I belong to a clicker training group where they recommend that the very first behavior you teach is targeting - training the bird to touch a specific object (usually something like a chopstick) with its beak in order to get a reward. Today one of the members reported a brilliant adaptation of this to get her parrot to take its medicine. The bird was afraid of the medicine syringe, so the owner taught the bird to target the syringe and after that it was very simple to deliver the medicine, which tasted good so the bird was happy to take it. The bird had previous targeting experience so the syringe-training process was successful in a short time. I thought I'd pass the idea along.

That sounds like a great thing to teach! I have a few things that Ollie and I are working on right now, but as soon as we get them down we'll move on to that!

Thanks, I also think it's a valuable tool to teach. It's one of the areas that Barbara Heidenreich covers in her workshops. I taught Kady "touch it" for almost everything. When I first got him he was scared to death of a piece of paper, a toy....or everything. Two years later he will beak anything, if I tell him "touch it." Teaching him that phrase literally took the fear away for him, he learned it was fun to be brave AND he got treats!

That's so cool, I'm such a lazy so and so for not utilizing target training.