on the bird,
having to learn all day and doing training all day?
No, because all you're doing
is capturing your birds natural behaviors.
So you're just waiting, sitting around,
waiting for your bird to do those cute behaviors
so that you can click and run over with a treat reward.
Now, if you were formally having a session
and making your birds think through a bunch of stuff,
that's the sessions
that we want to keep a little bit shorter,
but with capturing,
you're simply just waiting around,
letting your bird be a bird
and waiting for those natural behaviors
to present themselves.
So you can quote unquote, "capture it" with the clicker
and go and follow it up with a treat.
Some of the ways that I have done some capturing sessions
is just by hanging out
in the presence of that particular bird.
With Rasta, I actually had a dining room table right there
and I would sit at a chair and work on my computer
and I could see him out of the corner of my eye.
So I would be facing him.
He was up on the table top of his cage
and I would be able to just glance up from my work,
see what he was doing
and be ready to click and reward at any point.
So it's a really good thing
to be in the presence of your bird
and waiting for those natural behaviors.
I've seen some people put some pretty cute things on cue.
I've seen birds just do kind of somersaults on a perch
or even doing rolling over.
You can simply capture that if your birds in a playful state
and just offering it.
There's a lot of fun things
that you can capture using capturing,
but it can be quite time-consuming
because you are waiting for those behaviors
to present themselves.
Another cute behavior that I trained using capturing
was what I called the lawn mower.
And it was when my galah Bandit
would drag his beak to a certain point.
So I would hold my finger somewhere
and from whatever point he started at,
he would drag his beak and stop at that point.
So this is a really cute behavior.
It was a natural behavior that he did that I just extended.
And you could use it to teach your bird to push things
or anything else like that.
It was a lot of fun.
All right, let's try this lawnmower trick.
You ready?
You finished eating?
Not done yet?
Okay, ready?
Good.
What I've done with this lawnmower trick
is I've made it so that the cue was this,
but now it's this, all the way till here.
So he has to go all the way to my finger.
Hey, are you just going off?
Good.
And that's how he's getting on board,
is he's kind of in training mode,
so he's offering it in time, but, ready?
Oh, you cheater.
Come back, do it again.
No, you cheatin'.
(laughs)
Good.
That was a great one.
So, with doing this,
I can get him to do longer distances
and shorter distances if I want it.
Ready?
Good.
And just keep working off that.
He's doing really good though.
Alright.
The reason I love and recommend capturing
and because I use it so much,
is because it's a hands-off training technique.
So it's something that you can use with a bird
that you may not be necessarily bonded with yet.
Rasta, the Alexandrian parakeet
that I mentioned quite a few times,
I have a playlist on him.
He was one of my first project birds
and it took me a whole three months
to get him to eventually just step up on my hand.
So being able to use capturing
was invaluable with him,
because it created a relationship for us to have
and communication through training
that I couldn't otherwise really do in another way.
So I love capturing,
I feel like it's a really great method to use.
It can be time consuming, 'cause you're just waiting around,
waiting for those natural behaviors to present themselves
and then having to be quick enough
to be able to click and capture it
and follow it up with a treat.
So I like to place clickers all around
and I like to have little treat pouches all around as well,
or just sit in an area
where you know that you're going to be for a while,
that you can have a good viewpoint of your bird
and kind of spy on them and be able to do this.
So that's how I recommend using capturing.
I hope that you guys share in the comments
what you might have trained
or what you look forward to training your bird
using capturing that's unique to your bird.
(gentle music)