Red is continuing to make progress here. He is stepping up with more regularity now. I always ask him to step up when leaving the cage so he associates stepping up with going to train or hang out with me or other activities he enjoys. I try to avoid putting him straight back into the cage when he steps up since that is something he doesn't really like.
He is starting to much easier to put to bed at night also. Most nights he goes in without too much of a fight with just a nut as a bribe. Some nights it takes a little more time if he decides to be difficult. I have started closing the cage door when he comes out so he doesn't have access to his food or water so he wants to go in after a couple hours and it is working fairly well. He hangs out on the top of his cage, on my chair or on my lap all evening.
Red seems to really enjoy our daily training sessions. I have been working on target training, and 2 tricks, a 180 turn and a 360 spin. He will perform them for me very readily and even performs them unbidden to try to get a treat.
I am also working on some capture training. Capture training is when you wait for the bird to perform something or something close to what you want and reward it. I am working on getting him to wave with his foot. I started with waiting until he raised his foot just a bit off the perch and clicked the clicker, praised with the word "wave" and gave him a treat. After 5 or 6 times he started to realize what he was getting a treat for doing. Next I will work on getting him to do it more on command and getting him to raise the foot higher and even waving it.
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