Coco was holding out, so I upped the anti and it worked!

Coco, 6 years old

Coco has been "holding out" on the training.  I've got him on a training diet (no seeds) and he's been getting grumpy.  Still, he has refused taking his favorite sunflower seed from my hand to eat it.  He does occasionally take it and throw it down in disgust.  ):  The first stage is getting him to figure out that the click from the clicker means "treat."  So, I try to give him a seed and then click when he takes it.   In dog training, they called it "loading the clicker."  You just build an association of treat=click.  The next stage is "target" where you get the bird to touch a target... you click (good bird!) and then, treat.  For 3 days Coco won't even take the treat!!!  So, after another failure this morning, I upped the anti:  Nutriberry!!!  It worked!  He took it.  I clicked and walked away.  I can't repeat it for a while because it takes a little time to "eat the treat."

Bobby:  He is too scared to stand on my hand all the way to the bird stand, but he only flew off once on the way there and not at all on the way back to his cage.  I've decided to "talk to Bobby" more, telling him where I'm taking him.  It seems to work.  Small breakthrough:  I was able to get Bobby to focus through his fear long enough (on the stand!) to target-click-treat three times before he freaked out.  You have to understand that Bobby is too nervous on the stand to even eat his warm lovely breakfast, so taking any food at all on the stand is a step in the right direction.  Go Bobby!

Gracie:  Gets it!  Target/click/treat is very straight forward for her!  Go grey girl!  She's a foodie and no seeds in her cage is motivation enough to target/click/treat!  :D


Lucy (CAG):  Jealous.  Angry.  Irritated...  Targeted once, click, took the seed... threw it on the floor and threw a hissy fit!  Hahaha!  I continued to work with the other two greys and Lucy got more jealous.

Birds back in cages.  Gave Lucy a peck on the head and a washed out yogurt carton to work out her frustrations on.  She just told me she was a "good girl" in my husband's voice, complete with Swedish accent.  How can you not love 'em.

PS  Cindy, the little doggie got her target behavior-click-treat lessons too.  She went through Pet Smart's entire 3-tier program, but I've been too lazy to keep her on her "paws."  We're all in  training!