KEEP YOUR PARROT STIMULATED AND ACTIVE, AND HE WILL KEEP YOU ENTERTAINED!
By nature, parrots are inquisitive, intelligent, and social animals. You can capitalize on these characteristics and obedience train your bird, teaching him behaviors that will make your life and his more enjoyable--behaviors such as stepping on your hand or wrist on command, and going to a designated perch. Then you can progress to teach him all kinds of tricks. He'll love the attention, communication, and socialization. From the essential basics of obedience training to awesome tricks that will amuse and amaze your friends, Parrot Tricks covers:
Techniques to use during the "get acquainted" period
Setting up a training area and using food as a training tool
Training basics such as targeting, luring, and using cues
Necessary obedience skills such as step up, come, perch, and stay
The basic retrieve command, the foundation of many tricks
Simple tricks such as shake hands, high five, kiss, and take a bow
Tricks based on the retrieve command, including basketball, ring on the peg, and stacking cups
Advanced tricks such as pulling a wagon, pushing a grocery cart, raising a flag, and riding a skateboard
Innovative tricks that showcase your bird's natural abilities
Chaining tricks, such as recycling and going to the mailbox
Verbalizations and talking using the Rival/Model Method or the Positive Reward Method
Directions for making simple props
With this book, patience, and practice, you'll build your understanding of and relationship with your bird as you build a repertoire of tricks. You can get your parrot to jump through hoops for you--literally!
Tani Robar is a professional animal trainer who has spent years training performing animals and teaching others to train their animals. She has been acclaimed for her ability to develop and perfect unique training methods that allow her students to teach their pets an almost unlimited variety of skills and behaviors. For the last fifteen years Tani has been putting on bird shows, giving lectures, and helping others to teach their birds to do tricks. Besides appearing on TV and writing articles on bird training, she has produced four videos/DVDs to help people visualize how to teach their parrots a variety of skills and tricks. These videos are sold internationally. She recently appeared three times on Animal Planet's Pet Star TV show and won the top place on one of the segments with Cassie, her Black-headed Caique.
Tani's outstanding results are obtained by knowledge and skill, never by cruel methods. The adoration her birds so obviously show is further proof of the worth of this kind of training. Her performing birds are also her companions and share her life, including sharing meals with her and her family.
Growing up with many animals, Tani found that the most interesting part of owning animals was training them. The first pets she can remember were bantam chickens, which she carried around with her, taught to come when called, and trained to pick at spiders discovered in the house. Soon the neighborhood dogs were coming when she called and were performing simple tricks she taught them.
Finally she got her own dog, a pint-size, wire-haired fox terrier, and they became inseparable companions. She started honing her skills, and soon the dog was performing an amazing number of tricks. She won her first contest at age seven showing all the tricks her dog could do at a pet competition. She never looked back. She has trained enumerable animals since then and won many...
