# Teaching tricks?



## Allison (Jun 12, 2018)

I have recently seen some videos of cocktatiels doing ticks like putting their wings out or dancing. I was wondering how you teach them to do those tricks and if there ar any other tricks I could try


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## Smerft85 (May 18, 2019)

Allison said:


> I have recently seen some videos of cocktatiels doing ticks like putting their wings out or dancing. I was wondering how you teach them to do those tricks and if there ar any other tricks I could try


They tend to copy what they see and hear, you may feel goofy, but put on some oldies, and start bobbing your head to the beat, and whistle along, mine has started mimicking quite a bit of what I do with him, males are usually the chatty ones, and I may be mistaken, but are also more likely to dance ect, but I'm not 100% about that, I've only ever had males.


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## TielLover04 (Apr 14, 2019)

What is your cockatiel’s favorite treat? For cockatiels, it will most often be some kind of seed such as millet or sunflower seeds. Use their absolute favorite treat and don’t give it to him/her in the cage, only use it as a reward for training. Each trick has a different training process, so which tricks were you specifically wanting to teach first? Here are a couple to start out with.

“Spin”: place your bird on a perch and start by luring your tiel in a circle with the treat. If he doesn’t want to follow the treat all the way around yet, start by just asking him to do a half turn, then gradually build up. Always give him the treat after he completes what you want him to do. Repeat this until he’s spinning in a full circle every time you ask him to — you may have to take baby steps. He should start to catch on after a while so you can stop luring him with a treat and just get him to follow your hand in a circle. Always praise him and give him the treat afterwards though. Soon you can build up to the point where you can use a hand signal (moving your finger in a smaller circular motion) instead of getting him to follow your hand. You can also teach him to do it on verbal command such as “spin” or “turn around” after enough repetition.

“Wave”: Place your bird on a perch and ask him to step up, but just as he lifts his foot up pull your hand away so his foot never touches your hand. Give him to treat every time he does this, and soon he’ll realize he just has to lift his foot. Start waving at him while you’re doing this and saying “hello” so he associates this with the action. Phase out your other hand over time and soon he’ll wave when back when you wave at him or say hi. My birds even learned to copy my wave further by opening and closing their toes - this is just a learned behavior that you can’t really teach. 

These two are the easiest to start out with, but there are many other tricks you can teach cockatiels. I would suggest starting out with one of these because it gives them a sense of how to work for a reward before advancing to more complicated tricks. Some other tricks include spreading wings, flying to you on command, fetching a ball, going through a hoop or tunnel, playing basketball, doing a somersault, or putting rings on a peg. Dancing doesn’t really qualify as a trick in my opinion because it is just something that the birds do and not really something you teach them. You can’t get them to dance on command usually.


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