I want to mention this book because I have read it and it does relate to parrot training - I don't want to review it, just give a few facts.
- Tani Robar has trained parrots for a long time
- She has several parrot training videos available
- The book says that clicker training is slower than her methods and that using a bridging marker is useless.
- Her methods include physical manipulation of the bird through movements that the bird will not like (at first?).
Here is one quote:
- "Your bird may not like being touched in certain areas, but do so gently anyway." (page 21)
Here are a few quotes from the section on clicker training:
-
"It is an extra step that really slows down your training."
-
"I have tested it and I know it slows you down."
-
"No bridge is needed because no time gap exists between the correct action and the reward."
-
"Clicker training enthusiasts like to say that the conventional way of using a praise word, in my case "good" or some form of it, makes that method the same as the clicker method, just substituting the click. It is not the same at all! My "good" or similar words of praise do not stop the action but merely tell the bird he is doing what I want."
-
"True clicker trainers say that they prefer to add the cues after the trick is learned. Again, that is just adding an extra step."
-
"A bridge signal to mark a correct response and to "fill in the gap" between a behavior and a reward is unimportant, which was illustrated when I attended a week long clicker training class given by Bob and Marion Bailey (prior to her death) at their chicken training camp in Arkansas….I found that it didn't make a bit of difference whether we clicked or not….Whether you clicked or not made absolutely no difference."
That is what it says. Read the books from my essential list, this isn't one of them. Read Melinda Johnson, Barbara Heidenreich, Karen Pryor, and Robin Deutsch.
