Blu Lu the Blue Throated Macaw from the Bird Endowment is doing extremely well. One of the behaviors she has really been practicing is her flight training. You may recall I posted a blog a while back about training her to fly to different perches in my house. I wanted to share a video clip of her progress since then. She is really mastering her flight skills. She has learned a nice quick response to my cue for recall. She is sometimes a little slower than I would like flying to a perch when I cue her. But I suspect that part of the problem is that being with people is also a strong reinforcer for her. So going away from a person is tougher than coming to one. One of the benefits to training your bird to fly to designated perches in your house is that it makes it very reinforcing for your parrot to fly to those spots. So instead of chewing up the back of a chair, or flinging papers off of the table your parrot deliberately opts to go to the perches. I do have another place in the kitchen loaded with toys that Blu Lu goes to as well. These also work as reinforcers for her to stay in that area and have fun. This really handy strategy of making the behavior you want your parrot to do the most reinforcing option is based on The Matching Law. You can apply this to so my aspects if living with a parrot. Think of it this way. If you parrot has the choice to do behavior A or behavior B, whichever one he knows will earn the most reinforcers is the one he will do. This means it is …

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