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Clicking with Birds

Join this great online list and find out how to clicker train your parrot or other bird. Here's a message from Melinda Johnson, the author of our book on clicking birds, Clicker Training for Birds. Yes! Clicker training works for birds too. Birds were among the first animals ever to be trained by B.F. Skinner and his assistants.

Come Back, But Don't Come Down: Advanced Exercise in Cueing

"Tell me this," said the Old Falconer, rocking back on his heels a little. "I want my bird to come back to me when she's too far away; but I want her to come back AND to stay up in the air. If I give her your click signal for coming back, she's got to come down to me to get her reward, right? So how can I do that and still get her to stay overhead?" And he glared at me with "Gotcha!" in his eyes.

Falconry and Modern Operant Conditioning

In the last five years, since training thousands of people, mostly dog owners, to use operant conditioning creatively, I've come to be aware that the conditioned reinforcer is much more important and useful than I knew, and that it has many functions besides telling the animal it's earned a treat. All of these functions can apply in falconry to make your life easier, your bird happier, your control more reliable, and your hunting and other interactions more successful and enjoyable.