Day Three: Okay, I get it. Follow the stick.

Mom got up before dad today and gave me breakfast so when Dad came down with the stick I wasn't really interested in playing any games.

Dad took my bowl away though 2 hours later. I tried begging for treats throughout the day. I did all my human-calls, but mostly the three that seem to have gotten me nuts most often in the past; "Hello", "How are you" and "I love you". Mom gave me a nut once. That was nice, but it wore off so I was pretty hungry around dinner when Dad showed up with more orange and the stick.

I'm a smart bird! I have this all figured out. Wherever dad put the stick, I went there and grabbed it, and i got a click and some orange! Dad even tried to fool me by putting the stick out at the end of the open door of my cage but I climbed down from the top and got it anyway!

I could have done this all night, but after Dad and me went through most of an orange, he got tired and brought my food bowl.

Jeff Comments:

Its day 3 and Pickles is right on schedule. He missed his morning training but this evening he clearly had the idea down. I decided to quit on high note while he was still enjoying it rather then pushing it til he started getting bored or grumpy.

To celebrate tonight we are buying as bird scale and Ill see if I can use the stick to get him to step up on it this weekend.

This weekend I'm also thinking I'll start training my wife to "play the stick game" (my part not Pickles part) so she can keep him practicing while I'm away on business.

Day One: That's odd.

Last night, my food bowl mysteriously vanished a few hours after dinner.

I didn't think too much of it til the next morning, but I woke up hungry. At least I think it was hunger. I've never really experienced this before.

It wasn't nice. I started shouting for mom and dad to bring me food shortly after sunrise.

At about 9am Dad came down in his pajamas. That was surprising too. I don't think I've ever seen him in his pajamas outside of mom and dad's nest. Anyway he made nice noises but didnt bring me food. Instead, he put a stick in my cage. I didn't like the stick so I made like I was going to bite it. When my beak touched the stick there was this strange click noise and Dad said I was a good bird and gave me something dry that tasted like banana. I don't like dry food so I put it in my water dish.

A minute or two the stick came back and I did the same thing and the same thing happened but I got something else that was dry and unappetizing and I dropped it. (Jeff comments: This was a dried raspberry.)

At this point Dad put down the stick and brought my food bowl back. I ate happily.

In the afternoon the same thing happened- my bowl went away again! Just before dinner Dad showed up with the stick and something orange. I could smell from my perch ontop of my cage that this was good stuff.

Dad stuck the stick at me, I tapped it with my beak, and he told me I was a good bird and gave me some of the orange stuff... a little peice of juicy orange! Yum! I also heard that odd click again.

Dad did this about a dozen times. I tried ignoring the stick, and I didn't get anything. I tried just saying "hello" and that didn't work either. But when i touched or bit the end of the stick, I got an orange peice! What a weird game!

After about two-thirds of the orange was gone I was getting tired of this game and stopped playing. Dad tried a few more times, then brought my food bowl back.

Later, I did "sleepy bird" and he gave me a nut.

What a weird day!

Jeff Comments:

What I have Pickles on now is called a "training diet." He gets his food bowl in the morning to eat and again in the evening but doesn't get to "graze" during the day. Dave Womach recommends a few hours of food availability morning and night but I'm working Pickles back to that gradually so he has it for more like 4 or 5 hours for breakfast and dinner.

The first training treat I tried was dry fruit. This would have been convenient but Pickles doesn't seem to like it much. Certainly not enough to motivate his actions. Also, his tendency to "dunk" dry things makes immediate repetition difficult. This evening I switched to fresh fruit which seems to work well for him, cut into "treat size" pieces.

The exercise we are doing is called "target training." The point is to get him to know that he is expected to touch his beak to the stick. Then to lead him to places using the stick.

The "click noise" Pickles mentions is a training clicker. Its very useful for early training because it is a very distinct sound that an animal can learn very quickly to associate with "that's right."

Introduction

Greetings and Welcome to Pickle's Blog

I'm Jeff Kesselman and I'm Pickles' owner, father, trainer and ghost-writer. Pickles and I have been together for about 5 years.

Today, however, Pickles and I have started the first step of a new journey together. He has always been a friend and companion, and a very good bird, but he's never been formally trained. Today, we began the first day of a training regime intended to eventually make him part of my magic act as well as being a more manageable bird (not that he's bad now) and giving us more ways to enjoy each other's company.

He and I are both new at this. My training as a trainer is coming from the highly respected Dave Womach series of training DVDs. I thought it would be fun to try to chronicle it from Pickles' point of view.