Getting Started: Key Principles To Getting Your Parrot Trained

Congratulations on getting your hands on the most advanced trick training manual ever

produced! While there have been some great parrot trainers in the past, whose parrots

could do amazing things. There has never been an attempt to train the average parrot

owner how simple training even the most advanced tricks can be.

                                                        

As you’re probably well aware, my brother Dave and I started Birdtrickscom late in

2003 while we were still living in our parent’s basement. And from day one we’ve

founded our business on one main principle. That if we’re having a problem with our

own parrots, there must be thousands of other people in the world struggling with the

same problem; so we vowed to continue creating training materials to help people

overcome their pan'ot’s problems.

We’ve come a long way from those humble beginnings, but word has spread and as I sit

at my keyboard tying these words, we’ve now sold to over 12,000 customers world

wide, and continue to grow monthly.

We’re no longer the small business I started long ago to help me make a few extra

dollars so I could quit my window washingjob, but now a beacon of light for thousands

struggling with their parrot’s behavior problems.

Pushing The Envelope In Parrot Training

Dave and I are proud to say that our other best selling courses which can be found at

httg://www.birdtricks.c0m are truly a perfected system for getting ANY parrot to stop

biting; in fact many consider that course the Bible of parrot training.

The course became so popular so quickly though that it caused a whole new unexpected

problem, or should I say opportunity.

Here we were helping people develop a relationship with their parrots, get them to stop

biting, stop the annoying screaming and become loving cuddly members of the family,

but we had nothing else to offer people to help them continue training and developing

their parrots.

To contrast, the dog community has thousands of books, videos, newsletters magazines,

and even dog sporting events and competitions to provide dog enthusiasts with a way to

maximize their relationships with their dogs.

Here’s just a short list off the top of my head:

• ·         Dog Agility
• ·         Dog Water Jumping
• ·         Dog Frisbee
• ·         Herding competitions for the working breeds

And I’m sure l’ve leaving dozens of other categories out of the picture!

These events are GREAT ways for dog lovers to get together and share the passions and

talents of their dogs with the rest of the world. And it got me to thinking; it’s a bummer

the parrot industry doesn’t have these kinds of events.

But If You’ll Follow My Step-By-Step Instructions In This

Course, You Can Help Us Gain Some Ground On The Dog

Training Industry.

And that’s the reason I’ve created this course, and plan to continue to create newer and

more advanced versions of these trick training courses in the future. Because wouldn’t

it be great to one day hold parrot competitions, maybe even televised on TV where

parrots and their owners battle against each other to see who can master the art of

teaching a parrot to perform the best.

Maybe it’s a pipe dream of mine, and maybe it will never come true, but I still think I

can do a lot of good for a lot of parrots and their owners by creating extremely advanced

trick training routines, designed to teach principles of animal communication.

The more you’re able to communicate with your parrot the better his relationship with

you will be.

So in writing out my mind map of what I wanted to convey to you in this course, I

decided to come up with trick training routines that are above and beyond anything

you’ve ever seen before.

These routines are designed to test, and hone your skills as a parrot trainer. You’ll need

to pay strict attention to the tiny details, while still keeping the basic principles and

strategies in mind.

There are no shortcuts to training these tricks and trying to blaze your own trail and

create one will only end up frustrating you, and turning you into one of those people I

hate... those who give up training their parrot, send this training kit back to me, and

demand that I give them a refund, because my training methods don’t work on their

bird.

Wrong! My methods will work on your bird. The training principles are tried, tested,

and proven to work time and time again. And to put it bluntly, if these methods don’t

work for you, then you aren’t very good at following directions.

How I Got Started In Parrot Training

You may be thinking to yourself, who is this Chet Womach guy to tell me all of this

advice about training parrots? Didn’t he just say he was washing windows? What does

he know about parrots?

These questions are fair enough, and before we dive into the material in this course, I

want to point out to you why you’re at a distinct advantage learning from a guy like me.

And to do so I think I need to share a bit ofmy story with you...

I was born and raised in Spokane, Washington to parents that had never owned parrots

in their lives. And like so many folks do, one day while we were on vacation in Seattle

Washington, we walked into a pet shop and fell in love with a Blue and Gold Macaw

named Tiko.

I did my little song and dance as best an 8 year old could, and convinced my parrots that

buying this bird would be the coolest thing ever! They reluctantly obliged.

So we had become the owners of a baby Blue and Gold, hand fed Macaw. Like most

parrots, he was the cutest cuddliest little bird you’ve ever seen. He didn’t bite, scream

or pluck feathers. All he wanted to do was play with you. That is of course... before he

hit puberty!

And then just like that, he turned mean. It was like somebody flipped a switch. One

day he was a happy, cuddly parrot, the next day no one could touch him.

So we did like so many parrot owners did, we left him alone. Sure he still got plenty of

healthy food, he got let out ofhis cage to play, and he had lots of toys. But as far as

human interaction goes, it was VERY minimal.

I won’t go on and tell you about the other birds my parents then Went on to buy or how

each and every one of them ended up the same way after five years, mean.

How I Magically Got The Idea To Become A Bird Trainer

Let’s fast forward now from when I was 8 years old, to the year 2003, whenl was in my

very early 20’s and still living at home. Yes that’s right, I’m ashamed to admit it, but I

had dropped out of college, and was struggling to figure out a way to make a living. So

there I was moved back into my parent’s basement, struggling to make enough money to

pay bills.

So I had picked up window washing job working for a friend of mine. But he was never

able to get me enough work to work full-time, and I was racking my brain for a solution

to my money woes.

My brother was an up and coming professional magician at the time, a true talent, even

though he was still in high school. He was bringing in more income than most of his

teachers by the time he was a Junior and was hell bent on making his living performing

magic. And he had a bird...

So there I was needing an extra $100 bucks to pay a credit card bill I had foolishly

racked up, and thought to myself, “I wonder if my brother Dave would pay me to train

his bird to do some tricks in his magic show?”

I had never trained a parrot before, but my brother had bought some videos that claimed

to teach people how to train their parrots to do tricks. So I just figured, I’d watch the

tapes, follow the instructions to the “T” and in a week or two DaVe’s bird would be

trained, and I’d have an extra hundred bucks!

But things didn’t quite work out that way. ..

Instead of finding out how to train our evil biting birds how to perfonn tricks, I

proceeded to watch training video after training video, on professional parrot trainers

claiming to show you the secret to training my bird how to perform tricks.

And to give credit where credit is due, the birds on these tapes were amazing! They

were so well trained that one of them had been trained to jump off the roof of the

Tropicana hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada and land on his owner’s hand, hundreds of feet

below. It was very impressive.

However every video I watched made the same fatal flaw. .. they were great at showing

tame parrots how to do tricks, but failed miserably at showing me how to get my mean

pan‘ot to do tricks. Because obviously a mean parrot behaves differently than a well

trained and VERY tame parrot.

So I was left with a bird that I couldn’t figure out how to train and I was still short on

cash.

Thus Began My Search For The ‘Magic Formula’ For Training Parrots

I won’t bore you with all the details, but to keep a VERY long story, VERY short, I did

more research than any human being should ever be forced to do, bought every course,

video, and manuscript EVER written or created on parrot training and decided I’d try it

all on my parrot, and see what worked.

The problem was that if you try to do this yourself, you’ll find that you get tons of

conflicting advice. Some people say one thing, and then somebody else refutes it as

foolishness somewhere else. So the only option left was to try it on my birds and see

what worked.

And that’s what we did. With the result being our best selling course that has now sold

over 12,000 copies called “Taming, Training & Tricks” for parrots. And can be found

at http://www.birdtricks.com

But I’m not here to talk much about that course, except to use it as an example of what

we’ve been able to produce. I am just a normal guy, who was a once broke window

washer, who applied himself to learning everything about parrot training and achieved

some great results.

However, the story doesn’t stop there. I became addicted to the joy that I received from

training an animal a new behavior for the first time. Seeing them during the very second

they go from not understanding to understanding is remarkable, rewarding, and worth

pursuing. I only hope that I can help you experience that same joy with your bird.

My brother needed more and more birds trained for his magic show and it got to the

point where I started to get very good at training. And started to specialize in training

parrots to do REALLY amazing things. In fact l’ve even been offered as much as

$6,000 to work with peoples bird’s for a month.

Dave’s business also grew. Dave took those trained birds and started getting invited to

take his show on the road with major companies like Disney, Princess Cruise Lines and

a whole host of others too many to list.

And that brings us to the here and now and why I’ve decided to once again, sit down at

my keyboard till my wrists ache and my finger tips get sore, compiling another parrot

training course.

This course is not a course for beginners. It’s not going to teach you how to stop your

birdie from biting you. And if you’re struggle to get your bird to step up when you

want, or if he is still screaming for your attention then I encourage you to get your hands

on my main “Taming, Training & Tricks Course” and save this course for when you and

yoru bird are really ready to tackle training.

Even though this course isn’t designed to stop your bird from biting, you will find that

in addition to being able to train your bird to do things you once thought impossible, his

behavior and admiration for you will grow with every minute you spend studying and

applying the techniques taught in this course into the daily training routines of your bird. A bird well trained, is a friend for life.

 

Quick Coverage Of Basics You Can’t Afford To Ignore

There are some basic principles that you need to understand before accomplishing these

advanced tricks, which I feel it’s necessary to go over, even if you think you already

know the basics. Please take the time to read through this section it will make the trick

training sessions significantly easier on both you and your bird and you’ll be sure to get

the most satisfaction out of this course.

I included this section for one may reason... you may be able to get away with poor

clicker reinforcement, poor food motivators and sloppy cues, and cue phasing while

training your bird to do something simple like wave, but poor technique just isn’t going

to cut it on these tricks.

I urge you to not think you’re above this section of the course. Do not think you know it

all, as I know for a fact that most people do not fully grasp the principles that I’m about

to share.

There’s always a flow of new video testimonials coming into my office, and they

usually have parrot owners showing my how their bird can now perform tricks, and I

love them and think they’re great!

But it would blow your mind to realize how bad these people’s techniques are and how

much harder they are making t1'aining for their birds by not following instructions to the

“T”

So here is the list of things we’ll cover in this section that are the core necessities of

advanced trick training:

• ·         Setting up a training diet
• ·         How to use a training clicker — to catch slight progressive behaviors
• ·         Adding, phasing out, and changing of cues
• ·         Techniques for strengthening behaviors
• ·         Variable reward techniques
• ·         “Core” tricks your bird needs to know first
• ·         Targeting not just for beak, but feet and wings too!

Even if you’ve been a customer of mine for long, I can say with pretty high certainty

that you’ve never heard me talk about these principles, because up until now, you’ve

never really needed them. But now that you’ve decided to take your trick training to a

new level, tnist me they’ll be very useful strategies that you’ll soon learn you can’t live

without.