Teaching Your Pet Bird Basic Tricks

Birds are intelligent and one way to prove their intelligence and talents is to teach them some basic tricks. However, teaching your pet bird some basic tricks isn’t always an easy task.

The following steps will help you teach your pet some basic and essential tricks that will delight everybody.  

• Keep your teaching sessions as short as possible. We recommend that you schedule about two or three 10mins teaching sessions daily. This is perfect to help retain your bird’s attention.
• Get your pet bird used to props or items. You can achieve this by leaving props or items near your pet bird for a few days. You can also try playing with these props or items to attract your pet bird’s interest.
• Find a calm and quiet place to teach your pet bird. Make sure the place you choose is also free of distractions.
• Give a special reward to your pet bird during the training session for every trick learned. If you choose a food reward, make sure the food is small and can be easily consumed by your bird within a few seconds. You may also try a scratch on the head or offer lots of praise instead of food.
• Be consistent with your teaching program. Teach daily and teach at the same time every day. This will enable your pet to get used to the teaching routine and also look forward to your new routine together.
• During the teaching session, keep an eye on your pet for signs of aggression, fear, inattentiveness, or sleepiness. Sometimes, inattentiveness may be a result of hunger. 

Signs of aggression and fear include vocalizations, biting, holding onto your finger too tightly, flapping of the wings, standing upright with wings extended slightly from the body – with or without opening the beak.

If you notice any of these signs, you may have to end the teaching session immediately on a positive note.

Here are some basic tricks you may teach your pet bird:

• Teaching the step-up command
• Teaching your bird to wave “Hello”
• Teaching your bird how to dance

Final Note

Before you start teaching your pet bird any basic trick, make sure your bird is familiar with you. If your bird is not familiar with you, you need to build the familiarity before the teaching sessions by placing your hand quietly and slowly in the bird’s cage – away from the bird.

More so, when you approach your bird’s cage or work with your bird, try as much as possible to always stay slightly higher than your bird’s eye level. Staying too far above your bird can make your bird afraid while your bird can misinterpret staying too low as a sign of submission on your part.

Follow the steps highlighted above carefully and you would have the best training sessions with your feathery friend.