Recall Training

          Recall is your safety line between you and your bird when you fly outdoors. If you don't think you have a solid recall inside your house or your training indoor training place I do not think you should take you bird outside, you are risking losing him forever. I recommend Recall Training for all flighted parrots, even those you never intend on taking outdoors. You just never know what might happen and when you might need it, maybe your kids will leave the window open and your bird will fly in a tree. Wouldn't it be just awesome if you can go and call him back? :)

       

          If you already have a parrot that knows how to fly then you are ready to go. If your bird doesn't know how to fly, then you have to teach him first, I think I will write an article about that as well, you can check if I have already. You might also want to read my "Pick him up vs. make him fly to me" article. 

          With a bird that likes to fly you can start with a T stand, with a bird that doesnt like to fly all that much you might want to start him off of a flat surface that is not the best "hang out" spot for him, maybe a washing machine or a fridge? Birds dont like to sit on flat very much, they would rather prefer a round branch, therefore with a bird that needs more motivation to fly off of somewhere it helps if you use flat surface. If your bird flies all over the place already and loves it, then your regular T stand will work fine. Another method which I used with Kaja is to place your bird on your hand with the hand facing in front of you and call him back to you onto your other hand, this also works good for birds that dont want to take off by them selves. If your bird is one of those who love to fly already then your food motivation together with your voice should be enough to get him fly to you. Another method is with the use of a target stick, if your bird is target trained you can point the stick at your hand and make him fly there that way. Just like with any other training, you should act excited and happy when the bird flies to you, every time. I never scold my birds for flying to me, even tho Molly can be very obnoxious that way, but I never want them to get scolded for coming to me and have association with something bad and coming to me.

I prefer the method where I place the bird somewhere where he isnt really excited to be and then call him to me and make him feel that being on my hand is the best place to be! He gets treats there and scratches and kisses and simply whatever makes your bird happy. Therefore I imprint right from the beginning that he is coming to something better, this will be very handy one day if he lands in that pine tree full of nice cones. 

Kaja was very hard to train to fly, he would be so scared that he would grip with is feet so hard and never let go, even if he was only 2 feet from the floor. So in his case I had to look for something that he couldnt hold on to and I didnt want to use our fridge, because his beak could fix our cupboards real nice pretty quick and I wanted something where I could leave him long enough till he decides to get off by him self instead of me making him. Here again if "I" made him I would be the one causing the stress, instead of if I am the one catching him as he decides to fly off and giving him a peanut and a scratch I am the good guy for him. So I found this plastic culvert pipe in our shed and I used it. He couldnt climb down from it and it wasnt really comfy to sit on either.  Here is a video of a second day after he took of, remember it took 2 months with him to get to that point, but most of you should get there much faster, he was badly neglected and never ever flew before at all.

OK, by this time you should already have your bird used to your clicker and having the clicker associated with a reward properly. Call your bird with a happy voice, you can show him his treat and try to make him fly to you. You can try few times, but if he doesnt come I will tell you to walk away or at least turn your back to him for a while, basically ignore him and not pay any attention to him and then try the same again. DO NOT GO AND PICK THE BIRD UP! Do not teach him that if he waits long enough you will give in and go get him or he will train you faster then you will notice. This is how I do it and I am very happy with my results. This way I train my bird instead of simply condition him to coming and getting treats, I actually walk away and ignore him till HE wants to come to me. I highly recommend this method, dont make it only about the peanut, there is more to it when you go outside, make him understand that it is important to come when you call him and you will not stand there forever with the treats waiting for him nor call him 20 times. Eventually you want to be able to call him only once. This is the reason my call is "Molly and 2 tone whistle". By calling her name I have a way of getting her attention and by then I can see her reaction and if I feel she will come I can whistle and she comes right away, if I dont get her attention after "Molly" I might try again and if still nothing then I walk away. I dont whistle unless I feel that she is coming, because I dont want to "lose my command".  If you dont plan on ever going outside then you can be more relaxed about it if you wish since you will not be risking losing your bird. If you use a target stick then the philosophy is the same. I do not use target stick because I dont see the need to and I dont plan on running outside with a stick all the time, my hands are full the way it is already. 

Teaching Recall by Flying A to B method:

This is widely used method between Free Flyers and I will again say I dont agree with it. My reasons are simple, I want to imprint the bird coming to me as much as I can, I have absolutely no reason to make him fly away from me or me even sending him away, I am pretty sure he will do that even without me making him, if he already flies to me that is. Generally the idea is to call the bird from the T stand, reward him with a large size treat that takes time to eat and has to be held with a foot and send him back to the T stand to eat the treat without having to balance him self on one leg on your arm. I used this method with Molly at the very beginning and I do it as little as possible with Kaja and the results are visible. I rather place the bird anywhere I can where he could land him self and recall him from there. This way if he ever has to land on our Maple tree it will not be a big deal, because he has been there already many times and I called him from it. 

Teaching Descent from Higher Places:

This is very important since birds have to learn to fly down on a steep angle. Most seem to struggle with that at first, some more, some less. Once you have your recall established indoors you should work on different angles. You can start from a fridge and you being on your knees and progress to flying down a stair way or down from a ladder. Place your bird on top of a ladder and recall him from there. Steep descents are usually reasons why birds "get stuck" high in trees. 

Recall out of sight:

Next step is calling your bird with you being out of  his sight. You can gradually go further around a corner and call your bird from there. Work up to it slowly, your bird will learn soon enough. 

          Once you can do all of these inside your house, you can go outside. When you finally go outdoors try to set up everything as much as you had it inside. When I was training protection working K9 dogs, I never changed more then 1 variable at a time, that means if you go outside that is already one BIG change, use the same T stand, same recall cue, even wear the same shirt if you can for now. 

     

Related Articles: Recall Training Philosophy, Free Flight Locations and Pick up vs. Make him fly to me