Riley is my Congo African Grey parrot. He’s about 6 years old and VERY smart!
When he first came to live with me, he was a terrible biter — you could not put your hand near him without his trying to take a chunk out of it. Forget petting him! He’d been living with a family that had 8 children and was literally terrified of hands! With some positive reinforcement behavior modification training (more commonly known as clicker training), I’ve managed to overcome that fear and teach him some fun tricks.
For example, he will pick out colored beads from a cup. You tell him what color bead to choose and he’ll pull it out of the cup and put it in your hand. He’s learning now to use doll baby furniture as props for other tricks — he’ll say “good night. sweet dreams”, go stand next to the bed and say “now I lay me down to sleep” with his head lowered as if in prayer. He’s so much fun to train!
He talks quite a bit and seems to know when to say the right things. In the mornings, he’ll ask for breakfast, he tells my husband “I love you” in this syrupy sweet voice that draws out the word love. He will wolf whistle, then say “OY! Chihuahua!”. He laughs when you do and greets all my visitors with a cheery “Hello! How are you?”
I have to be really creative with him any more as he loves to learn new things. Something I want to teach him to do is to put the baby doll in one of the baby cribs and cover it with a blanket.
Still, I respect that beak and do all in my power to avoid putting him in a position where he feels he must bite in order to protect himself. I never use any kind of force on him. He’s learned to step up when asked and allows me to trim his toenails and give him baths. A far cry from the fearful bird he once was.
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