If you are fortunate enough to purchase a young, hand-fed African Grey parrot, training your new companion, for the most part, will become nothing more then showing him the do's and don'ts of living in your
household,
re-enforcing
certain patterns, repetition and lots of
patience and loveWith practice, young African Greys will naturally 'step up' onto your finger when encouraged with a gentle push at their legs. 'Step down', being the reverse is quite natural for them as well. This is a must to get them in and out of their cages.
Beyond this, "training" becomes a personal choice
and as I mentioned before African
Greys are quite different then other
exotic birds in that you can never really domesticate them. It is best
to train yourself to honor and respect these little
guys and
learn to understand their needs and behavior. This will come in time,
as you get use to your new friend and he gets use to you, AND your
routine.
As far as talking goes, African Greys, in my opinion,
are by far the best talkers of all of the so called 'parrots'. Their
ability to talk and communicate comes from their superior intelligence.
These
birds are capable of cognizant reasoning and thinking. They think
and
reason much like a human does and getting them to talk is actually
quite easy.
Greys WANT to communicate with you. They will often
tell you of their needs, their feelings/emotions, something they might
see or even something that is funny to them.
Generally the best way to train a grey is to simply show him or her
what you would like them to do and repeat this until they understand
your intentions.
Speaking
to them as you would speak to any other encourages them to begin to
talk. Start by using simple words or small phrases and try to relate
the word or phrase to something that you are doing or to some event
that might have meaning to the bird.
It boils down to a matter
of trust, love and technique. Once you have established a bond with
your bird, and he loves and trust you, all else is fairly easy.
For
those who are interested in a more structured and proven way to train an African Grey,
you should check out Chet Womachs intensive course
on Parrot Training.
He shows
you methods and tricks that even the professional trainers don't know
exist.
Check the course out here: Parrot Training.
