- Well, I think you guys are doing the right thing
by recognizing that, you know, in this area
people are starting to re home when they do hit maturity
and trying to avoid that is awesome.
- Well, I don't, I'm not, I didn't buy her
to re-home exactly.
We've bought these birds for life
because they're going in the Malta
Jasmine.
- Yeah.
(Upbeat music)
- So what I would like to do is kind of
reframe what your realistic goal can be
and should be.
One we really don't advocate putting birds
in your shoulders for several reasons.
One, one of the main reasons is that it we're discovering
that especially lately with female blue and gold Macaws
they have been using shoulders
as kind of a crutch to capacity higher.
So rather than learning how to address a fear
and overcome it,
they just go to your shoulder
and they don't have to deal with it.
So it's a passive way of avoiding learning
how to overcome fear.
There's a great book.
If you're into human psychology
called "Emotional Intelligence"
and it talks about different
ways that humans develop
and why they developed certain traits.
First of all, address, what is the emotion?
And now, how do I deal with it?
So the same thing happens with, and again specifically
I've seen a lot in female blue and gold lately,
they go through that same thing,
It's like: Oh, you're okay.
And then the bird just kind of
of pacifies and there's a shoulder.
So, I'd like just going to readdress that and,
and suggest that rather than
having a bird on your shoulder ever,
focusing on how to handle the bird properly
in a way that helps it learn to assess different fears,
and learn how to deal with it.
And a lot of that, it sounds funny,
but a lot of it is just how you hold the birds feet.
When we put our thumb on the bird's feet
we can feel the first signs of fear
and then we can address it with them
and help them overcome that,
as opposed to the first moment where,
if you're not holding their feet,
the first moment they'll just go to your shoulder
and run away from the fear versus
getting a chance to work through it.
And let's focus on my first.
I would love to see how every one
of you can have her step up and back down to the perch.
- Yeah. Okay
- Cool?
- (indistinct talk)
- Okay, I'll accept that.
Let's try someone else.
- Come on.
No?
Come on.
Is okay.
- Come on.
Come on.
- Okay, so we've got a "no" from everybody.
- Yeah.
- Every time you interact with your bird,
you're increasing or decreasing like within
for certain behavior.
And ideally you're increasing the good behavior
decreasing the bad behavior.
That's all you do in this phase.
- Come one. Get up.
- That's all right.
- We'll work through it.
- There she goes.
- If you like, (indistinct) to go on the perch
You have to bend down to the perch to get her off.
- Come on.
- Come down. Scoop up.
- No.
- You want to go back here.
Yeah. And she does this and she goes down your back
and in the middle of the back and things like that.
Whereas Benny, skip one step off anything.
And he's not clustering with any tray.
- Do you want help?
Do you want me to get her off?
- [Man] This is going to be a great video.
- Come on. Come on.
- She's lovely.
- Offer her your hand.
Yeah, you got for it.
Yeah, go ahead.
- Yeah. Yeah.
- Cool. So let's do, have you done any targeted
or touch training?
- No, I (indistinct)
finally like a week ago and I left it at home
what's going.
- We're going to move her over here.
(Birds chattering)
Well, so a lot of people forget that the step up is a trick.
Okay?
So we treat it as a trick.
So every one of you struggled
with the step up and
it's totally normal.
Here's the way I teach it.
She knows I've got some food.
I present the hand,
not wanting to
I may go from the back and there we go.
She gets a treat.
It was immediately back down.
- Immediately back there.
- The reason for that on that case for me,
she didn't want to be on me.
You can tell her looking around and she wasn't comfortable.
A couple of things happened
if you're working with an adult birdie
approached from the front
and it does the head ducking,
next step is that is going to bite you.
Sometimes I find it's easier to reach
from the back and the bird steps back more willingly.
So I'll try it again.
Let's just see, Oh, look, now she offered
to step up.
Doesn't know me.
I'll put her back down.
So there's, there's a reward
for immediately for stepping up
and a secondary reward
which we would refer to as minus reinforcement
for her going back down, meaning I'm taking me,
I'm a minus thing,
I'm subtracting me from the equation, to get what she wants.
Right? So she's getting a plus reinforcement
of the treat and the minus reinforcement
of me leaving her the heck alone.
So let me just get another repetition in.
Also pay attention to where she stands
in my hand and how, what my thumb does.
- Yeah.
- Now she's anticipating it.
She's up.
Thumb goes down
at the same time I gave her the treat
and then back down.
So what's also happening is
I'm pairing the timing of the treat with the timing
of my hand, touching my thumb, touching her foot.
This will start to basically do
what's called neuro-linguistic programming.
So the association
of my thumb touching her feet is going to be associated
with the pleasure center of the brain receiving the treat.
So I'll let you, you give it a try.
Are you left or right-handed right-handed?
- Right-handed.
- Right-handed?
So I'm going to give you those
and go ahead and try that
Yeah. Thumb goes down,
treat and back to the perch.
Nope.
- She's on my shoulder.
Cause she feels comfortable there.
- That's cause you allow it.
Yeah, no it's great.
- I'll do it again.
- No worries.
I'll show you one more, one more tip.
So you were great to,
You've got one foot and she was like,
okay, I'll get the food.
And you're like, no, not yet.
- Yeah.
- That was good.
Some people make the mistake of "Hey, you've got one
foot up, here's a treat"
- Yes.
- Can I get your attention again?
So watch what happens left foot
thumbs there.
She's not going anywhere.
So if you want to give it a shot.
Try to get her to do her left foot first.
She's offering it there
so you can...
She can get her thumb on there now.
Yeah.
Treat and back down,
back down for the treat. Yeah.
- Good, girl.
- [Woman Behind The Camera]Good, good save.
- So what you're also noticing is
whoever handles her
she'll get used to that certain way of being handled.
So if you always allow the verge to run your shoulder
and you don't, she'll take advantage
of you and she won't take advantage of you.
- [Woman Behind The Camera] Perfect.
- And Back down. Good.
- So try to get her ankle foot first
abrasive.
- [Woman Behind The Camera] Oh, she used you.
- Okay.
- Come on.
- Maybe try that so she,
the thumb, maybe try the thumb up.
- There you go.
- Treat.
And back down.
Good, we used a different clicker,
and a different one for the bird
So each of you know who's doing it right.
- [Woman Behind The Camera] That was a really good tip
You gave him though with the thumb
because it blocked
her ability to do that.
So. Good, good advice.
Good job.
Helping each other out.
- This one. There we go.
Okay. So watch her body language.
You'll see it
there.
You can see you're like
had my fingers not been on her
she'd been shooting on my shoulder
What that does is
if you're moving her from one cage to another
- That's what we do normally, when we're here
Cause normally going the cage to the house
she's on the hand.
But when you're sort of handling her
when she's out inside the house
or it seems to be the arm,
cause that's what she, she kind of has.
Yeah.
She's actually been telling us "now I'm going to go there".
- And the only time that we allow our birds on our shoulders
or our arms is more free flying.
I mean, that's really,
there's a few other exceptions,
but the rule of thumb is
- (indistinct)
- The rule of thumb is
if you can't get the bird off immediately
it shouldn't be there.
- Yeah.Okay.
- So like you guys were saying
you had to scrape her off your back.
You have to do this limbo to get her
on the perch,
then, then no
you shouldn't
until you have her under control enough
that she understands,
Hey, step up is a treat.
There's a trick.
I get a treat.
I go down and get a treat.
You know, those are the basic handling.
So you don't have to always give her a treat
for the rest of her life.
But in the beginning phases just recognize
that that's
it's a trick.
- No.
No.
What did you do that for?
- Do you guys see a difference about how
Dave is approaching?
Can I have,
can I have you do it again,
Jasmine? All right?
- Yeah.
- Watch how she does it.
- [Behind The Camera] It's so beautiful.
- So it's, it's hard
for me to articulate exactly what she's doing differently.
Other than she's reading more of the bird's intention.
- But I think she likes to run up under my shoulder
cause she does it in the mornings
and as under the cap
- She'd run up on under mine too, if I let her.
- Yeah.
- [Woman Behind The Camera] I think it's a difference
of how the arm is too.
- His is more like this,
is that what you're saying?
- It's a ramp.
- If you're flexing your hand
whereas if you have it a bit more firm,
try that.
- Yeah.
- Yeah. So rather than presenting all of this.
- Yeah.
- Present just that.
- Yeah.
- And now, show her the treat on the other hand
Remind her, what she's working for.
- Step up.
- And was there for a sec.
- We'll come back to her.
- I'd love to see how you guys have him step up and down.
- Step up.
Okay.
Step up.
Come on.
Good boy.
- Hello, I see you.
Hello.
- Come on.
Step up.
You don't want to play the game.
Step up.
- Okay. So I tested you guys
in the beginning I said, remember,
step up in your tray.
- Yeah.
Not one of you try to use a treat for that.
- Yeah.
- Good boy.
Good boy.
- You mentioned that when he goes to your shoulder
he'll tear your year, right?
- Yeah.
- With a lot of birds that are forced to step up
meaning you peel their toes, you push them
against your chest because
it's a, it's a command step up.
Always think of it as a request.
"Hey will you step up?"
for the two of you in the first time he's like,
no, I don't want to.
And then when you offer the treat he's like,
"Oh yeah, I'll step up for that."
Let me keep that in mind,
we call it permission based training.
We want the bird to come out when they're more
likely to make the choice on their own to come up.
If you get the habit of pushing
or peeling toes or forcing them to step up
eventually he'll learn to bite you
if you don't respect that,
that, that boundary.
Yeah. It goes back to the emotional intelligence.
Like what you're feeling, doesn't matter.
I know better step up and it causes all sorts
of other...
- Okay.
Good boy.
- So Dave, one thing I'm noticing with you
that it must be something you want to work on
is you're you're definitely approaching like this
which is why you're getting the shoulder rushing a lot.
So try to focus on
if all they see is that
- Yeah.
- That's where they're more likely to go
as opposed to all of this.
- You're all right.