Calum Grant

Training the parrot

Like dogs, parrots need conditioning to become well adjusted members of the family. The best way to train a parrot is to clip its wings, however he loves to fly around, and it saves carrying him everywhere.

The usual exercise is called step-on. The parrot waits patiently on his training stand, and you hold your hand out in front of him. You say "step on" and the parrot steps onto your hand. You say "step off", and he steps back onto his stand. We have this one pretty much mastered.

You also have to train them where to poo. We usually take him to his stand and say "do a poo". Then he'll squat, and down it falls. He usually doesn't poo on people, and starts to shuffle about a bit when he needs to go. Today I took him to his stand, and said "poo". He looked at me like I was completely mad.

He also knows how to say all of our names. To check that he actually knew what he was talking about, we played a game where we point to the person, who then says their name. We go around, until it comes to Ollie. Deathly silence. Ollie looks a bit awkward, like he knows he's supposed to say something. Duurrrr.

posted by Calum Grant @ 9:35 PM