- So, if you wanna go on that side
I'm gonna have you deliver treats.
Just whenever you hear a click, just go ahead
and deliver a treat
and Dave, I'm gonna be spraying.
- [Dave] Now I'm giving them something
for not doing anything like I did in there.
- [Woman] Don't worry, she'll straighten you out.
(laughs)
No, you're not givin 'em anything,
I said when you hear a click.
- [Man] Only when she clicks. (laughs)
- I see you gotta be trained, too.
I just spray you with the water bottle.
- I have the clicker.
- All right, now you want me to give him a treat
when I click.
- I want you to give him a treat when I click.
- Okay, that's what I said, isn't it?
(laughs)
(upbeat music)
- We're just waiting because he is super anxious.
(clicking)
- Just--
- Oh, my bad!
Uh uh, step down.
Come here.
Here.
- He wants just to come on, get the hell out of here.
(laughs)
She has the water bottle. (laughs)
- [Man] Well that was traumatic. (laughs)
- All right.
- [Man] Michael's turn. (laughs)
- You have one job. (laughs)
- Okay, you're gonna get one feather washed at this rate.
- Just hand it to him, like in your fingers.
- I will, I will.
- So he can't get on ya.
- [Jamieleigh] So the body language
that I'm really waiting for here is standing up
a little bit normal, a little bit tall,
a little bit not curious about what I'm doing anymore
or not concerned, I should really say.
So here where he's like bowed down, I don't like that.
But as soon as his posture goes back to normal
that's when I click and reward.
And I have to be very, very specific about this
because he doesn't give me a lot of great body language.
This bird has been traumatized by water in the past,
so it's a really, really bad trigger,
just the sound of the spray.
This bird's not even getting wet at this point is driving
this bird into overdrive.
So I'm trying to be very, very mindful of what I click
and reward and trying to keep it
to a fairly normal posture and stance.
But this bird's incredibly stressed out in this situation.
So Rick, their blue-throated macaw, ends up causing
a commotion here shortly in the background
and it just completely derails our training session.
The mini macaw was already on edge anyway
and it was taking a lot to wait for that good,
calm body language, but this just ruined it.
(clanging)
- [Woman] Gonna go hide under the stands.
- [Dave] Yep, he's done.
- [Jamieleigh] So Dave decides to eliminate the tray
that was on there
so that he can't have much of a hiding spot
but he just proceeds to go down to the ground.
So Scott picks him up and puts him back on the stand,
but the mood is really, everything's just a little bit
more chaotic than normal.
We've just really lost that calm ambience
that we did have where we could work through it
a little bit and the mood's just kind of spoiled.
So we go over just different routes and solutions
for being able to salvage this training session.
(clicks)
- Here you go.
Treat, treat value.
- [Jamieleigh] Yeah, he really doesn't seem that interested.
- [Dave] So this is what we need to do though,
a little water, some treats.
- [Jamieleigh] Yeah, it's waiting for calm.
So the fact that he wasn't shying away during that.
(clicking)
So that time there was no fleeing reaction.
- [Man] He didn't even flinch.
(clicking)
- [Jamieleigh] Are you guys seeing
the desensitization process?
- [Woman] Mm hm.
Yeah, no he climbed back up which I'm surprised.
(clicking)
- [Dave] Hey, keep it down. (laughs)
- [Woman] He's usually out here with the other birds
when they get their bath.
- [Jamieleigh] There's just been nothing positive in it
for him.
- [Woman] Every time I've ever tried even a little bit
he runs, he just has run from the water.
I thought maybe he would see the other birds
and realize that, you know,
they were enjoying themselves, but.
(clicking)
- [Jamieleigh] Even got a wing flap.
- [Man] I saw that.
He's like, this is easy.
- [Woman] Good job!
- [Jamieleigh] He's starting to associate the sound
of the spray bottle with treats.
He said at the sound of the spray bottle
I'm gettin' the hell out of here. (laughs)
(clicking)
- [Dave] Do you hold it up high?
- [Man] You might be able to get him to come up
to eat it, yeah.
- [Jamieleigh] Awesome.
I'm gonna end on that one.
I'm gonna let you refill this
'cause I'm running out, but he did really well on that one.
'Cause that time I left the spray going continuously
through him getting the treat and even after
versus turning it off and letting you give him a treat.
- [Man] He's like hey, wait, let's do that easy thing
where I sit here and you give me treats.
- [Woman] I know.
- [Jamieleigh] All right, so this time I'm gonna be trying
to spray the steam.
(clicking)
So that time I rewarded, you know, the fact that he did flee
a little bit, but then he stopped and stayed.
That's what I waited for and then clicked over.
The other part of that that I was rewarding was being able
to actually get the stand wet.
Because in the past and all those other times I was spraying
the water bottle off to the side, nowhere near him.
This time it's actually making contact with what he is on.
Although he still can't feel the water, it's gotten
a lot closer, which I'm also rewarding for.
(clicking)
So now that I've soaked the entire stand,
at least the lower part of it, he climbs down to go
to his hiding spot, but then realizes there's no tray there
to protect him from the water and the whole stand is wet,
wet enough to just be dripping a little bit.
If you really see on the right side, that's dripping a lot,
but the other parts are just dripping barely a little bit.
And he's actually moved to a point
where he's getting wet by it.
So he was kind of rudely surprised about that.
(wing flapping)
- [Woman] Whoa!
He scared of (mumbles).
- [Girl] He scared me a little bit.
- [Dave] Where are you going?
You need a bath.
- [Man] It almost might be better having it in the cage.
(speaking off microphone)
- [Woman] In one of these small ones?
Do we want to do that?
- [Dave] Put him in there?
- [Jamieleight] 'Cause I don't want him to feel
like it's total punishment either.
Like he can't (mumbles) get away.
'Cause right now he's choosing to go into it.
If I use the cage, I'll have less control over it
and I'll have to get him wet.
Whereas right now I'm spraying below him
and he's going into it.
- [Man] Yeah, I'm just throwing different thoughts.
I don't know.
(clanging)
(clicking)
- Yeah, he's choosing to get into the water
and then getting upset about it.
- [Woman] He was getting wet in there, yeah.
- You know what I mean?
So if he stays here.
- [Woman] Right, he would stay dry.
- He would stay dry, but he's going through the water.
So yeah, I kind of feel like maybe we should move on
to inside the cage.
- [Man] And just don't push as hard, but.
- [Jamieleigh] Yeah.
(clicking)
Did it get him?
- [Man] I think so.
- Yep, just a little bit.
I can see it on top of his head.
(clicking)
- [Jamieleigh] That was an overreaction.
He definitely got wet, right?
- Yep, I got wet.
(laughs)
- Well, that was really good.
That was no reaction at all.
(clicking)
There we go, that's what I wanted.
- Yeah, boy.
- [Man] The sound startled him,
but the water didn't bug him.
- [Jamieleigh] That was, yeah.
- Can I open the cage and let him crawl out by himself?
- [Jamieleigh] No, I wouldn't yet because I just got
that good response.
I might be able to get it more.
Oops.
If I'm paying attention.
- I think he's wanting (mumbles).
- [Woman] I know.
- Did that get him at all?
- Yeah.
(clicking)
- We'll go with that one, that was an (mumbles) reaction.
- That's okay, that's a good morning.
We're gonna get you a bath yet.
(clicking)
- [Man] Nice.
- [Jamieleigh] Bathing response.
- [Children] Yay!
- [Jamieleigh] That was a bathing response.
Yay!
(clicking)
Good.
- [Man] If you like, you can also do it while he's eating.
- [Jamieleigh] Yeah, I might,
but then it might scare him off spot.
You know what I mean?
- [Man] Yeah.
- (mumbles) I was worried about.
Whereas I had him right there
and he was doing really good.
Wasn't too bad.
Wanna shake again?
(clicking)
There we go.
- Yes, we got him and we had to ween him.
He's the first one we bought, him and Rick.
We're going to call her a Rick One,
she's the one that passed away.
And when we first got these two, we may have made
the mistake of putting them in the shower
like we were told and giving them baths.
And so he may have been traumatized from that
because they were young.
- [Woman] That was a one-time thing.
- I know, but what they said they remember.
So I don't know.
It was a one-time thing
'cause they were running around the bottom of the shower
not happy.
- [Woman] They didn't want any part of that.
- [Jamieleigh] Oh, okay.
- And so we dried him off
and we never gave him a bath again.
I don't know if that related or not.
(clicking)
- So normally I like to click when they're totally calm.
I'm not really gonna get totally calm from him,
so what I am rewarding is not fleeing,
not making a big deal about it.
So I'm rewarding very small reaction.
Ideally, I want no reaction.
I want him to just let the water fall and not move about it.
(clicking)
But since he's not running away or making a big deal
out of it, I'm going for that right now.
I'm gonna see if (mumbles).
- So the goals are gonna change as he--
- As he gets accustomed to it.
So if the new thing is like, yeah, he'll just sit there
and we can spray this over, then it'll change to like,
okay, I want like a little bit of a bathing response.
I don't even want that little movement,
you know, I want him to just sit there and understand
that if I just sit here, water drops on me,
a treat's coming.
And so he should anticipate that
and eventually look forward to it.
(clicking)
So I think there he is finally starting to understand.
If I take this, I get this.
(clicking)
Good job!
(clicking)
Yeah.
- [Dave] He's not runnin'.
- Exactly.
I would say like your, all your birds, your whole flock
just kinda needs a boot camp on desensitization.
Just getting them to be more confident birds,
more used to things,
understanding these things are not horrible,
they're not going to kill 'em,
there's nothing bad about 'em.
(clicking)
Good job!
That was an awesome size piece, too.
(clicking)
There we go.
We're actually getting more bathing responses, too.
Yeah, good job.
- [Dave] Slippery one.
There you go.
- Actually becoming more content.
You can just see he's like a little bit more fluffed.
(clicking) Good job.
Pushed him a little harder that time.
Before you could see he's uncomfortable enough
that he thought about ditching me.
But then he made the decision to be like actually,
it's not burning me.
(clicking)
- [Man] To reiterate, this is harder
than we want you guys to push.
- Yeah, I never want you to have this long of a session.
Never want you to push this hard.
I would rather you guys have shorter sessions
that were like, yeah, that went great
and just keep doing that day after day.
We were just trying to make kind of turbocharged progress
for you guys in one day.
- [Woman] I think she's coming closer for a treat.
She's just like, look, I'm putting up with this,
you better give him some.
- If he fluffs up I'll give it to him,
but otherwise I'm gonna wait for him to go back.
(clicking)
There we go.
And the reason I'm rewarding like the fluffing up is
that's a bathing response.
So a lot of birds will do that.
I want him to bathe.
So anything that's around that I'm rewarding.
(clicking) Good.
That's what you see in a bird
that's not usually scared to bathe.
That was awesome.
- [Man] He's full. (laughs)
- [Dave] Full?
All right.
- He's like, oh I'm full, take it.
- [Man] I think we're probably done.
- Done?
- [Man] Yeah.
- That was really good progress for a day.
If you guys kind of can do that together.
And I think it would work well to have whoever's better
at reading his body language do the spraying
and the clicking and the other person just gives a reward.
- [Woman] Okay.
- And this is the only time he gets banana is
for bathing training, not for any other kind of training,
just bathing.
And then once he's awesome at bathing
and he doesn't need the reinforcement for it anymore,
use that banana for the next big problem
that you have with him.
- [Dave] Okay.
- Good job, bud.
That was cool.
- The other thing I would say for your entire flock is
just rewarding calm content-looking body language
all the time.
Just to mellow everybody out, especially these two.
I'd like to see them a little bit more calm
with life versus the anxious.