Macaws:
Red Shouldered (Hahn's) Macaw
Severe Macaw
Blue And Gold Macaw
Blue Throated Macaw
Military Macaw
Red Fronted Macaw
Scarlet Macaw
Green Winged Macaw
Hyacinth Macaw
Since people have been asking me about harnesses and it just so happens this is what I've been working on with Truman lately, I figured I'd share some techniques. First, if you are looking for information about the basics of harness training or if you haven't seen it already, I really recommend you read my Flight Harness Training Parrot article. It is about how I screwed up by listening to the stupid DVD that came with the harness and then how I remedied the phobia Kili developed of the harness with positive and negative reinforcement training. The article contains a 10 minute video for each of 3 days which reveal many tips and tricks about getting a parrot to wear a harness. Over a year since using that technique, I still stand by it fully and well now describe to you how I used it on Truman.
Aside from a very basic introduction to the harness strap material, I don't think Truman's breeder ever actually put a harness onto him. However, not more than two weeks since getting Truman, I was already sticking the aviator harness on him and taking him outside. I wanted Truman to begin wearing his harness as early as possible and start taking him outside so that he would be adapted to this from a younger age. At the point when I put the aviator harness on him for the first time, I had no way of training it to him. He had no concept of clicker, target, or treat so there was no specific way I could train him to wear it. But on the other hand he was already very hand tame and easy going to I was able to just stick it on him. I took him outside every chance I could during last summer but over the course of the winter he came to forget his harness. When I broke it out again this year, he was a different bird. He has become more independent and bold since then so after a few times he started to decide that he didn't really like to wear the harness. It was almost getting to the point that he would fly away or at least sway away from me when I was wearing it. He finally decided he had enough of the harness and wasn't going to take it.
This is the point when I realized I had to go through the formal training program with him that I had originally done with Kili. It only took two treats for sticking her head through the harness this year to remind Kili everything she knew about the harness from last year. However, with Truman it took a little more work. I pretty much followed the 3 day program the same as I had done with Kili. The first day I tamed Truman to the harness so he would stop being scared of it. First I held it at some distance and gave him treats. Then I approached with it until I could touch his feathers with it. The second day I started with the same exercises but proceeded to making a fake collar out of the larger part of the strap (not the actual collar part) and practiced putting that on him and making it narrower with each try. By the end of the second day he definitely wasn't fleeing the harness and at times even slightly leaning in. On the third day I went right to practicing him sticking his head into and out of the collar. I gave him a treat every time the collar went on. Any time he turned away or made it difficult to put the collar on, I ignored him. However, if he helped put his head in or at least didn't resist, I rewarded him. By the end of the third training session, Truman was taking steps to come toward the collar and stick his own head in.
Finally, for a week I solidified Truman's harness training by putting the harness on entirely and giving him an entire almond to eat while wearing it. With Kili, you might recall, I fed her meals while wearing the harness. Truman isn't as enthused about meals as she is, so instead I chose to feed him nuts while wearing the aviator harness to build a positive association. For that week he did not receive nuts by any other means than wearing the harness. To me, taming the parrot to the point where it is fearless around the harness material and willing to stick its head into the collar on its own is the significant part of the training. It will come to realize that the other straps will be put on as well, but as long as you can maintain that the bird wants to put on the harness, there won't be any bad feelings or biting. So it's more about accepting the harness than breaking up the different mechanics of putting it on. Sure it is possible to make the parrot dislike the harness again by rushing the process and making the process of putting it on unpleasant, but you can always revert back to the earlier taming steps. However, taking your time with the process and making sure the parrot has had a much longer positive experience with the harness than negative will help ensure that one bad experience won't ruin everything.
Wings is a great trick for a parrot to know prior to harness training because it makes the parrot used to opening its wings and having its wings touched. Also my wing opening taming technique is an important requisite for being able to put on a harness because you will have to be able to move the parrot's wings to manipulate them into the harness straps properly. Finally, it's a really good idea to be very familiar with the harness before every putting it on. In fact move the straps a bunch of times or put it on a stuffed animal before using it not only for practice but also to make the straps less stiff.
The best place to put a harness on a parrot is on a Parrot Training Perch because you can adjust the bird to a convenient height and keep your hands free. The parrot can grip onto the perch so that is one less thing to be concerned about as the parrot will be stationary. There is some pushing and pulling in the harness donning process so you will definitely appreciate having the parrot more steady. A Parrot Training Perch will function much better than a climbing tree or chair back because there won't be any extra spindles or places for the leash to get caught on in the process.
Put the parrot on a training perch or wherever you are putting on the harness so that it is facing you. The last thing to remember is to clip the leash onto your belt or at least put it over your wrist. If your bird flies off while wearing the leash in the house, it will get caught on something, crash, get hurt, and hate the harness very much. Definitely make sure that you have a secure grip on the leash as you would outside. Now on to some tips about the actual process of putting on an aviator flight harness.
First offer the parrot the chance to put the harness on by showing the collar loop as discussed before. After the parrot sticks its head through the collar, give a reward (as big as possible but small enough that it doesn't have to use its foot cause that will just get in the way). Not only does this reward the collar part but also keeps it distracted while you put the harness on. With practice this entire process can take under a minute. The quicker you do it (without going too fast or hard), the less time your parrot will have to get frustrated about the situation. If you find yourself confused about what to do with the harness, then you need to stop torturing the bird with the process and practice on your own and watch some videos of how it is done. While this harness is easy to put on when you're familiar with it, it can be quite confusing at first so definitely make sure you know what to do before getting the parrot involved. Once the collar is in place, pull all the slack over to your right hand side. The strap is barely long enough for my Cape's wings to fit through so I have to really use every inch of slack I can get. If he is playing with the end of the harness, I gotta get it out of his beak or it reduces the length just a little bit. With all the slack on the right side, I lift the wing slightly up, pull the strap around and behind primaries. I also twist the wing tip in such a way so that the primaries are aimed into the loop made by the harness slack.
Next, I transfer all the slack to my left side (bird's right wing) by pulling on the slack end of the strap. Some times some feathers under the wings get snagged. I can fix this by lifting the wing, shifting the strap, and working the feathers around it. Once I have all the remaining slack on my left side, I can lift the second wing and repeat the twist and in motion as described above and demonstrated in the video below. Since I want to keep Truman flighted, I'm very careful about not busting his primaries in this process. By aiming them into the strap loop in such a way, I can prevent them from touching the material at all and getting messed up. Once the second wing is through, all that is left is to tighten the harness. I pull the slack through the buckle in two motions. First I pull it into the buckle through the first connection. Then I pull all the slack out of the buckle from the end. This tightening process is actually much easier on Truman than Kili. For Kili I have to feed the slack through back and forth several times to get all the material out from around her. But the larger harness seems to pivot around the parrot's body better and makes it much easier to bring all the slack in on the first attempt. At this point I give Truman an almond and he completely forgets about the fact that he is wearing a harness. Or I actually take him outside and that generally keeps his mind off of it. Only when we're spending a lot of time out that he begins playing with the harness, but for this I bring lots of chew toys to attempt to distract him with.
Taking the harness is just as simple as putting it on. It is literally the exact same process in reverse. First I slacken the strap by pulling the leash end into the buckle and then back out toward the parrot in two motions. Then I lift the wing and pull it forward and through the slack loop to get the feathers through without touching. Then I bring all of the slack over to my right hand side. I let this form a loop and pull the parrot's left wing forward and pull the strap back to bring it around the wing. Finally I pull the collar forward to get the head out. Of course Truman's head is too big and the feathers get pushed in reverse so he hates this part and his head gets stuck sometimes. However, I've been developing a technique where I twist the harness straps just a little and work them so his head pops through. If it weren't for the fact that the harness sits perfectly on him when it is tightened, I would probably be looking for a size up. I don't find it necessary to reward for harness removal because the donning is consistently rewarded and makes up for the discomfort of removal. Also removal is in itself negatively reinforcing that he no longer has to feel the discomfort of wearing or taking the harness off. However, if the removal process seems to frustrate the bird a little much, giving a treat after can't hurt.
As always with Taming, long term taming is the important thing. It is better to consistently put the harness on the parrot every day (or at least a few times a week) for one big treat, wear for a while, then take it off, than to do many repetitions at a time. The parrot just needs to spend a lot of time in it, have many positive experiences wearing the harness over a long period of time, and few bad ones. While good outdoor experiences will help a parrot grow accustomed to the harness, I do not believe they are direct enough of a reinforcement to make the harness tolerable. Small treats for putting on the harness should continue being administered on a random level once training is satisfactorily completed. I rarely reward Kili for putting her harness on anymore because she clearly isn't scared of it. However, if I do this too much, she becomes more difficult about putting it on. Just a few repetitions of retaming using the steps above bring her right back to the stage she was in when I did a lot of practice. So even if your parrot used to wear a harness successfully last year, a quick reminder by retaming with the same techniques will make it more willing to wear the harness again this season.
Finally here is the promised video of how I put a harness on Truman. You'll notice that he does a pretty good job but still requires some work. He still interferes by biting the harness too much or fidgeting. Some is inevitable but it can be reduced with practice. Also he starts getting agitated toward the end of the video but that's really only because I was putting the harness on and off of him too many times to make demonstrations for the video and not because of his training. He's more used to putting it on once and going outside or eating a nut rather than going through the entire procedure repeatedly. If I want to do harness practice, mainly I will only practice the collar part repeatedly, but I try to do the complete process of putting the harness on only once and quickly to reduce the discomfort. So here is how I put a harness on Truman the Cape Parrot:
On the sixth flight training session in the school, the third session in the theater, we introduced a major distractor that would exist during the high school show and any other stage shows thereafter. This was of course the stage lights. Luckily the parrots have already had prior experience under the hot light back at my apartment for videos. I've used as many as three hot lights in close proximity to the parrots while making training videos at home so they already knew not to fly into them. However, they had never experienced a few dozen lights all at once so it definitely did keep them stunned for a bit of time.
I had Kili and Truman do some tricks to train them under a bit of pressure (from the unfamiliarity of the lights). It is a way to test motivation and see how likely the birds are to flight recall. If they can't even handle the basic tricks, there is no way that I could expect them to flight recall. When I am uncertain about Truman's likelihood to flight recall, I may work on return to perch flights instead. I let Truman fly back to his perch from short range and he did fine. I either run up to reward him as quickly as possible or I have my brother stand at the perch to give him a reward upon landing. However, on the second return flight Truman totally missed the landing spot and flew right up into the window curtains. We left him there for a little while until he got bored. I tried recalling him multiple times but did not persist too much if he didn't show signs of coming down. I continued training Kili to make him more jealous and eventually I got him to recall down. I try to get him to feel that he is missing out by being up there but it doesn't work so great because he likes being high.
After I got Truman back, we decided to attempt a flight recall from the balcony. Originally I thought Truman would be coming down from the balcony and Kili from somewhere closer because of Truman's superior flight skills and feathers. However, it turned out that Kili could do it no problem but Truman was unreliable and could end up flying off. Right from the first attempt Kili knew exactly what to do. My brother took her up to the balcony and let her perch on his finger. When I called her name she flew right down to me. Positive reinforcement of course played an important part in her eagerness to fly to me, but so did negative reinforcement. Kili does not like my brother that much and the balcony was not too great a place to be either. So the opportunity to come to me and eliminate those other factors was in itself rewarding. The ability to fly down to me from a high place like this gives me confidence that I could get Kili down in the event of a fly off. However, she never flies off like Truman so her skills are never tested.
I used Kili's excellent recall skills as motivation for Truman. I put him far back on a training perch and let him see Kili recall to me to earn treats. Since Truman is so young, watching other birds in the flock and doing what they do is almost more rewarding than the treat itself. So whenever he'd see Kili fly to me, he would be much more eager and likely to come to me as well. We continued practicing balcony flight recalls followed by Truman self recalls several more times. Truman ended up in the curtains several more times that day. While he was busy not coming down, I practiced Kili saying hello into a microphone. She was mainly scared of the device itself rather than the volume of her new found voice.
At one point Truman tried to fly down from the curtains when I wasn't ready to get him. He was heading for the training perch but missed his landing. At that point he went through his typical freak out routine and flew around seeking a higher place. However, he misjudged his landing on top of the curtains and had to continue circling. Eventually he crashed somewhere in the back of the room into the curtains and came to a rest on a seat. Since this is all happening in a controlled environment, usually I just leave him and call him again later. This makes for better training than running over to help him unless he is truly hurt.
Truman was becoming more and more unreliable as the training session was reaching the end and at one point he flew onto a ledge above the stage curtain. This is actually a terrible place to try to flight recall him down from because the angle down to the stage is too steep but recalling him away from the stage into blinding lights would be impossible. So instead I put my Parrot Recovery Perch to use. This is a special 20ft extendable perch that I invented prior to risking flying the parrots in the theater in the event that they land in a place they can't come down from. Since Truman's flight motivation had substantially dwindled, I preferred to take him down rather than wait for him to fly himself. So I extended the perch and placed it above his feet and unquestioningly he stepped up onto it and rode down like an elevator. Of course I always reward him for coming down to prevent him from avoiding the stick in the future.
I have actually come up with two versions of the parrot recovery perch. One is a compact lightweight portable version for most casual trainers and at home users. This version extends to about 10ft long which is plenty in a home with even the tallest ceilings. The extra large version I used in the video to get Truman down from the stage curtains, however, is for advanced flight trainers who may be flying their parrots in gyms, theaters, arenas, or outdoors. The large version is longer and heavier but has the benefit of extending over 20ft if necessary. The familiar natural wood perch on the end is similar to my Parrot Training Perches so it does not take long for the parrots to become accustomed to stepping up onto it. Just to play it safe, I practiced at home with Truman before using it to make sure he was used to it. Whenever I would bring the perch up to him and ask him to step up, I would simply reward him with a treat. These are not yet available on my website because I am still working on perfecting the design, however, if you would really like one before they are released, contact me privately and we can work something out. Otherwise, stay tuned for a release announcement of the 10 and 20 foot Parrot Recovery Perches for getting parrots down from high places.
Here is the video from the sixth flight training session in the high school (third in the theater). This session introduced bright stage lights, balcony flight recalls, and talking into a microphone.
I am going through some footage from the flight training sessions that led up to Kili & Truman's high school performance. I am going to try to post some more of the footage that shows the training involved in getting the parrots to the point that they flew to me on command during the show while also sharing some of the difficulties in the process.
Day 5 of advanced flight training was the second day in the theater. The forth session went extremely well but I wondered how much of it was based on the fact that the birds were very hungry that time. So during the fifth session I made sure they were better fed beforehand and tried to see if they would fly to me for the reward of having a more fun time on stage. A large component was putting the parrots on a familiar Parrot Training Perch and then walking to the stage and leaving them there for some minutes. Not only would I let the parrot on the perch get bored, but I would do a lot of activity with the other parrot on the stage. This was to make being on stage more lucrative than anywhere else. Not only was this for the purpose of being able to recall the parrot to the stage but also to reduce the likelihood of the parrot wanting to fly away from the stage during my eventual performance.
Kili learned to fly circles when she missed her perch on a return flight. She didn't come back to me immediately because she seemed to simply enjoy the fact that she can fly. But eventually she was getting tired and flying lower so she came back to me. On one flight recall that I called Truman he went straight for my brother who was videoing instead of me, but when landing on his head didn't seem to go as he had planned, Truman turned and flew to my hand.
Truman did end up flying up into the rafters and curtains a few times though. Whenever he doesn't make his landing on the first attempt or isn't sure of where to go, he flies higher and higher. If he can't find a spot to land he'll continue circling high but never flies back down to me, perch, or anything else. Eventually he lands somewhere high and I have to wait until he calms down and gets bored before he would even consider flying back down to me. In the video you may see me call Truman a few times to come down. In reality it would be much more than that. I might call several times every few minutes until it finally would dawn on him to come after all. I would reward him generously and let him take a break after coming down though so he would not feel like flying down would force him to go back to work if he didn't want to.
In order to bring Kili and Truman to the high school for flight training sessions and to be able to take them places during the winter in general, I had to come up with a warm winter carrier solution. I decided to use an electric blanket but it would require a heavy car battery to power. Thus I needed to have a cart to be able to haul the weight of the heavy system. Furthermore, two carriers would be impractical and the blanket not large enough to cover both. So I set out to make a single carrier to transport both parrots.
I bought a larger version of Truman's carrier. I liked the top door feature which cannot be found on most carriers. Of course there is no way I could keep the parrots in the same chamber, so I modified the carrier to separate the two birds. I cut a piece of plexiglass to fit the contours of the carrier and divide the two parrots. I gave Truman the larger part of the carrier and just a small space for Kili. Truman doesn't do well in a confined space but Kili doesn't seem to mind it. I installed a perch for each parrot (similar to the first carrier I made for Truman but perpendicular to the side door instead).
So now I load Kili in first through the top door and then Truman through the side door. Then I wrap the carrier in the electric blanket, place the battery on top, and then tie the entire assembly down to my cart. I have found that the electric blanket helps sustain heat but does not create much on its own. So I learned to put the carrier on top of a radiator for 30 minutes prior to loading the birds inside to make it nice and toasty. Then the electric blanket helps the carrier retain that heat longer while I have to move it outside and to the car. This is by no means the most convenient solution and turns out to be quite heavy, however, on frigid winter days, this is the only way to transport the parrots.
I will continue to use the double carrier year round for very short outings/trips with my parrots but will opt for two separate carriers for longer travels. Here is a video that shows some of the features of my double parrot travel carrier.
So finally the day has come when all of Kili & Truman's theater flight training would be put to the test. For two months I had been training them in the high school theater to get them not only accustomed to being on stage, but also to learn advanced indoor flight recalls.
Throughout the dozen or so training sessions we had both our ups and downs. There were fantastic training sessions in which both birds recalled eagerly. But there were also training sessions where the parrots would not budge a feather and would be nearly impossible to get them to fly. There were sessions when Truman spent the majority of the time up in some high place refusing to come down. However, each session yielded progress over the last by making the parrots more and more accustomed to being on stage. We trained with the stage lights on and eventually with music playing to test the parrots' resistance to distraction.
Nearing the show, I left for two weeks to travel around West Africa (yes, this happened before the performance but I have a lot of footage to edit so unfortunately you won't get to see this until later). During that time my brother came to take care of my birds but little training was done. When I returned, I had just a week to get the parrots ready for the big show. Normally I trained on Tuesday's and Thursday's, but this time I did not want to have a training session immediately prior to the Friday morning performance. So instead I did flight training two days in a row on Tuesday and Wednesday. Then I gave the parrots a break on Thursday. Then Friday morning we had to get up very early to get to the school, set up, and do some flight recalls to warm up prior to the audience entering.
Originally I had a five minute speech planned about motivation and the basics of behavioral psychology but I had to bag that since I was pressed for time. I decided to show the 20 Tricks in 2 Minutes and Kili is the Word videos after the live performance because I realized that the props and birds are too small for people in the back to see. So in order to have time for the videos, I had to drop the talk. Mostly I was relieved to skip the talk because I had inadequate time to prepare it. It's a topic I have given much thought about and can have a good conversation about, but I would not be as good giving a speech about it. Before I learned about the time constraint, I felt obligated to make an educational moral to my performance by discussing psychology, learning, and motivation (all things I've learned from my parrots). So after the head of the upper school announced me, I just went straight to my parrot show by recalling Kili down from the balcony.
My brother was assisting me by releasing the birds to me. He had both parrots in a carrier and was ready to move quickly. As soon as he released Kili on the balcony, I bought him time to move downstairs while I introduced Kili. Then he released Truman from the back of the theater when I called his name. The students were shocked to find the birds swooping across and coming flawlessly to my hand. Audience members sitting up front later commented being able to feel the air rush over them as the parrots passed across on their route to my hand.
I had been debating with myself whether or not to fly Truman at all. In earlier training sessions we had major reliability problems. If he would miss the landing or just not feel like it, he would start flying around the theater and always land high. Unlike Kili, Truman would never replan his flight and come back down to me. At best he would land somewhere high and fly down but many times we had to get him ourselves. However, he did pretty well during the two training sessions prior to the performance so I decided to take a chance with him. During the training sessions immediately leading up to the show, I practiced the flight from the back of the theater to my hand many times with Truman instead of just random flights as I had been doing earlier. So with the extensive practice I felt that Truman knew what to do but still risked that if he missed my hand, he would fly off. I did some more practice the morning of the show and he did not fly off once, so I decided to go for it during the show.
I had Truman perform his tricks first to let Kili headline the show afterward. Truman was a bit hesitant at first. You see he had never been in front of such a large crowd and we basically tricked him by keeping him in a dark carrier and then releasing him straight on a flight he was accustomed to. So his first chance to see the crowd really wasn't until he had landed on my hand. It took a few seconds to get him to focus but eventually he did his tricks. By no means his best but he did fine. No matter how much motivation he may have had from hunger and social pressure, the novelty of the situation was still quite overwhelming for him.
Kili only had about ten seconds of stage fright, then she just blossomed. Kili just adored the attention performing her tricks and did better and better as the crowd reacted. I still fed her occasional treats so that in the future she would not distrust me not to give her treats during a performance, however, she was motivated to perform just as well without them. I could tell that she was doing it all for the attention and not the treats. This way I was able to give her tiny treats between just a few of the tricks to make the performance appear seamless. I forgot to have Kili do ring on peg but no one noticed because I went straight to play dead. When Kili dropped over and lay on her back, amazement beheld the crowd. None the less, I think the absolute favorite trick among a high school full of athletic students, was the basketball trick. I think the varsity team may be calling Kili back for try outs next season.
Not only did the performance go very well, but it was a very pleasing culmination of all the previous theater training efforts at the school. The birds learned advanced flight skills and expanded their performance capabilities. Now the performing parrot duo is ready to tackle virtually any indoor on stage performance.
Trained Parrot is a blog about how to train tricks to all parrots and parakeets. Read about how I teach tricks to Truman the Brown Necked Cape Parrot including flight recall, shake, wave, nod, turn around, fetch, wings, and play dead. Learn how you can train tricks to your Parrot, Parrotlet, Parakeet, Lovebird, Cockatiel, Conure, African Grey, Amazon, Cockatoo or Macaw. This blog is better than books or DVDs because the information is real, live, and completely free of charge. If you want to know how to teach your parrot tricks then you will enjoy this free parrot training tutorial.
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