Book description
KEEP YOUR PARROT STIMULATED AND ACTIVE, AND HE WILL KEEP YOU ENTERTAINED!
By nature, parrots are inquisitive, intelligent, and social animals. You
can capitalize on these characteristics and obedience train your bird,
teaching him behaviors that will make your life and his more
enjoyable--behaviors such as stepping on your hand or wrist on command,
and going to a designated perch. Then you can progress to teach him all
kinds of tricks. He'll love the attention, communication, and
socialization. From the essential basics of obedience training to
awesome tricks that will amuse and amaze your friends, Parrot Tricks covers:
* Techniques to use during the "get acquainted" period
* Setting up a training area and using food as a training tool
* Training basics such as targeting, luring, and using cues
* Necessary obedience skills such as step up, come, perch, and stay
* The basic retrieve command, the foundation of many tricks
* Simple tricks such as shake hands, high five, kiss, and take a bow
* Tricks based on the retrieve command, including basketball, ring on
the peg, and stacking cups
* Advanced tricks such as pulling a wagon, pushing a grocery cart,
raising a flag, and riding a skateboard
* Innovative tricks that showcase your bird's natural abilities
* Chaining tricks, such as recycling and going to the mailbox
* Verbalizations and talking using the Rival/Model Method or the
Positive Reward Method
* Directions for making simple props
With this book, patience, and practice, you'll build your understanding
of and relationship with your bird as you build a repertoire of tricks.
You can get your parrot to jump through hoops for you--literally!
Tani Robar
is a professional animal trainer who has spent years training
performing animals and teaching others to train their animals. She has
been acclaimed for her ability to develop and perfect unique training
methods that allow her students to teach their pets an almost unlimited
variety of skills and behaviors. For the last fifteen years Tani has
been putting on bird shows, giving lectures, and helping others to teach
their birds to do tricks. Besides appearing on TV and writing articles
on bird training, she has produced four videos/DVDs to help people
visualize how to teach their parrots a variety of skills and tricks.
These videos are sold internationally. She recently appeared three times
on Animal Planet's Pet Star TV show and won the top place on one of the
segments with Cassie, her Black-headed Caique.
Tani's outstanding results are obtained by knowledge and skill, never by
cruel methods. The adoration her birds so obviously show is further
proof of the worth of this kind of training. Her performing birds are
also her companions and share her life, including sharing meals with her
and her family.
Growing up with many animals, Tani found that the most interesting part
of owning animals was training them. The first pets she can remember
were bantam chickens, which she carried around with her, taught to come
when called, and trained to pick at spiders discovered in the house.
Soon the neighborhood dogs were coming when she called and were
performing simple tricks she taught them.
Finally she got her own dog, a pint-size, wire-haired fox terrier, and
they became inseparable companions. She started honing her skills, and
soon the dog was performing an amazing number of tricks. She won her
first contest at age seven showing all the tricks her dog could do at a
pet competition. She never looked back. She has trained enumerable
animals since then and won many prizes.
Diane Grindol grew up in Rolling Meadows, Illinois. She met a
male cockatiel named Clement when she moved to Monterey, California,
in 1982 and within a couple weeks acquired her own normal gray hen,
which turned out to be a life-altering event. Dacey lived for
twenty-two years and added her wisdom to many projects.
Diane
wrote a pet column for the American Cockatiel Society for six years
and produced a set of videos about Cockatiel care and breeding in
1988. She founded the Monterey Bay Cage Bird Club and was its program
coordinator for ten years. She edited and published a companion bird
journal, Bird World, for two years.
Diane traveled to
Guatemala in 1993 with a UC Davis field biologist to observe parrots
in the wild, an inspiring and treasured experience in her bird life.
Since 1996 Diane has coordinated companion bird seminars in
California, Seattle, and Chicago.
She frequently speaks to bird
clubs and at national conventions or seminars. Since 1995 Diane has
written a column for Bird Talk Magazine. She currently is the
Web editor of BirdChannel. com for BowTie, Inc. Her other books
include The Complete Book of Cockatiels, Cockatiels For Dummies,
Birds Off The Perch, and Teaching Your Bird to Talk.
Diane lives on the Monterey Peninsula, California, and shares her life
with a small flock of Cockatiels, a Blue-headed Pionus parrot, and a
guinea pig.
