Trick Training & Potty Training

Hi Jim can you help me please with my African Grey Parrot. His name is Jack. I need to potty train him and to do tricks. He is hand tame. Can you help?
Thankyou, Keith.

G'day Keith, It's great to hear that you are motivated to interact with your African Grey and hopefully achieve some training goals! To set you up on the right pathway to developing some `trick' training skills I would suggest checking out the following resources already available to you via the WPT website…

Link 1:
http://www.parrots.org/index.php/referencelibrary/beginnerguidetoparrots/

At the link above make sure you download the following two articles…

• New Parrot Owner Behaviour Guidelines by Barbara Heidenreich
• Training a Bird to Turn Around on Cue by Barbara Heidenreich

Link 2:
http://www.parrots.org/index.php/referencelibrary/behaviourandenviroenrich/

At this link try checking out…

• Empowering Parrots by Susan Friedman
• Does Your Parrot Have a Trust Account? by Steve Martin
• Shaping New Behaviours by Susan Friedman

The above articles will offer a huge insight into how you can apply positive reinforcement to achieve any training goal you might set with Jack. I would also highly recommend purchasing two excellent DVD's from Barbara Heidenreich. These will be a great visual reference for you for developing your trick training skills and have many examples of both novel `tricks' and practical behaviours that you can start working on with Jack. Check out…

• Parrot Behaviour & Training DVD
• Training Your Bird for the Veterinary Exam DVD

Both of these videos are available from the WPT store so click on the links to get there and get the credit card ready...

Lastly, you have asked about `potty training'. There are a number of articles already available on the Internet that do a reasonable job of explaining this training goal. I would suggest simply doing a quick Google search for `Potty Training a Parrot' and access the information that is readily available. I do have a caution with Potty Training though. In my experience it can result in a parrot that holds out on defecating for excessive periods of time if the behaviour has been placed on a cue and there hasn't been variable reinforcement also offered for defecating within the cage or on a stand without a cue. You will find in the articles available that there is general advice on how to capture the defecating behaviour and reinforce this, but make sure that you also set up a reinforcement schedule for defecating at other times either in his cage and on any suitable stand away from his cage. This will hopefully ensure that he doesn't sit around waiting for your cue to relieve himself! Everything that you will learn from the above article links and DVD suggestions will certainly help you out as a "master potty trainer".

Kind Regards from `Down Under'
Jim McKendry
Parrot Behaviour & Enrichment Consultations
http://www.pbec.com.au