Ok, as some may know I've not had much luck with getting Baby trained to a perch. It's suspect that she was abused previously, maybe even, gulp, poked in the cage with a stick.
Since I've had her, I have been working with clicker training her. She has done fantastic. I've never clicker trained any animal before. I had her clicker trained to get ON the perch and to let me move her to her playtop on the perch. Then..it went bad. She got to where she would not want the perch. I've had to retrace my steps and couldn't find where I'd went wrong.

I let the perch go and I've now been working with her on tricks. specifically with a ring. She has done fantastic with the ring trick and as soon as I have them refined, I'll vid and post em. But I noticed something that gave light to the perch problem.
When she gets bored with the ring trick, she just sits there and stares at it like she's slipped into a coma. No matter what I do, she doesn't want the ring. SHE GOT BORED WITH IT!!!!
So, on replay I remember when she would stop stepping up on the perch, I wanted it firmly in her mind to "step up" and out of ignorance, I'd move the perch where she was and cue her "step up" over and over, dunno, probably about 1 or 2 minutes or so, I'd do that. She'd move, I'd move, she'd run from the perch and I'd move it towards her.
In retrospect, I'm sure she perceived the perch as a torture or something.
Since recognizing this, I've apologized to her, gave her a grape, danced and sang with her. LOL. wooing her back to my flock. It seems to be working. I've even click trained her to step back onto the perch. but..this time it's only for a second and then I just take the perch away. Baby steps.
I just wanted to post this to show how, out of ignorance and frustration, we can defeat all of our work with a strong willed beautiful animal.
Mark

Excellent observations!! I've attended a seminar by Irene Pepperberg, who works with Greys on cognitive thinking - I remember her saying that Alex will get bored with tasks that he's been asked to do many, many times. He'll either be completely non-responsive or will purposefully give the wrong answer, and on top of that he'll give an answer that is NOT one of the options presented to him.

When I'm working with Jerry, my budgie, on recall training, I do have to be very conscious of his attention span. He's easily amused and has a short attention span (actually talking with Irene Pepperberg after her talk, I asked her if she worked with budgies and she has in the past and she said that they are very quick learners but had too short attention spans for what she was trying to do - that and there were other funding issues with the budgies). So my training sessions tend to be pretty short, unless he's really into it and very focused. Usually I can do 3 or 4 recalls with him, in the same room and different locations in the room, but much more than that and he's already onto something else - having the other 2 birds out especially makes him less focused (but don't have the other birds out and then he's only focused on calling to them or flying to them to see why they aren't out lol). But I sometimes do 2 or 3 of those short training sessions each night.

Yes, Baby does 100% better if I squeeze in 2 or 3 , 5-10 minute training sessions a day. Absolutely.
I found myself "arranging" my day to get in a good work session, like when I bike or swim. But, birds don't do that.
That's why it becomes paramount to "arrange" our taining sessions to be easy and quick. I keep the props nearby, then all I do is a quick apple chop for the treats right before we work. She does much better than if I try to do a long 30 min session, like I thought should happen.
Plus, it spreads the fun over the day.