Polly Wants More Than Just a Cracker
Advice from Animal Expert Dr. Grey Stafford
 Cats and dogs may be more common as pets than birds, but they don’t hold exclusive rights when it comes to learning behaviors. In fact, the same approach to training using only positive reinforcement that works with our four legged friends can also be used with our feathered friends. OK, so maybe the rewards need to be scaled down in size just a bit.
Some of the most interesting and challenging birds to train are the large, colorful, and long-lived parrots and macaws. But, before you rush out and get one, consider that their intelligence has been compared to that of a two-year-old child—sort of the good news and bad rolled into one. So, it's important to think honestly about whether you, your family, and your home are equipped to provide a bird all the mental and physical stimulation it will need to thrive.
If you do have a macaw, parrot or some other species known for mimicking sound, you might want to teach it some human sounds or words. Believe it or not, there are CDs of recorded sounds, words and phrases designed specifically for teaching birds to “speak.” This is a passive approach to increasing your bird’s vocabulary. It works because the same sounds are repeated over and over, often while you are away from home. In most cases, the bird will eventually adopt the new sounds, although they may sound a bit garbled for a while. I once met an African Grey that had learned to produce the distinctive sound of a leaky faucet! Guess the water had been dripping for a while.
Some birds will mimic sounds in their own voice while other species are uncanny in their ability to produce nearly exact copies of what they hear. That same African Grey could imitate the owner’s girlfriend—it was eerie to hear her voice come out of a 12-inch bird. So, be careful what you say (repeatedly) around a bird. It may give you away. At Wildlife World, we have a donated cockatoo that was once owned by a truck driver. Its language is colorful to say the least.
Of course, you can teach birds to speak (actually, repeat) without a CD recording. Begin by simply rewarding it for making any noise, especially if it sounds like something real such as part of a word, phone ring, door bell and so on. Of course, you’ll eventually want to associate their sound with your request. This is called stimulus control. For example, I once trained a bird to whistle anytime I said the word “row.” That way, I could talk with the bird in front of an audience using sentences that meant nothing to the bird until I came to the word “row” at which point it would respond with the whistle.
As for rewards, avoid using only food, especially the high fatty stuff such as peanuts. Birds, like all of us, need a balanced diet, not just snack food. And just like us, they will skip the healthy foods if we encourage it. Given their intelligence, most birds can be taught to like a good scratch under the wings, toys, warm showers, attention and so on.
~ Dr. Grey
Learn more about Dr. Grey Stafford
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