Why We
Recommend Using A Clicker — And How To Use It Correctly
When my brother and I first got out start in parrot
training, we were unaware of what is
now widely known of as “clicker training” but boy has it
changed our lives and the lives
of our birds. It is a vital tool in any bird training.
Not using clicker training may be ok for training smaller,
cuter tricks like the wave and
fetch. . .but you’ll find that you need a much better
method, a method that’s less sloppy
and more precise for training tricks like, how to ride a
bike, or riding the roller skates
etc. In order to get your bird to be well trained from the
beginning we recommend
clicker training him from the start.
But to understand why this is so important I need to make
sure you are well aware of the
ins and outs of what clicker training is, and more
specifically the theories behind
positive reinforcement.
Many of my clients are avid readers of my monthly email
newsletters, and if you are one
of those who have read everything I’ve ever sent you in an
email, then much of this will
be review.
However, I recommend you still read this section as l’ll be
discussing some advanced
concepts that I’ve never taught before.
What Is Positive Reinforcement?
Positive
reinforcement was first discovered and studied by a Dr. Skinner. Dr. Skinner
was a
scientist who experimented with lab rats and made some very revolutionary
discoveries
that opened up the world to methods of communicating with animals to get
them to do
things, without beating, whipping, shouting or forcing them anymore.
Sadly, many
animal trainers still train this way. In fact right now there is a lot of
debate
in the dog
community between old school ‘man handling’ type of training, and the new
school of
thought on positive reinforcement.
This debate
is not nearly as violent in the parrot community because of the nature of
parrots.
Parrots as ofyet, have not been domesticated, and don’t seem to show the level
of loyalty,
regret shame or fear that dogs show.
For example
a dog will feel bad for disobeying his owner, while a parrot will not.
For this
reason alone, positive reinforcement has been a HUGE breakthrough for parrot
owners,
because past attempts at negative reinforcement, where the parrot is punished
for biting,
or screaming, have been irrefutably proven to work minimally at best, and
only with a
small percentage of parrots.
But let’s
get back to Dr. Skinner...
What Dr.
Skinner set out to discover, was to see if he could influence a rat to perform a
designated
behavior without forcing it upon the rat.
He did that
by placing a rat in a container with nothing in the container but a feeding
mechanism.
This feeding mechanism was hooked to a remote that allowed Dr. Skinner
to hit a
button on his remote, and automatically have a pellet of food dropped into the
rat’s cage
from the feeding mechanism.
And to
point out another important, but subtle fact... when a pellet dropped, it made
a
clicking
sound, when it hit the metal food dish after falling from the feeder. I’ll get
to
why this is
important a little later on.
Dr.
Skinners end goal was to take a hungry rat, and see if he could train that rat
to press
a lever in
the rat’s cage that would automatically trigger the dispensing of a food
pellet.
This was a
very advanced behavior at the time, and extremely cutting edge. And now is
the basis
of all training that you see done at Sea World and hundreds of other animal
shows
around the world.
The plan
that was so ingenious at the time, was that Dr. Skinner would reward EVERY
and ANY
small progress the rat made towards the end result of pressing a food
dispensing
lever in it’s cage with it’s paw, until the goal was achieved.
But to do
this Skinner had to set goals for the Rat, and set them in reverse order.
He started
with writing out an exact description of what he wanted his rat to do, and
then worked
backwards from there.
For
example, Dr. Skinner probably wrote something along the lines of “The rat will
approach
the lever, place one paw on the lever, and then press down on the lever to
release the
pellet”.
Then he
needed to think of what he would need to train the rat to do immediately before
pressing on
the lever. And if you think about it, the task that needs to be done right
before that
is you’ve got to get the rat to come stand near the dispenser with his foot
really
close to that lever.
And before
that you’ve got to get the rat to walk all the way over from the other side of
the cage,
to stand by the lever.
And even
before that, you’ve got to get the rat to look at the lever, right?
So that’s
exactly what Dr. Skinner did.
At first
the rats had no concern for the feeder in their cage. And why should they?
They’d
never seen it before, and had no idea what it did. So the rat would wander
around the
sides of the cage, sniffing in the cracks and doing whatever rats to in a cage
by
themselves.
So Dr.
Skinner decided that he would reward the rat for any movements made that
helped the
rat get closer to the end goal in mind; pressing on that lcvcr. And instead of
punishing
the rat for a wrong behavior that led it away from the lever, Dr. Skinner
planned on
simply ignoring those behaviors. With the theory that if I just reward the rat
for every
small improvement towards pressing that lever, maybe he’ll actually do it.
And he was
right!
Then Dr.
Skinner sat and waited for the rat to at least look at the feeder. It probably
took
several minutes, but when the rat finally did... “click” a food pellet was
dropped
from the
food dispenser and landed in the rat’s dish.
This got
the immediate attention of the rat, which ran over and hungrily munched on the
pellet he’d
been longing for. And before long, the hungry rat realized that all he had to
do was look
at his feeding dispenser and magically a food pellet would appear.
Proving
that any behavior continually rewarded with positive behavior would be
reinforced,
and continued to be performed by the animal. And any other behavior
ignored,
i.e. not looking at the feeder, would be slowly discontinued in a given set of
circumstances.
In this case, if the rat was hungry, he stopped searching around the
corners of
his cage, because that NEVER produced a food pellet; the rat realized it was a
futile
effort and discontinued that behavior.
Thus
positive reinforcement for animals was born!
But how
does positive reinforcement work? That’s a question that may seem obvious,
but needs
to be explored deeper to really fully comprehend.
Sure, it’s
easy to understand why an animal would do something that it kept getting
rewarded
for. But how can we apply these same principles to more intricate and
advanced
behaviors.
To figure
this out, I want to remind you of what happened the second the rat in Dr.
Skinner’s
cage did a correct behavior that brought it closer to its goals. What happened
when the
rat performed correctly?
If you
said, he got a pellet, you’re only half right, and misses the most important
part
about Dr.
Skir1ner’s findings. The very first thing that happened, is a pellet was
released
from the
feeding mechanism and made a “click” sound by clanking against the food dish
in the
rat’s cage.
This noise
was the first signal to the rat that it had done a behavior correctly, and had
earned a
reward. This clicking sound is vital to understand. So I want you to think
about what would
be going through the rat’s head if the pellet didn’t make a clicking
sound, and
let’s say instead, Dr. Skinner silently dropped a food pellet into the cage
with
ever good
behavior.
The rat,
upon performing like Dr. Skinner would wish, would then see a hand come out
of the sky,
and place the food pellet into the cage, and then move the hand away. Then,
after the
rat was sure the hand wasn’t going to come after him would run over to the
pellet and
feast on it.
But did
that teach the rat anything? In order for the rat to know what behavior he did
correctly,
it needs to be sharply identified, and if it’s not sharply identified, the rat
will
only think
of the last behavior it performed as earning it the reward.
In the ease
of this example, it was probably running away from Dr. Skinners hand when
it came
into the cage, out of fear. So if Dr. Skinner would have chosen to perform his
experiments
this way, he would have been training the rat to run from his hand, instead
of training
the rat to touch the feeding lever! This is crucial you understand.
That’s why
the “clicking” sound of the food pellet hitting the rat’s food bowl is so
impoitant.
Because it happens at almost the exact instant the rat performs a correct
behavior.
Giving the rat ‘instant’ notification that it’s just done somethin g correctly.
This is
known in the training world as a “Bridge”. The Definition of a “Bridge” is a
sound,
noise, or signal of any form that notifies the animal that it’s done a behavior
correctly,
and then bridges the gap, between that instant, and the time it takes to
distribute
the reward, usually food, to the animal.
It is
almost like the reward itself, but more distinctly, it is a notification to the
animal
that a
reward is guaranteed.
In the next
section we’ll talk about how to best use these same principles to
communicate
with your parrot while training, as well as discuss some of the VERY
common
mistakes I see people make all the time, that cause them to unknowingly
sabotage
themselves and their progress before they even begin.
How To Use The Training Clicker To Train Your Parrot
Now that
you understand the importance that a bridge signal plays in animal training
let’s talk
about how we’ll be using it on your parrot.
There are
only 2 basic fundamentals we need to talk about, when it comes to actually
using the
clicker, and l’ve listed them here for you:
1. How to
hold the clicker — Not knowing this will have you feeling like you need 6
hands to be
a parrot trainer. You’ll find that from time to time you’ll have to
hold a
prop, treats, lure your bird, hold your parrot, and move a part of his body
all at the
same time. So knowing how to hold the clicker is important.
2. The
appropriate time to click — messing this part up can really confuse your
parrot.
First let’s
dive into how to hold the clicker. Maybe you think this sounds silly, and
obvious,
but trust me it’s not. Your hands can get very fiill, especially when dealing
with props.
Sometimes both of your feet need to be holding a pair of roller skates, and
you still
have to find a way to click the clicker while still holding the roller skates;
it can
be a hard
task.
So l’ve
included a picture for you that should help show you how to hold the clicker. I
spent about
an hour trying to first write out a description that I thought would help you
grasp these
clicker holding techniques, but gave up once I realized you could grasp in 2
seconds by
looking at a picture, what I was trying to spend an hour describing in words.
When To Click
Timing is
critical for your parrot. You need to realize that your parrot doesn’t
understand
what you want him to do. lt may sound obvious, but he doesn’t.
If you want
your bird to wiggle his left toe when he waves, instead of his right toe, then
you need to
make sure you practice and develop a consistent clicking style.
By this I
mean that you need to try to click the very instant your parrot has made enough
progress
towards the goal you want him to reach. You can’t get sloppy and click too
late, or
too early and you must always think of clicking from your bird’s perspective.
Remember,
we will be training your parrot to recognize the clicking sound of the clicker
as the
signal you give him at the exact moment he’s done something correctly.
So for
example, let’s say your parrot is learning the Roller Skating routine later in
this
course, and
he’s just started to move one of the skates forward for his first full glide.
But instead
of clicking the second he completes the glide, you wait an extra half second,
and during
that half second the bird accidentally twists the skate to the side.
What have
you communicated to your bird? You’ve sig11aled to him that the correct
behavior is
to take a full glide on the roller skates, and twist the skate at the end of
the
movement!
So now you’ll have to retrain that behavior through extinction techniques
we’ll talk
about later in this course, before you can get your bird back to where he’d
progressed
to.
Lazy,
imprecise clicking, will force you to focus much of your efforts on re-training
your
parrot.
To help you
sharpen your clicking skills, I highly recommend this activity that can be
done with a
partner. (A human partner.)
How To Sharpen Your Clicking Skills
In this
exercise you’re going to work with a friend of yours to hone your clicking
skills.
lt’s a lot
of fun, and if you feel stupid about doing it, grab a young kid and have them
play along,
they’ll love it, and you’ll get to practice without looking silly.
lt’s
important that you grab a person that has never played this exercise and ONLY
tell
them this
one rule.
Tell
them... “The goal of this game is to work for clicks.”
That’s it!
Don’t tell them anything else. lt’s likely that the person will ask you for
more
details.
But always respond by saying, “all I can tell you is that the goal of the game
is
to work for
chcks.”
The reason
this can be the only thing you tell the person playing the game with you, is
because my
goal from teaching you this game is to teach you what it’s like to train an
animal more
effectively.
And when
you first start training your parrot, he won’t know the rules of the game
either. In
fact, your parrot doesn’t even know as much as the person you’re playing this
game with.
Because your parrot doesn’t know that the name of the game is to earn
clicks. We
still have to teach him that. But more on that later.
The point
that I’m trying to teach you is how to train a living being to do something in
a
completely
different way than you are used to. This game takes away all of the ways
you can
cheat, and only gives you one way to communicate; with a clicker.
You can’t
give little hints, you can’t point to things, and you probably shouldn’t use
facial
expressions either. Only use the clicker!
What do you
use the clicker for? Good question. Here’s how the game works.
Start in a
room with the partner you’ve chosen to play this game with. And in your head
think of
something you’d like to get your partner to do. It could be anything. Maybe
you want to
get them to walk over to the TV and turn it on. Or maybe you want them to
walk over
to the refrigerator, grab a gallon of milk, pour you a glass and bring it to
you.
Whatever it
is, it doesn’t matter. It just has to be something that is within the physical
limitations
of your partner.
But here’s
the catch. Your only means of telling you partner what task you want them to
do, is by
clicking the clicker.
This forces
you to think like Dr. Skinner and the rat he wanted to train to touch the lever
on its food
bowl. You need to think of small progressive movements you’d like your
partner to
perform, gradually reward him, and tell him that he’s moving in the right
direction
by clicking every time he makes progress toward the end goal.
For
example, if you’re wanting to try the getting you a glass of milk task, which I
highly
recommend,
you’ll need to first click your partner for any movement made towards a
glass in
the cupboard.
Keep in
mind that your partner has no idea of the task he’s supposed to do, and you’ll
be
forced to
be very clear, and precise with your ‘clicking’ to make sure he doesn’t get
confused.
Remember,
‘click’ every time he moves towards your goal, and completely ignore any
actions not
moving towards the goal. Soon he’ll realize that you’re shaping his path
towards a
desired action or goal. But be patient, because it could take him a few
minutes to
understand what’s earning him the clicks. Just like your bird won’t
understand
what the clicks mean in the beginning either.
You’ll also
notice that the game gets a lot harder when you have someone do more
specific
tasks. For example once you’ve got your friend to grab the milk out of the
fridge,
you’ll have to think of ways to click and reward your friend for tipping the
milk
jug, into
the corresponding glass.
So remember
to click for small movements. Just like you’ll be forced to reward your
bird for
small movements, your friend will need the same. Even a slight tipping of the
milk jug
towards a tipping over motion, even if its just an inch, is progress towards
the
end goal,
so remember to ‘click’ him for it and all other progress, until the game is
complete
and the task has been accomplished.
Half Of My Students Don’t Do This Exercise, And Their Training Skills
Suck! S0 Don’t Skip It!
As you can
probably tell by this last little headline... I don’t write to please, I write
to
help people
train their parrots better, and sometimes that means telling it like it is. And
the truth of
the matter is —- clicking takes practice. Those that don’t practice will
struggle.
l know this
because about a month ago I ran a contest. I decided to reward people by
entering
their name into a drawing for some cool prizes, if they’d send me a video of
them
training their parrot.
And
although this was a fun contest to run and I received lots of great videos, I
also
found that
people were not following my training instructions clearly. They were
clicking
the clicker at the completely wrong time. Sometimes they’d wait 10 seconds
before
clicking, or they’d click after they’d rewarded the bird with a treat for doing
a
behavior.
I could
tell the birds were completely confused, and it was nothing short of an act of
God that
they were ever able to teach their birds anything. It’s sort of like the
frustrating
people who send back my videos telling me that my methods don’t work...
but after
examining the package they returned, I notice that the clicker was never even
taken out
of the plastic wrap! I wonder how well
they could have possibly
followed my
instructions without even trying to use the clicker.
So from
then on I’ve decided to change up my writing style to dive straight to the
point,
and not
pull any punches. l’ve discovered that if you don’t tell people exactly what
they
need to do,
why they need to do it, and what will go wrong if they don’t follow my
instructions,
they’ll get a wild hair up their “you know what” and make up the rules as
they go.
That’s why
this game is important. Because you need to realize that if the bird isn’t
doing what
you want it to do, it is NOT the bird’s fault. Just like it isn’t your friends
fault for
not knowing that he’s supposed to poor you a glass of milk out of the
refrigerator.
It’s your
fault. And the only way to fix it is to be more precise. Pay attention to
clicking at
the right times, and make as few mistakes as possible. Because the clicker is
your only
form of communication, you should treat it with respect, it’s the only way to
see
training success.
Some Common Mistakes I See With The Clicker
I’ve
already mentioned a few of the mistakes people make with the clicker, but think
it’s
important
to cover several more, so you don’t accidentally make these same mistakes.
First
Common Mistake — Clicking At The Wrong Time.
A click’s
only purpose is to immediately identify to the parrot when it’s done a correct
behavior.
The click marks the action, and signifies that a reward is in order for what it
has done at
that specific instant, and nothing else. So don’t click too early, or too late!
Second Most
Common Mistake — Clicking Too Often
I used to
make this mistake too, so I’m to blame for this as well. But you don’t need to
click more
than once. You’re bird heard the click the first time. More isn’t always
better.
Third Most
Common Mistake — Clicking and not rewarding
Don’t do
this. Don’t ever click and not reward your parrot. Even if you sound the
clicker on
accident, your bird needs to still get a reward. Here’s why: Once you’re bird
understands
that a treat is coming every time he hears that clicker, you don’t want to
confuse
your parrot by only rewarding some of the time he hears the clicker, because
you’ll ruin
your credibility with your bird.
It would be
like telling your kid that if he cleans his room, you’ll take him out for ice
cream. At
first the kid cleans his room faster than you’ve ever seen him before. But if
you promise
your kid ice cream and never actually get him the ice cream, or only give it
some of the
time, your kid’s going to wonder if he’s really going to get rewarded for
cleaning
his room. And since he’s not sure he’ll get rewarded, he’s also not sure how
fast, and
how thoroughly, he’ll clean his room.
Your parrot
is the same. He’ll stop working as hard for you, if you click him, and don’t
reward. And
for this reason, you’ll also want to make sure that you don’t make the 4"‘
most common
mistake.
Fourth Most
Common Mistake — Letting Your Kids Get A hold of the Clicker
The second
your kids get a hold of the clicker they’ll sound it off every chance they get,
and your
parrot will expect a reward for every one of those clicks. Eventually ruining
the
credibility of the click. Clicks are gold for your parrot. Don’t let your kids
ruin that.
Convincing Your Parrot To Work For ‘Clicks’
Now that
you understand why we use thc clicker, and how to sharpen your clicking
skills, you
need to condition your parrot to develop a respect and understanding of what
the clicker
is trying to communicate to him. This process is called clicker conditioning.
To
condition an animal to understand what the clicker is trying to say, we need to
pair
the sound
of the clicker with a pleasurable experience.
This can be
many things, but is usually a treat, and is made even more rewarding if it is
a treat
given before meal time to a slightly hungry bird.
When you
start this process, your bird will have no idea what’s going on, and it will be
a
couple days
before he does, so don’t worry.
First just
get your parrot and place him on a T stand or perch of some sort where it will
be easy to
give him treats. Make sure you have plenty of his treats handy, and that they
can be
easily reached. You don’t want to be fiddling with the lid on the peanut jar
when
your bird
is anxiously awaiting his treat.
Then simply
take the clicker, and ‘click’ it. Your bird will perk up, and you then give
him a
treat. Repeat this many times for several days. Many people find it helpful to
cairy a
small pouch full of treats with them all over the house, along with their
clicker.
And every
time they think of it, ‘click’, walk over to their bird’s cage and give him
another
treat.
The sole
purpose of this conditioning phase is to get the bird to realize and expect
that
every time
he hears that clicker a treat should be on its way soon. This should
eventually
get to the point, where it becomes obvious that your bird gets enthusiastic
when you
sound the clicker. It is at this point you’ve conditioned him perfectly and
you’re
ready to move onto the training.
And just to
give you another example, there was a scientist by the name of Dr. Pavlov,
who used
these same principles to train a dog to be conditioned to the sound of a dinner
bell. Dr.
Pavlov would ring the bell, and then proceed to feed the dog, for many days in
a row. And
it did not take long before the dog would start to salivate every time it heard
the bell,
because it could visualize in it’s mind the food that it was about to receive.
Again...
this is a vital step in the process of trick training and should not be
skipped.
