Up!

The last week Crash and Pippin have been working on climbing a ladder. It's their second prop behavior. Crash was quite hesitant at first, not wanting to climb, he wanted to chase the pencil! He likes that one, he's figured it out! So, I lured him up the ladder a few steps at a time, using the pencil and clicked and treated for looking up the ladder, climbing the step, putting a foot on the next step, etc. He went from bottom to top that first day and got a jackpot.

Pippin is our more food oriented bird. He's really wanting those treats. The problem is he's also a bit...absent minded. Ooh look, a pencil! Ooh look, a shoelace! Oh! A foot! And so on... But, he's also so eager to please, and he is less timid than Crash. He tends to catch on faster, but then loose interest faster, too. He made it from bottom to top, much faster than Crash, though he required a bit of luring too.

Skip forward to tonight.

Trevor and I headed to my parent's for Easter, which meant the boys were home alone for two days. They are always very excited to see us when we get back, so first we just let them fly around a bunch. Then we decided to do some training, but didn't feel like putting one back in the cage, as they were so excited to be out. So we put the ladder out, and waited to see if they remembered it. Whalla! Up they went. we started by putting them 1/2 way down and having them climb to the top for clicks and treats. Pretty soon they were going from bottom to top. Then we got out a ring we want to use for their next behavior - retrieve. I started targetting around the ring, so they'd be less scared of it. Then - Crash ran over to the ladder and went up it all by himself! Click and Treat! And note to mom, put away one prop before working with the next!!!

They progressed to picking the ring up from my hand, and setting it back down. We'll work on that trick some more this week. I'm so excited about how fast they are learning!!