Clicker training parrots ~ Charging the clicker

One of my pet peeves when training any animal is people rushing into clicker training. The most important thing to do is never push your animal! A really valuable aspect when you're clicker training is to charge the clicker. Charging the clicker basically means to give the clicker itself value, make the animal want to work with it. I'm going to be talking here about starting from scratch, a completely hands off bird. I will be using my orange winged Amazon parrot, Clyde, as an example throughout. Clyde was a rehome who came to me after he had 5 homes in 2 months, goodness knows how many he had had before then! He has plucked severely and gained a lot of fear towards people. You could see how badly he wanted to be a part of the family but didn't quite know how to get there. Through clicker training we managed to come very far

Giving the clicker value is simple. Food, toys, cuddles etc. Whatever it is that your bird desires the most! 

By now you should already know what your birds favourite food is and I hope you found out through reading the previous blog post. What you're going to do is you're going to get a shallow dish and fill it with more than enough treats for a training session*. Have your bird on top of his/her cage or stand or whatever. Click your clicker and offer them the bowl swiftly (but not too quick so you startle them). If you've been sticking to a feeding regime, you should have little trouble getting them to eat from the dish. Do it again. Click and treat. If you're using fuss or toys then use them in the same way

* Only make your training sessions about 2-3 minutes long. Your bird will lose interest if you make them work at the same thing for too long *

Clyde working for some dehydrated papaya

The idea is that the bird will associate the click with getting a treat. A good way to see if your bird has gotten the hang of it is to click but don't give them a treat. If they're anticipating it, or looking for it, then you know you can move on to the next step. If your bird isn't overly interested yet then don't be too disheartened. Keep it up and they will eventually catch on. The clicker is a valuable tool!


Your bird should be becoming more and more confident taking food from the bowl for a reward so as long as you feel they are ready you can take it up a notch. Show the bowl with the food in, but click and slowly offer the bird a treat from between your fingers. It may take a long time to pick up on but eventually your bird will trust you enough to take the plunge if they're really wanting that treat!

Will do anything for a sunflower seed!

In the next blog post I will be introducing target training, as well as writing separate blog posts on how to end a training session and how to get a fearful bird out of their cage