Retrieve! Part 1

So Sid has deifnitely mastered targeting! He doesn't run to target or anything, he takes his time. But he gets there and gets the job done. So I decided to move onto retrieve.

Such a smart birdy!!! I was a little concerned about this behavior because anything I put near Sid when he was on top of his cage, he would run from (small ball, ball of crumbled paper, small plastic ring, bottle caps, etc). I was hoping to find any object he would be interested in checking out on his own. Well last night, Sid was sitting on my lap. April brought one of the balls over that he had previously run from. She just held it while sitting next to us and Sid was fine. She put the ball in my lap and after a few seconds, he touched it with his beak. After one C/T, he was picking it up for 1 second. After a few reps, he was holding it for 3 seconds! I stopped after that so we could end on a good note.

1/18- Morning- Ok ok, I know I vowed no training in the morning, but he acts like he wants to train in the morning. Or I'm just *thinking* that he looks like he wants to train. He did, after sitting there for 15 or so seconds, pick up the ball. He picked it up 3 times and we stopped because it was like in slow motion.

I'm really hoping he adjusts to my wake up schedule because it would be nice to get a training session in before work. That would mean at minimumm, on my busiest days, I could get 3 sessions in per day. But that's not really up to me. lol. His best time for pretty much anything- training, affection, etc is around 8pm. I don't know why, but that's when he's the most alert. Now around 10pm, he starts getting feisty. I think that may be because April gets home then and he wants to mate with her.

It's interesting how different he is with April and I. There seems to be this trend amoung our pets- Gus and Gabby both have this odd obsession with her- Gus wants to mate with her and always tries to birdy hump her if she's holding him for longer than a minute or two. She is the item of obsession for Gabby the Bichon Frise, who follows her around like her shadow. And now Sid wants to mate with her. Lola's the only one who doesn't have a wierd thing with her- she's still my baby and will always choose to stay with me if April's in another room, etc. However, all the animals listen to me way more than they listen to her. I'm not sure if it's a thing where they are reading our energy or what. April's not had much experience with animals growing up, although she loves animals. I think animals feel the need to be alpha over her. Either that or it's some sort of weird hormonal thing she gives off. Who knows.

For Sid, he doesn't talk much to me. He makes little nosies for me and such but literally the minute April walks in the door, he starts talking up a storm in his little robot voice. Now, he won't train as well with her (I think because he's distracted by wanting to mate with her).
All my furry and feathered kids can have their favorites, as long as they'll come to and work for both of us and don't become aggressive towards the other. That's why it will be important for us to work with Sid consistently.

In other news- this week, I've got to go pick up my camera at my Dad's so I can start taking better pictures. My little crap camera is driving me crazy with the crappy quality. I just reinstalled Photoshop and Lightroom on my new netbook for this purpose.