Teaching basic commands.

Many owners experience problems with their pet because the essential ground rules have not been established between keeper and bird. Obedience training is of great importance for the safety of your bird. Once trained, you will be able to control where the bird is allowed to go, who can handle it and whether you want the bird to be with you or not. Proper training will result in the bird bonding to you and once this bond has been established in the right way he or she will want to obey your requests.

For the first few lessons try taking the bird to a room that is unfamiliar. Place the bird on a perch at about your waist height. The back of a chair is good. Ignore the bird for a few minutes until it settles down.

‘Step up’
Once s/he appears relaxed, approach slowly and deliberately, placing one hand just above the level of the feet. Touch the bird with this hand on its lower belly. Say ‘step up’ and push gently backwards. Your bird should step up onto your hand on the first command, if not, repeat the command and pressure until it does.

‘Down’
Return your bird to the chair back saying ‘down’ as you set it down. Drop your hand
as you step back.

If all you achieve during your first lesson is that your bird steps on and off your hand
once, you have made good progress. The first lesson should last no more than four
minutes and should cease immediately if the bird becomes upset. After the lesson
return your bird to its cage. If things went well on the first day, have two short lessons the following day - one in the morning and one in the evening. Each lesson should last three or four minutes with most birds happily stepping up and down after
a few lessons.

Once you are happy with progress, repeat the training in the same room as the bird’s cage. Don’t let your bird come out of its cage on its own, but always ask it to step up onto your hand when getting out. This will help stop your bird from becoming territorial about its cage.

Most birds begin to bond with the trainer while teaching these first two commands. Once this has happened, you should reward good behaviour by a head scratch if the bird allows this, or if not, just verbal praise. Once your bird obeys the first two commands at least 80% of the time and is beginning to bond with you, you are ready to teach more commands.

Assuming your bird is unclipped; you should teach it three more commands. These allow you to have good control of a flighted bird.

‘No. Not on me’
If you wish your bird not to land on you raise one hand in front of it as it attempts to land, saying ‘No. Not on me’.

’Go’
To leave you by flying off, tell the bird ‘Go’ and toss him/her into the air towards a familiar perch or cage. If the birds tries to return to you, use the ‘No. Not on me’ command.

’Off there’
An important safety command is ‘Off there’. If the bird lands somewhere that s/he should never go, like an electrical fitting, you need to be able to tell him/her to leave that place. When this happens, and only when the bird obeys the other commands you should teach ‘Off there‘. If the bird goes to a banned place, say ‘Off there’ and shoo him/her off until s/he leaves. Let the bird land anywhere else when you first teach this command.

Never use this command when the bird is on a person.