Training
Step-by-step training guides using positive reinforcement. Step-up, recall, tricks, speech, and solving problem behaviors.
42 articles
Clicker Training for Parrots: The Complete Beginner's Guide
Clicker training is the most effective way to communicate with your parrot. Here's how to start from zero.
Crate Training Your Parrot: Stress-Free Vet Visits and Travel
The travel carrier doesn't have to be terrifying. Crate training makes vet visits and travel manageable.
Desensitization Training: Helping Fearful Parrots Overcome Their Fears
New toys, strangers, vet visits — many parrots are terrified. Systematic desensitization changes that safely.
Harness Training for Parrots: A Step-by-Step Guide to Safe Outdoor Adventures
A flight harness lets your parrot experience the outdoors safely. But the training process requires patience.
Potty Training Your Parrot: Is It Really Possible?
Yes, many parrots can learn to poop on command — or at least in a designated spot. Here's how.
Recall Training: Teaching Your Parrot to Fly to You
A reliable recall is the most useful (and impressive) behavior you can train. It can also save your bird's life.
Solving Biting in Parrots: Understanding Why Birds Bite and How to Stop It
Biting is the #1 reason birds are rehomed. But biting is communication, not aggression. Here's how to solve it.
Station Training: Teaching Your Parrot to Go to Their Spot
Station training keeps your bird safe and gives them a 'home base' during activities. It's surprisingly easy to teach.
Target Training for Parrots: The Foundation Skill Every Bird Should Know
Target training is the gateway to all other training. It's simple, effective, and builds confidence in any bird.
Teaching Your Parrot Independence: How to Prevent Velcro Birds
A parrot that screams the moment you leave the room needs independence training. Here's how to build it gradually.
Training Multiple Parrots: How to Work with a Multi-Bird Household
Training one bird is straightforward. Training two or more requires strategy. Here's how to manage multi-bird training.
Cooperative Care Training: Teaching Your Parrot to Accept Grooming
Nail trims, beak checks, even medication — cooperative care training teaches your bird to participate voluntarily.
10 Fun Tricks to Teach Your Parrot: From Wave to Basketball
Trick training isn't just entertaining — it builds your bird's confidence, provides mental stimulation, and strengthens your bond.
Training Tips for Congo African Grey: A Step-by-Step Guide
Training the most cognitively gifted parrot in the world — trust-building with a neophobic bird, step-up and target training, recall, foraging, and the model/rival method behind an African Grey's famous contextual speech.
Amazon Parrot Training Tips: Trust, Step-Up, Recall & Talking
Positive-reinforcement training for the bold, brilliant Amazon parrot — building trust, step-up, target and recall, tricks and talking — plus how to work around the overload signals and spring hormones that trip up new owners.
Budgie Training Tips: Taming, Tricks, and Talking
A step-by-step budgie training plan built on millet and positive reinforcement: taming a nervous bird, step-up, target and recall, teaching talking and whistling, and fixing biting and cage-boundness.
Training a Caique: Channeling the Class Clown
How to train a caique using its natural energy — taming, step-up, target training, recall, tricks, and bite-pressure work — with positive reinforcement. A practical guide from Bird Sitting Toronto.
Taming and Training a Canary: Trust, Song, and Enrichment
Canaries aren't parrots — so 'training' means gentle acclimation, trust, song encouragement, and enrichment, not step-ups and tricks. A realistic guide to what a canary can and can't learn, from Bird Sitting Toronto.
Cockatiel Training Tips: Trust, Step-Up, Recall & Whistling
A positive-reinforcement training plan built for cockatiels — taming and trust, step-up, target training, recall, tricks, and the whistling and tune-mimicry this musical little parrot excels at, plus fixes for common problem behaviours.
Training Tips for Cockatoo: Building an Independent, Confident Bird
Training a cockatoo is really about teaching independence — step-up, target, and recall built on positive reinforcement, with the goal of a confident bird that isn't a screaming, over-bonded velcro parrot. From Bird Sitting Toronto.
Training Your Conure: A Step-by-Step Guide
Conures are clever, treat-obsessed, and eager to work: how to tame, teach step-up, target, recall, and tricks with positive reinforcement — and how to train the screaming down instead of up.
Training an Eclectus: Trust, Step-Up, Foraging & Working With a Zen Bird
The calm, food-motivated Eclectus trains beautifully with patience and positive reinforcement. Learn trust-building, step-up, target and recall training, talking, and how to defuse this species' hormonal problem behaviours without a fight.
Taming and Acclimating Finches: Trust Without Handling
Finches are watch-don't-hold birds. Bird Sitting Toronto explains how to build calm trust with a flock through gentle acclimation, environment and enrichment — and why trick training and speech aren't the goal.
Training an Indian Ringneck: Taming, Talking, and Tricks
A positive-reinforcement training plan for Indian Ringnecks — building trust, step-up, target training, recall, and speech — with special focus on staying consistent through the bluffing phase.
Lorikeet Training Tips: A Step-by-Step Guide
Lorikeets are whip-smart, high-energy, and eager to work — but their liquid diet means you train with fruit, flowers, and praise, not seed. Here is how to tame, step-up, target, and trick-train a lorikeet.
Training Tips for Lovebirds: A Step-by-Step Guide
Lovebirds are smart, food-motivated, and famously stubborn. A patient, positive-reinforcement plan for taming, step-up, target training, recall, and tricks — plus how to solve the classic lovebird bite.
Parrotlet Training Tips: Taming and Teaching the Bold Little Parrot
A positive-reinforcement guide to training a parrotlet — building trust, step-up, target training, recall, gentle bite-pressure work, and a realistic look at talking. Keep this bold, food-motivated pocket parrot tame for life.
Training Tips for Pionus: A Gentle, Step-by-Step Guide
Pionus respond to calm, reassuring, low-pressure training — never force. A patient guide to taming, step-up, target training, recall, tricks, and light talking with this gentle, sensitive parrot.
Training Your Quaker Parrot: Trust, Tricks, and Talking
A positive-reinforcement training plan for Quaker Parrots: building trust, step-up and target training away from the cage, recall, tricks, and teaching one of the parrot world's best small talkers to speak.
Senegal Parrot Training Tips: Trust, Step-Up, and Broad Socializing
A positive-reinforcement training plan for the Senegal Parrot: taming and trust, step-up, target and recall, whistling and words, and — most important for this one-person species — how to socialize your bird broadly so it stays friendly to everyone.
Setting Up the Perfect Bird Training Environment
The room is half the teaching. Learn how to build a calm, distraction-free training space — perch height, supplies, treat motivation, and session structure — so your bird learns faster and trusts you more.
Building Trust and Bonding with Your Bird: A Step-by-Step Guide
Trust is the foundation of every well-adjusted companion bird. Learn to read your bird's body language, work through a patient six-step bonding process, and build a relationship rooted in choice rather than force.
Bird Training Troubleshooting FAQ: Common Questions Answered
The most common bird-training problems solved: sudden plateaus, treat dependency, aggression toward one family member, training older birds, target-stick fear, and how to tell a training snag from a sick bird.
Teaching Bird Tricks: Wave, Spin, Shake Hands, and More
A coached, force-free method for teaching your parrot to wave, spin, shake hands, and strike an eagle pose — with the training fundamentals, treat rules, and troubleshooting that make tricks stick.
Target Training: The Most Versatile Bird Training Skill
Target training teaches your bird to touch a chosen object with their beak on cue. It is the single most versatile, low-stress skill you can teach, and it becomes the building block for carrier training, weighing, vet visits, and dozens of tricks.
Recall Training: Teaching Your Bird to Come When Called
Recall training teaches your bird to fly or walk to you on cue. Learn the prerequisites, a step-by-step distance progression, treat-currency tips, and how to troubleshoot a stalled recall - a safety skill that can prevent escapes.
Step-Up Training: The Foundation of Bird Training
The step-up is the single most important behaviour your bird can learn. This guide walks you through the setup, the exact cue-and-reward sequence, species-specific hand positions, and how to fix biting, flying off, and a bird that suddenly refuses.
Welcome to the Complete Bird Training Guide
The starting point for the BST Complete Bird Training Guide. Learn why positive reinforcement works, how to read your bird's body language, and a simple first-week plan that turns trust into a confident step-up.
Reward-Based Training Techniques for Parrots
Reward-based (positive reinforcement) training is the gold standard for teaching parrots. Learn the cue-behaviour-reward loop, the one-second reward window, clicker and target training, and how to build a well-behaved, confident bird without fear or force.
Positive Reinforcement Training for Parrots: Building Trust, Confidence, and Cooperation
Positive reinforcement training is far more than teaching parrots tricks. Built on the science of applied behavior analysis, it uses the cue-bridge-reward loop and shaping in small approximations to build trust, reduce fear, and turn everyday tasks like stepping up, entering a carrier, and cooperating with vet care into things your bird chooses to do.
Reading Your Parrot’s Body Language: A Guide to Understanding Their Moods and Needs
Parrots speak mostly in posture, feathers, and eyes rather than words. Learn to read the six core moods — happy, relaxed, playful, fearful, overstimulated, and unwell — with a quick-reference table, a dedicated guide to eye pinning, and the illness signals that mean it is time to call an avian vet.
Positive Reinforcement Training: The Only Method That Works for Parrots
Punishment doesn't work with parrots — it destroys trust. Learn why positive reinforcement is the gold standard for bird training.