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Plus all the other goals I made earlier on in his stay here with us like breaking his bad habits and being able to hold his feet. Spin (Dave will finish training this with him, not me).

But after just studying him, I have come up with behaviors I want to teach him (on cue) before he goes back to his real owners. He said his name twice very clearly and it was so sweet sounding. He got another training session out of me!Ĭheck out the video above to see Hymie showing off his newly learned behavior!Īfter letting Hymie hang out for around 2 hours one night, I spent the entire time watching his behavior. I actually walked away to end the training session and just hang out when he started begging by opening his wings a bunch, and then he finally did a massive wing opening and I couldn't resist it, it was SO good, that I clicked and ran over to reward him. Hymie began to understand what I wanted within a couple minutes. Hymie LOVES pine nuts! I even took a video to prove he eats them (he's a picky eater and I want his owners to be convinced, tee-hee). Then he understood it and his wings got as high as I wanted them to get! You can see the final version here.As he slipped into the 'begging phase' the wings got higher like this.This photo is actually higher than when I first got him to do it, in which his wings were just away from his body and his shoulders were up.Here was his progression in photos so you can really see how they got higher with each session: It's important to realize that Hymie didn't lift his wings super high immediately. He was hanging out on a perch (which he has finally learned to be content on by the way) and once his wings raised, I clicked and gave him a pine nut. Now, the stick em up trick is putting a natural behavior on cue and then shaping it for Hymie, because when he is excited he lifts both wings a little. I came to my own conclusion it wouldn't confuse him to learn something from me.

Well, my thinking on this was that I wanted to teach Hymie 'stick 'em up' (putting his wings stretched out into the air) and I figured it was different enough from the spin training Dave was still doing with the chopstick that he could separate the two just fine. This goes for teaching the behavior, not cueing it. Trainers we have talked to in the industry (who actually get paid for it) have told us that an animal should only have one trainer or they can get confused.

and I could tell Hymie wanted to learn and was excited about his beginning stages of learning new things (cough like the lawn mower guy isn't going to kill him cough) Okay so anyway.! Papaya was used as treats for training (both touch training and the spin training session).

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Hymie is such a quick learner! Dave taught him how to touch train in just a few minutes and it only took one training session! The next day following touch training him, Dave began teaching him to spin in a circle and got Hymie about half way there before Dave could tell Hymie was done training. Photo by Jamieleigh Location: Orlando, FL Touch training: Hyacinth Macaw 'Hymie'