Teaching the Fabled Parrot Tricks

Let’s face it, part of the thrill of owning a parrot, and the key to their lasting popularity, is the possibility we get to teach them parrot tricks. These birds are among the most intelligent animals in the world. In tests to gauge their intellectual levels, they have been proven to be on par with the level of a small child. Amazing!

And again, to keep on the topic of Parrot care, teaching your feathered pet tricks is not simply for entertainment purposes. It may very well help make them more sociable, and may also take care of some behavioral issues – and prevent them from appearing in the first place. As always, an ounce of care is worth a pound of cure.

The key for success is to keep the training sessions short and fun. As an owner, make sure not to fatigue your parrot out and cause the session to be a draining moment with negative overtones. Make sure you both are ready to for the sessions. Learning new parrot tricks should be fun!

A few tips might be to train in a quiet room, free of distractions, making sure that the place is well lit and comfortable for your parrot. A relaxed state is of course better when starting to train parrots. Remember, it’s not a race, parrots live for a long time, and might as well enjoy the journey!

An easy trick to begin the process is teaching the parrot trick “how to step up”. It will be used most often and throughout your pet’s lifetime so it becomes a very useful skill as well. It could described as the simple act of asking your bird to step onto the object that is in front of it. Place one finger in front of your pet’s feet and ask it with a calm voice tone to “step up”. For larger types of parrots, you might have to use your forearm. To make your bird want to move forward, simply use a bit of food – which can be given as reward as well as entice it to step up.

Another one of the many popular parrot tricks is to teach your bird to “turn around”. Again, use a piece of its favorite food to get its attention. Begin when your parrot is on its perch, and as it goes to grab the goodie, move your hand in a slow pace all the way to its backside, so that the parrot will have to turn its head around to even see your temptation enticer. Some parrots immediately do a full turn naturally, while some have to be forced or tricked a little bit. Of course, to make use of positive reinforcement techniques, give your pet the goodie as a reward for its good behavior.

Another place where teaching your parrot can help is by solving the issue of it being too noisy with its screeching. You do that by teaching the grandest of the parrot tricks: teach it how to talk! Sometimes, your pet will have learned to get noticed by making irritating noises, so if you teach it a few words, you might appreciate it even more than it does, and of course, what parrot owner doesn’t want a talking pet?

Begin with simple one or two syllables words – like the classic “hello”. Simply repeat the same word slowly to your feathered student many times, as often as necessary up to the point your parrot makes a sound as an answer. That first response might not be the word you want it to pronounce, but the goal here is to get the bird to respond to our speech, to our vocal interaction. As you repeat this process over time, your parrot will soon be able to imitate you, and that what makes parrots well, parrots, and “parroting” is the ultimate of all the parrot tricks!