Parrot Tricks: Teaching Parrots with Positive Reinforcement

I bought this as a gift for my daughter and was expecting it to be just a thin paperback. We were both pleasantly surprised! It is nicely written, thick with lots of good information. Would definitely recommend.

This book gives clear instructions for training, and best of all, gives you prerequisites so that you don't start doing things that you and your bird are not ready for. It is good at exposing not only the differences, but also the likenesses of all hook bills from Parakeets to Macaws which I really appreciate. I've learned a lot about just basic bird husbandry from this book and am thrilled to have it and hopeful that my wonderful cockatiel Levin appreciates it too.

This is a very detailed how to on how to get a parrot to do almost anything. I think the message of giving your parrot something important to do with you as it's companion is an urgent message. I should have started doing this when my parrot was younger.

I'm not into show tricks, but this book teaches you more than that - it teaches you how to train your bird and how to train important skills to make their life easier (following a target, accepting nail trimming, how to not freak out at the vet, etc).Parrots like to be entertained and have attention, and naturally would forage for their food so they rarely get it without work in nature - the same way some dogs love to learn new tricks because it is a bonding moment, some parrots do too. If so, you and your bird will enjoy the more 'fun' tricks in the book.

Overall, it's a good book.Unfortunately, the author is so totally wrong about clicker training that the way she trashes it may do a lot of harm to people for whom clicker training may work wonders.First, clicker training is not a method, it is a technique, and a clicker is a tool. The method is positive reinforcement. One trainer may prefer to use a clicker as positive reinforcement tool, and another trainer may prefer to use a whistle, or just a praise. It doesn't matter so much. What matters is positive reinforcement.Tani Robar's description of her experience with clicker training makes me think that she had negative preconceived ideas about it and was unable to overcome her negativity. It is not so much about clicker training, but more about her attitude towards it.Where Tani Robar got the idea that a bird is supposed to drop whatever it was doing and come for a treat as soon as there is a clicker sound I don't know. One of the first steps in clicker training is to teach your bird that reward may be delayed, but it is coming. My birds don't drop what they are doing, I sometimes click 2-3 times through a trick to encourage my birds. They get their jackpot treat at the end.Her technique of working with birds is good if a bird is relatively tame. It won't work if the bird has high level of anxiety, scared of human hands, etc. But clicker training is a very successful technique to use with anxious birds.And so on.If someone wants break descriptions, suggestions, know how to divide breaks into smaller steps, this book is good. But don't believe a single word the author says about clicker training. This is where she is totally wrong.

This book is great if you want to learn to teach your bird a lot of tricks. Some are like proffesional tv tricks with special props and some you can do at home. I am still reading the book. I do like it. It has a vast number of tricks you can pick from to train your bird.

Couldn't believe this would work...after first getting my bird used to the first 5 steps of handling (tameness scale), he did learn the first 3 tricks in 35 minutes!!! Called my husband in, he was amazed--we filmed it!! We had our 14 week green cheek conure just 10 days!! We've now had Kiwi 6 weeks...he's learned to turn around, shake, wave, high-five, give a kiss, nod yes, and retrieve. It's so much fun training him!! Well-written book--Thank you Tani Robar & Diane Grindol!

Used this book as a trick training guide for my quaker parrot. Great guide and I really liked the tameness scale in the book. He's already learned to play dead and roll over as well as some handy tricks for going to the vets office like opening his beak and holding his wings up.

So many nice trick and explanation

Great book. Really good advice.

I was so impressed with this book, well written, a very good and though understanding of parrots, easy and fun to read lots of helpful hints, a must have if you would like to train your parrot tricks. Yhe writter obviously adores her parrots,

Didn't get to read, but I'm sure it's a great book!

Really good clear instructions and the theory behind the training. I trained a parrot to eave, turn around, target and bow within a couple of weeks, with only one training session, sometimes not even that, a day. Great book, highly recommend.