Answer: General Tips

• Practice in short, frequent sessions
• Use lots of positive reinforcement; never hit or scream at your bird.
• Always end your training session on a positive note — if your bird is struggling wait for a successful try, reward your bird lavishly, and move on to something else.
• Once your bird has some practice, have all members of the family practice “step up” with your bird.
• Once your bird has mastered the step up skill, practicing the step up in a relaxed and fun way is an excellent way to give lots of positive attention to your bird.

How to Teach Your Parrot to Step Down

1. Choose your command. As with stepping up, the actual word or phrase doesn’t matter, as long as you are consistent (e.g. “step down,” “down,” “off” etc.).
2. Hold your bird slightly below the level of the surface or perch you want him or her to go to, and give the command. Birds naturally want to climb to a higher surface.
3. If your bird tries to climb up your arm instead, use your free hand to intercept your bird, giving the step up command as you do this. Then, go back to the step down command and try again.
4. Once successful give lots of praise. Treats are particularly helpful for training this skill as your bird may be quite reluctant to get down if it signals the end of playtime. Reserving a special treat for the end of playtime may be helpful in training and maintaining the step down skill.

Once your bird has practiced a bit, get all family members involved in training, or your bird may only cooperate with the person who does most of the training. Remember, the key to success is to keep the training fun and positive.

Answer: General Tips

• Practice in short, frequent sessions
• Use lots of positive reinforcement; never hit or scream at your bird.
• Always end your training session on a positive note — if your bird is struggling wait for a successful try, reward your bird lavishly, and move on to something else.
• Once your bird has some practice, have all members of the family practice “step up” with your bird.
• Once your bird has mastered the step up skill, practicing the step up in a relaxed and fun way is an excellent way to give lots of positive attention to your bird.

Teaching your Bird to Step Up

1. Choose the command you will use. It doesn’t matter what word or phrase you use, but you must be consistent. Many owners just use “step up” or “up,” but you might prefer “come here,” “let’s go,” or something else.
2. If your bird is not receptive, start training in a room out of sight of your bird’s cage. Less familiar surroundings are likely to improve cooperation.
3. Pick a relaxed time with no distractions – a bird that is preening or eating is not going to be very receptive to training.
4. Hold your finger (or wrist or handheld perch, whichever you are using) in front of the bird, level with the bird’s abdomen directly above the feet. Make sure you are close enough that it will be an easy step for your bird.
5. Give the step up command.
6. When your bird steps up, give him or her lots of praise (if your bird is reluctant, see the tips below). At the beginning, you can offer a favorite treat, but as your bird gets better at stepping up, decrease the frequency of treats so that eventually your bird will happily step up just for your praise.
7. You can try repeating with the other hand, and many birds will keep on going finger to finger.
8. Always end a training session on a positive note. If things aren’t going well, try to get one good success, give lots of praise, then stop for that session.
9. Once your bird is doing well, you can move closer to the cage, eventually training the bird to step up from the top of the cage and then from inside the cage.

Potential Problems

• Biting: your bird may put his/her beak on your finger, so don’t be startled. Birds naturally check the stability of new perches by testing them with their beaks and if you don’t allow this they may not be willing to step onto your finger. If your bird does bite, though, don’t shout or pull back; in a firm, deep voice say “no” and push your finger toward your bird. If your bird persists in trying to bite, use a hand held perch at first (don’t use gloves).
• Not Stepping Up: if your bird is reluctant to step up, be patient at first as your bird may just be very unsure if you are a safe perch. After a while, very gently nudging the birds abdomen with your finger (or the handheld perch) may help get the bird to make that first step.
• Running for Your Shoulder: try not to let you bird run up your arm once he or she has stepped onto your hand. If your bird does this, block him/her but putting your free hand in the way, and give the step up command again to get the bird onto your hand instead. Repeat as necessary, and if your bird is persistent, end the session with a good step up and try again later.

Training pet parrots has benefits that extend well beyond the entertainment value of a parrot that can talk and do tricks. Training will strengthen the bond you have with your parrot, who will look forward to the one-on-one attention involved in training sessions, especially when success means lots of praise and attention along with favorite treats. In addition, teaching some simple commands will make handling your parrot easier.

Keep it Positive
The key to training your parrot is to keep the interaction positive. Three concepts provide the basis for parrot training:

1. Parrot does something good –> give a reward
2. Parrot does something undesirable –> ignore it
3. Never punish your parrot

Obviously, this is a bit simplistic, but your goal is to shape your bird’s behavior into what you want by a giving a reward for good things and ignoring (no reward, no reaction) for bad things. The reward can be a favorite food treat, but simple praise or a play session with a treasured toy can be good motivation for some birds. If your bird is doing something undesirable, you must simply ignore the bird (your bird will not respond to punishment). A negative reaction can turn into a reward if your bird is looking for attention (negative attention is better than no attention), so you must be careful not to unintentionally cause some undesirable behaviors to increase due to your reaction. Ignoring behavior might first cause it to intensify, but eventually the undesirable behavior will most likely stop. How you approach training can help keep training positive:

• Train only when you are relaxed. Positive training does take patience!
• Pick a time when your bird is attentive and not distracted by eating, preening, or household activity.
• Frequent, but short, training sessions are generally more effective. A few minutes at a time, several times a day, works well.
• Pick a favorite reward (but don’t overdo it if it is food).
• Once your bird catches on to something, don’t give a treat every time (switch to praise part of the time) or your bird may only do the behavior if he/she knows you have a treat handy.
• End each session on a positive note. Wait for a successful attempt or at least a good try at whatever you are training, give a treat, and move on to something else.
• Keep training sessions upbeat and fun for your bird.

Very Basic Training: Step Up and Step Down
If you had to choose only two things to teach your parrot, these would be then ones to pick. This means training your parrot to step up onto your finger or wrist (or hand-held perch) on command, and then step back off again. These are relatively easy and extremely important skills to teach. Stepping up is quite a natural movement for a bird so it is generally easy to train this on command (stepping down is a bit trickier to teach). Getting your bird to step up and step down on command makes handling much easier and helps you to set some boundaries for your bird (for example, you can more easily remove your bird from areas of you home that are not bird-proofed, return a bird back to his or her playgym or cage, etc.). If you have a baby bird, he or she is probably pretty cooperative but starting early with the step up and step down commands is still a good idea. Not only does training a cooperative baby allows you to give lots of positive reinforcement, it sets a good foundation for training more skills to your bird in the future.