Customer Reviews

Teaching Your Bird to Talk

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

When I bought this book I thought I was buying a book that would help me teach my parrot to talk. Although I do know that there are no guarantees about which bird will talk and what method works, I wanted tips and advice on how to help my parrot learn.

This books gives no such information. It covers why parrots talk, which parrots talk and lots of stories about talking parrots, but no real information on teaching my bird to talk. The only chapter I liked was the one about the Model/Rival-method, which is a detailed chapter on teaching a parrot to talk with cognition, understanding the words it uses. However, the bird must alredy be talking for this method to work.

What I wanted was an answer to these questions: Do constant, out of context, repetitions work? Does plaing a casette work? Would it help to have talking sessions? Does my tone of voice matter? How can I get my bird to talk more clearly? How can I get my bird to talk in front of strangers?

Two authors have teamed up to write this book titled Teaching Your Bird to Talk. The two of them have plenty of experience with birds.

The first chapter is a "must read" for someone just thinking about bringing a bird into the family. All to often, the idea of having a pet that can talk to you, overshadows the time and commitment required to look after this pet.

To help us understand a little about talking, they give information about how and why birds make sounds. Birds that make sounds all year round instead of just at breeding times may be possible good talkers.

If a talking bird is what you are looking for, the chapter Who Talks and Who Doesn't will be of interest to you. It is also expained that not every bird in the talking list will talk, but they have the potential to talk. The birds that talk clearly are identified as well as the birds that simply do not talk. Although parrots are the most common talking birds, there is also a list of non-parrot birds that are known for talking ability.

The chapter Parrots Jump Into The Conversation contains input from several people who wrote in about conversations with their pet birds and is a lot of fun to read.

The Model/Rival Training Technique chapter explains how this method of training is used and this is the way that Alex, the famous African Grey Parrot belonging to Dr. Pepperberg was trained.

Of course, the whole book is not just about teaching your bird to talk. There is wonderful advice on general pet bird care, solving problems, playing games with your bird, and what to do if your bird turns out to be a non talker.

This book has good basic information for the beginner in bird care or ownership as well as advanced information for those who have experience with birds.

This book summarizes what you need to know if you are responsible for the care of a bird. You never really own them, since they have a mind of their own. But you can bribe them with attention and treats. I have two parrots that talk, a blue and gold macaw and a lessor sulphor crested cockatoo. I used techniques similar to those described in the book to teach them. Whether you have owned parrots for 20 years or are just starting to keep birds, you can learn something from this book. I have heard the authors speak at conventions, if you have a chance, take the time to hear them speak.

Diane Grindol has done it again! Another great book with great information that everyone who lives with a parrot should have in their book collection. In easy to understand language, Diane explains Dr. Irene Pepperberg's model/rival technique for teaching parrots. This book isn't just for people that want to teach their bird to talk, its for every parrot owner.

This book provides a wealth of information on birds but the title is a bit misleading. There is only one strong chapter on the "hows" of teaching a bird to talk with understanding rather than simple mimicry. The rest of the book details the funny things and the many things talking birds say(as reported by their owners), bird habits, nutrition, etc. I would have preferred a bit more in the tutorial section.

I waited more than six months after I bought this book to try the techniques inside it before I wrote my review. Although I was using some methods mentioned inside the book but this book encouraged me to keep using them and also adds some amazing methods and ideas that were very helpful, useful and easy to imply. Simply, my old African Grey Parrot started to talk, and that was my fist experience in such thing and I really feel grateful to this book and to the efforts inside it. I am giving four stars since I feel some information are ideas need proves rather than facts. However, aiming to make your African talk, buy this book and be patient.

I am not quite finished with this book yet, but I am very pleased with the information and how it is presented in this book. I have read several other books on Parrots and this is by far the best one. There is more information than just teaching your bird to talk.
I highly recomment this book to anyone who owns a parrot with the potential to talk!

After I read the book cover to cover, I had to figure out if I missed the chapter where it specifically teaches you to give talking lessons to your bird. I went back and looked, and I hadn't. While the book covers a lot of ground, it uses anecdotes of other parrot owners examples of bird's talking. And basically all it teaches you is that when the bird starts to talk, to reward it for this behaviour. There are no step-by-step instructions on teaching your bird to talk, which is what I was expecting, given the title. In fact, this book beats around the bush too much, and while it gives you a some information on pet birds, nutritional guides, how and why they make sounds and talk, and mentions trick training, it does NOT give you a lot of information on how professionals train birds to talk. It does briefly explain the Model/ Rival method of Irene Pepperburg, but it suggests that if you want to use this method, that you should further study it. All in all, this is a pretty good parrot book, but it DOES NOT go in depth about how to teach your bird to talk. The book comes off as patronizing in some ways, as it wants to teach you how to keep a pet bird, which should be something you've already learned to do before reading this book. A book called "Teaching Your Bird to Talk" should do just that.

I have read this book and i think it will be very helpful in helping me to get my Quaker Bobby to talk

Another one of those parrot books and advice that just does not work in the real world.