A word about the by now dreaded clicker business. Again, I am speaking strictly for myself. There is absolutely no question that it works. My concern was, what does it mean, how is it accomplished and where does it belong in the "big picture?" Its just that everything has its place--and it has no place in my personal approach to resolving a problem with a parrot. I know it is widely used and I guess in order to "produce" animals that perform tricks quickly and reliably it is the accepted modus operandi. I guess my most vehement objection is about comparing parrots with seals spinning a ball on their noses or poodles in a circus--the concept that they are all essentially the same. THAT is where this argument became so heated for me. That opinion represents either disregard or total lack of understanding and respect for the inherent uniqueness of parrots as compared to other animals.

I have been involved with birds of one kind or another since I was 14 years old--for 50 years, and I am a great believer in establishing relationships and trust. In that respect the challenge with parrots, in my opinion, is unique. The concept of training (in this case) a parrot by teaching him to react to stimuli, in my opinion, has nothing to do with building trust or the attempt to communicate. I guess there is the issue of our personal philosophy about relationships and what this concept means to us that drives this discussion. There is no question (in my mind) that it becomes a short cut if it is used to correct behavior, there is also no question that it can be fun for bird and caregiver if the all important trust has already been established. Irene Pepperberg, (from the article in Pet Bird Report):

"Basically, clicker training and Skinnerian shaping work very well at getting an animal to perform a series of actions. Period. Thus, it is an excellent way of training behavior such as tricks. It is not effective if you wish to train an animal to understand (my emphasis) what it is doing and the underlying reason for doing the behavior..."

Here is a another quote about clicker training and operant conditioning from the renown behaviorist, Greg Glendell:

"As some will know, I have my doubts about the use of operant conditioning on sentient creatures (whether you use a clicker or not to achieve this). I feel we should use the highest form of communication with the animal in question. So, operant conditioning for a fish or mouse might be ok. But operant conditioning for a parrot or a primate does not feel right. I am not really bothered about whether it is effective or not. Efficacy is only one aspect of working with an animal. My simplistic homily is: If you wouldn't do it to a small child, don't do it to a parrot. I wouldn't clicker train any human. The reason WHY I would not do this is because there is a higher form of communication open to us. I feel the same about parrots. You can clicker/operant condition them, and you can get 'good' results. But it is not enough to have good results. I feel the means--the actual process of communication--is of great importance."