Back to the basics again. This round no fancy props, but common empty paper towel roller that can be found in almost every household. So what Kiki going to perform this time with the empty roller?

Just like what the title says, it’s her own Tunnel Trick. A relatively simple trick, but interesting and fun trick that able to kill any boredom and motivating her to continue to learn new things.

Kiki mastered this trick within minutes. She had no difficulty in understanding and performing the trick, because she had did something similar before. Remembering the hoop trick that I shared with everyone on my previous posting. Both are actually the same, the only difference is the prop. The hoop trick is with a metal wire hoop whereas the current Tunnel trick is with the empty paper towel roller.

When I was updating Kiki’s trick list, I found something shocking and surprising. With Kiki mastering this trick, I can humbly highlight that she has mastered a total of 17 tricks and commands. Impressive? I guess it can definitely be an alarming figure for a small parrot like Kiki.

Thus a pea-brained is not necessary stupid. The size of the parrot not necessarily denote the intelligence and the ability of the parrot after all.

Related Post:
Kiki’s Through The Hoop Trick

After letting Kiki exposed to so many advance and difficult tricks, I’ve decided to take a step backwards in teaching Kiki something relatively simple and straightforward. I introduced to her a simple trick called Through The Hoop Trick. It’s a really simple trick that Kiki took only a couple of minutes to understand and master it. It’s a simple trick and anyone can try (including you, the fans of Bryan’s Angels and Kiki, of course) training your birds, and all is needed is just a Hoop. A hoop that is just big enough for your bird to go through. As for me, I couldn’t find a decent hoop in the market for Kiki, so I ended up DIY a customized hoop for Kiki using plastic coated metal wires from hardware store.

Kiki in action…

How do I teach her?
It’s a relatively simple trick for Kiki, as I said she mastered it all within minutes. But time spent on the training might varies on any other birds, especially birds that have never undergone any serious training before. As per normal whenever before I start introducing new tricks, I will let Kiki attend some warm-up session (running through some basic commands and tricks like Turn-A-Round, Wing Flapping & etc). This is to ensure that I gain full attention from Kiki, and it does make training session easier and manageable. Usually the training progress seems to be much more better and effective.

Once Kiki is ready for the new lesson, I start off introducing the new prop which is the hoop to her. For this trick, I used my target stick to introduce the hoop to her. She immediately accept the hoop, and started playing and nibbling with the prop. I started my actual lesson immediately after the introduction was completed. First I placed the hoop on one hand and the other hand holding my target stick at the opposite exit of the hoop. This is to lure Kiki to go through the hoop and touch my target stick. Every successful try through the hoop, I will praise her and reward her with her favorite “candy”. There will be situation where instead of going through the hoop, she went over to nibble the hoop. When I see this, I immediately remove the hoop, this is let her understand refraining from biting the hoop for this trick. I repeat the procedures for a couple of time, until Kiki is totally familiarize with the proper behaviour for the trick.

Finally is add in the cues and fade off the presence of the target stick in the trick. For vocal cue, I used “Hoop” and my visual cue is basically done by knocking the hoop to the ground. You can consider other cues for your birds, as long they recognize and are comfortable with. I still get Kiki to perform the trick with the presence to the target stick but with the add-on of my vocal and visual cues. This is to let Kiki understand whenever she sees these cues, she will have to go through the hoop. I repeat the procedures for a couple of time again. Soon after she’s comfortable, I started removing the presence of the target stick, and Wallah! She doing the trick upon my cues.

During your training, if your birds aren’t ready to response just to your vocal or visual cues. Don’t worry, take a step back and repeat the procedures with the presence of the target stick. Then try fading off the target stick again in the trick. Always remember the thumb rule - Patience!

Related Post:
New Training Coming On

I’ve yet to post new video clips on Youtube. Several viewers from Youtube have messaged me complimenting about Kiki’s achievements and they have yearned to see Kiki performing new tricks. Thank you for your love and support for Kiki. She’s doing well now. She still preparing and training for new tricks. She still needs more time before she can submit her first progress report on the new tricks she learned.

This time round, I’m slowly guiding Kiki in learning some complex tricks, which requires some basic tricks that she learned and then chaining these behaviour as one performance. It’s definitely going to take long as compared to previous tricks she learned. She’s progressing pretty well, but for sure definitely there’s glitches and mistakes. With the continuous training and hard work from her, she’s able to meet that goal soon.

Here’s some summary on what she’s learning:

1. The Shell Game Trick

I’ve introduced to her since last Sunday. It’s a trick where Kiki has to open the right pink shell to locate the red lego that I placed in. That’s definitely a tricky one that she learned. She’s able to open the shell and retrieve item within the shells. But the probabilities of opening the right pink shell that contain the red lego still remains low. Really hope Kiki will master this fun trick based on an old game that’s commonly found at funfair & carnivals.

2. Through the Hoop (A component for an Advanced Trick)

It’s quite funny that I’ve never teach this basic trick to Kiki when she first started training. It’s a fairly simple trick, which Kiki understands immediately in a 5mins training session. The objective is whenever I cued “Hoop”, Kiki will have to go through the hoop and exit from the other end. It’s one basic trick that I do recommend teaching your companion parrots. Fairly simple and fun. Kiki does enjoy this simple “game”. The hoop trick that Kiki learned is a component of an advanced trick that I intended to teach Kiki in future. But one step at a time. A simple trick learned now, will benefit for her in future.

I will be uploading the candy shots during the training session to Youtube soon, only when my brother a.k.a cameraman able to capture the moments this weekend. So do stay tune!

Lots of love from Kiki and me!