Post by mimi on Feb 20, 2005 1:43:28 GMT -7
I look in Internet for info about teaching parrot to talk and find that...
"THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO “HMMM”<br>Steve Martin
President, Natural Encounters, Inc.
It may be beneficial for you to understand where I have come from and how I have developed some of my ideas that I will share with you today.I got my first bird about 40 years ago and began training it almost immediately.
Anthropomorphism
Parrots are not two year old kids, not even close. They have no concept of punishment, they have no sense of humor, are incapable of lying, and as hard as it is to hear, they do not care about your feelings. Parrots, like most other non-human organisms, care primarily about themselves. Things that are most important to a parrot include survival, breeding, and avoiding injury and death. Now all this may sound like a rather harsh, cold statement, but it is true. Of course we don’t like to hear these things because we all think our parrot loves us. And, just like in the wild, our parrots probably do love us. They readily bond to us like they would a mate in the wild and protect the territory they share with us from intruders.
A woman at a seminar told me the story of your yellow-naped amazon parrot and what happened when she left it with the neighbors when she went on vacation. It seems that when she went to the neighbor’s house to retrieve her bird after two weeks away, the bird bit her when she put her hand in the cage. The local expert at the pet shop told her the bird bit her because it was mad at her for leaving it with the neighbors while she was on vacation. The bird was punishing her. My interpretation on the situation is very different.
In the wild parrots bond to one mate and if that mate dies they simply go find another. They don’t pine away for months and years, they just go find another mate...a good survival strategy for the species. They do much the same in captivity. When the woman left her bird at the neighbor’s house the bird just sort of forgot about its owner and set up housekeeping with the neighbor. I asked the woman how the bird got along with the neighbor and she said the neighbor had a great time with the bird. They were best friends. I then asked how the bird felt about her once she got the bird home and she said the bird was back to its old self and acted fine.
I believe, in the most natural way, the parrot’s instincts caused the bird to find a new mate after the original owner disappeared from its life. Then, when the original owner returned, the bird reacted out of its desire to protect the new territory from intruders and bit the woman when she put her hand in the cage. After she took the bird home, the neighbor had disappeared from the bird’s life so it was happy to go back to the way things were in the beginning.
Biting
Many people feel that being bitten is all part of having a parrot as a pet. My philosophy is that you should never get bit. If you get bit you are doing something wrong. I work with hundreds of parrots each year, and probably get bit only once a year. I have 18 trainers on staff and each of them work with hundreds of parrots each year and almost never get bit. The reason we don’t get bit is that we have adopted the policy of “All Positive and No Negative.” We never make a bird do anything it doesn’t want to do. We never force a bird, or try to dominate a bird, in any way.
Biting is not natural for parrots. They bite when they have exhausted all other attempts at communicating their discomfort. Birds do not bite in the wild. They exhibit a myriad of displays that express their emotions but only in rare cases of territorial aggression do they actually fight to the point of drawing blood like they do in captivity. Parrots will argue over perches, food, and other objects, but almost never do these arguments escalate even to the point of physical contact.
In captivity, however, we have created an unnatural environment that forces birds to do unnatural things, like bite. Most importantly we have taken away their opportunity to flee. In the wild a parrot would simply fly away from a bird, or other creature, that it was not comfortable with. We put birds in small confinements where they are forced to accept other creatures and humans. Too often we humans push our birds to the point that they bite out of defense.
I have read too many times that a bird sitting on your hand when a stranger walks into the room will bite you to alert you of danger. This interpretation may make sense to some people, but certainly not to the birds. Can you imagine a bird biting its mate in the wild every time an eagle flew by. That’s not a very good survival strategy for the species, and certainly wouldn’t encourage very strong pair bonds. Nature has provided parrots with much more effective forms of warning other parrots of danger. These communications range from the subtle look of the eye and erect body posture to very obvious alarm calls. Besides, like I said before, parrots care about themselves. When an eagle flies over in the wild, a parrot either freezes or simply sounds the alarm call and flies away. It would never take the time to run over to its mate and bite her on the foot taking his eye off the eagle and endangering his own life.
Birds also learn to bite for a desired response. A pet parrot may learn to bite a hand reaching up to take it off the top of a cage or off a person’s shoulder. This bite begins as an expression that the bird does not want to leave its perch and can evolve to the level where the bird has learned to bite to get the person to leave it alone. Birds live in the here and now. Even a delay in time of a few seconds while the person goes to get a perch to scrape the bird off the top of the cage is enough to let the bird realize that it has stopped the person from taking the bird off the perch.
Height Dominance
As a matter of fact, if you set your goals high enough and use some basic training strategy, you can teach your parrot to climb inside the cage when you give it a simple cue while you sit across the room on the couch. All it takes is the understanding that if you want the bird to go into the cage there must be a reason for it to perform the behavior. There are many reasons, many reinforcements, that the bird understands, such as a scratch on the head, attention, treats, etc. Of course you can make the bird get into the cage by forcing it get on your hand or on a perch. But, forcing a bird to do something will not help your relationship with the bird. It doesn’t understand dominance like dogs does or humans.
Positive Reinforcement is the key to a better relationship with your parrot and the tool that allows you to teach the bird most anything you can imagine. Lets say your parrot likes banana. If you put a small piece of banana in the cage and back away, the bird may climb into the cage to eat the banana. At this point the worst thing you can do is run over and close the door and lock the bird in the cage. If you let the bird come out of the cage after eating the treat and climb back onto the top of the cage, you can then offer it another small piece of banana inside the cage and repeat the behavior. Repetition is the key to breaking down confidence barriers and training desirable behavior. After a couple repetitions the bird will begin to develop confidence and look forward to going into the cage for the treat. Now you can close the door, for a couple seconds, then open it up again to let the bird out. After a few of these repetitions you can give the bird a large reward of its favorite treats and he will probably be happy to stay in the cage to enjoy his meal. He will have also learned that going into the cage is a positive experience, not a negative one, which is why most birds bite when you try to take them off the cage.
Talking
Parrots talk when they are healthy, happy, and at ease in their environment. They talk to entertain themselves. Parrots mimic sounds they hear often and sounds they like. You cannot make a parrot mimic any sound it does not want to mimic.
Parrots will often connect the sounds they mimic with the situations in which they heard the sounds, such as saying hello when the phone rings, or good bye when you leave the room. However, they are not attempting to talk to the person on the other end of the phone and they are not bidding you farewell. They are simply connecting a sound they heard with the correct situation. When a parrot bites you and says ouch, it is simply because he heard you say that word when he bit you in the past and has nothing to do with him knowing that he hurt you. When the parrot falls off the perch and says “oh poor baby” it is simply repeating a sound he heard some previous time when he fell off the perch. He is not trying to get you to give him sympathy, in fact he has no concept of sympathy.
Parrots cannot make up human words, much less sentences, that they have never heard before. They can only mimic sounds that they have heard before, Also, parrots cannot put words together to form sentences that they have never heard. Parrots can mimic sentences that they have heard, but they cannot make up sentences that they have never heard before.......
Conclusion
To properly understand a bird’s behavior you should start by understanding the bird’s natural instincts and behavior in the wild. Using this information as a guide you can avoid anthropomorphism and begin to develop a relationship with your bird that is based on mutual trust and respect. You will also develop new insights into what influences the behavior of your bird and find ways to shape desirable behavior through positive reinforcement."
What do you think about that?...
"THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO “HMMM”<br>Steve Martin
President, Natural Encounters, Inc.
It may be beneficial for you to understand where I have come from and how I have developed some of my ideas that I will share with you today.I got my first bird about 40 years ago and began training it almost immediately.
Anthropomorphism
Parrots are not two year old kids, not even close. They have no concept of punishment, they have no sense of humor, are incapable of lying, and as hard as it is to hear, they do not care about your feelings. Parrots, like most other non-human organisms, care primarily about themselves. Things that are most important to a parrot include survival, breeding, and avoiding injury and death. Now all this may sound like a rather harsh, cold statement, but it is true. Of course we don’t like to hear these things because we all think our parrot loves us. And, just like in the wild, our parrots probably do love us. They readily bond to us like they would a mate in the wild and protect the territory they share with us from intruders.
A woman at a seminar told me the story of your yellow-naped amazon parrot and what happened when she left it with the neighbors when she went on vacation. It seems that when she went to the neighbor’s house to retrieve her bird after two weeks away, the bird bit her when she put her hand in the cage. The local expert at the pet shop told her the bird bit her because it was mad at her for leaving it with the neighbors while she was on vacation. The bird was punishing her. My interpretation on the situation is very different.
In the wild parrots bond to one mate and if that mate dies they simply go find another. They don’t pine away for months and years, they just go find another mate...a good survival strategy for the species. They do much the same in captivity. When the woman left her bird at the neighbor’s house the bird just sort of forgot about its owner and set up housekeeping with the neighbor. I asked the woman how the bird got along with the neighbor and she said the neighbor had a great time with the bird. They were best friends. I then asked how the bird felt about her once she got the bird home and she said the bird was back to its old self and acted fine.
I believe, in the most natural way, the parrot’s instincts caused the bird to find a new mate after the original owner disappeared from its life. Then, when the original owner returned, the bird reacted out of its desire to protect the new territory from intruders and bit the woman when she put her hand in the cage. After she took the bird home, the neighbor had disappeared from the bird’s life so it was happy to go back to the way things were in the beginning.
Biting
Many people feel that being bitten is all part of having a parrot as a pet. My philosophy is that you should never get bit. If you get bit you are doing something wrong. I work with hundreds of parrots each year, and probably get bit only once a year. I have 18 trainers on staff and each of them work with hundreds of parrots each year and almost never get bit. The reason we don’t get bit is that we have adopted the policy of “All Positive and No Negative.” We never make a bird do anything it doesn’t want to do. We never force a bird, or try to dominate a bird, in any way.
Biting is not natural for parrots. They bite when they have exhausted all other attempts at communicating their discomfort. Birds do not bite in the wild. They exhibit a myriad of displays that express their emotions but only in rare cases of territorial aggression do they actually fight to the point of drawing blood like they do in captivity. Parrots will argue over perches, food, and other objects, but almost never do these arguments escalate even to the point of physical contact.
In captivity, however, we have created an unnatural environment that forces birds to do unnatural things, like bite. Most importantly we have taken away their opportunity to flee. In the wild a parrot would simply fly away from a bird, or other creature, that it was not comfortable with. We put birds in small confinements where they are forced to accept other creatures and humans. Too often we humans push our birds to the point that they bite out of defense.
I have read too many times that a bird sitting on your hand when a stranger walks into the room will bite you to alert you of danger. This interpretation may make sense to some people, but certainly not to the birds. Can you imagine a bird biting its mate in the wild every time an eagle flew by. That’s not a very good survival strategy for the species, and certainly wouldn’t encourage very strong pair bonds. Nature has provided parrots with much more effective forms of warning other parrots of danger. These communications range from the subtle look of the eye and erect body posture to very obvious alarm calls. Besides, like I said before, parrots care about themselves. When an eagle flies over in the wild, a parrot either freezes or simply sounds the alarm call and flies away. It would never take the time to run over to its mate and bite her on the foot taking his eye off the eagle and endangering his own life.
Birds also learn to bite for a desired response. A pet parrot may learn to bite a hand reaching up to take it off the top of a cage or off a person’s shoulder. This bite begins as an expression that the bird does not want to leave its perch and can evolve to the level where the bird has learned to bite to get the person to leave it alone. Birds live in the here and now. Even a delay in time of a few seconds while the person goes to get a perch to scrape the bird off the top of the cage is enough to let the bird realize that it has stopped the person from taking the bird off the perch.
Height Dominance
As a matter of fact, if you set your goals high enough and use some basic training strategy, you can teach your parrot to climb inside the cage when you give it a simple cue while you sit across the room on the couch. All it takes is the understanding that if you want the bird to go into the cage there must be a reason for it to perform the behavior. There are many reasons, many reinforcements, that the bird understands, such as a scratch on the head, attention, treats, etc. Of course you can make the bird get into the cage by forcing it get on your hand or on a perch. But, forcing a bird to do something will not help your relationship with the bird. It doesn’t understand dominance like dogs does or humans.
Positive Reinforcement is the key to a better relationship with your parrot and the tool that allows you to teach the bird most anything you can imagine. Lets say your parrot likes banana. If you put a small piece of banana in the cage and back away, the bird may climb into the cage to eat the banana. At this point the worst thing you can do is run over and close the door and lock the bird in the cage. If you let the bird come out of the cage after eating the treat and climb back onto the top of the cage, you can then offer it another small piece of banana inside the cage and repeat the behavior. Repetition is the key to breaking down confidence barriers and training desirable behavior. After a couple repetitions the bird will begin to develop confidence and look forward to going into the cage for the treat. Now you can close the door, for a couple seconds, then open it up again to let the bird out. After a few of these repetitions you can give the bird a large reward of its favorite treats and he will probably be happy to stay in the cage to enjoy his meal. He will have also learned that going into the cage is a positive experience, not a negative one, which is why most birds bite when you try to take them off the cage.
Talking
Parrots talk when they are healthy, happy, and at ease in their environment. They talk to entertain themselves. Parrots mimic sounds they hear often and sounds they like. You cannot make a parrot mimic any sound it does not want to mimic.
Parrots will often connect the sounds they mimic with the situations in which they heard the sounds, such as saying hello when the phone rings, or good bye when you leave the room. However, they are not attempting to talk to the person on the other end of the phone and they are not bidding you farewell. They are simply connecting a sound they heard with the correct situation. When a parrot bites you and says ouch, it is simply because he heard you say that word when he bit you in the past and has nothing to do with him knowing that he hurt you. When the parrot falls off the perch and says “oh poor baby” it is simply repeating a sound he heard some previous time when he fell off the perch. He is not trying to get you to give him sympathy, in fact he has no concept of sympathy.
Parrots cannot make up human words, much less sentences, that they have never heard before. They can only mimic sounds that they have heard before, Also, parrots cannot put words together to form sentences that they have never heard. Parrots can mimic sentences that they have heard, but they cannot make up sentences that they have never heard before.......
Conclusion
To properly understand a bird’s behavior you should start by understanding the bird’s natural instincts and behavior in the wild. Using this information as a guide you can avoid anthropomorphism and begin to develop a relationship with your bird that is based on mutual trust and respect. You will also develop new insights into what influences the behavior of your bird and find ways to shape desirable behavior through positive reinforcement."
What do you think about that?...
