We have a teenage (got her in 1994 as a young parrot) African Grey who is owned by my mother-in-law. She came to live with us two years ago to be "babysat" while she went for disc surgery and couldn't take care of her pets. She has decided that she wants her back next month since she has a new boyfriend and thinks she will fit in well. Last summer she told us she would be too stressed to stay with her there but now she's decided she misses her too much, despite only visiting a couple times a year. She spends her days babysitting our nieces who are 5 and ten and under a year and we are worried about them undoing our socialization training we've been working on. We think clicker training her for things such as "up" on fingers to be held or "on" her cage would be helpful to keep the kids from getting nipped and scaring her (they have been known to hit/kick their own pets that are ill trained). But we haven't managed to figure out an appropriate treat for clicker training or what to start training her to do first. Does anyone have any experience with this?

I've been Clicker Training my birds for years. I have Rainbow Lorikeets so I'm not up to scratch with your birds breed.

Go to this site for the biggest wealth of clicker training information that you could ever dream of, they are a really great group and will be able to help you.

http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/Bird-Click/

I subscribed to bird-click and read through all their stuff, but I find e-mail lists impossible to follow. By time I figure out whats going on it could be years later, lol. I spent a weekend trying and all I did was read the same things over and over again until I knew I clicked everything. When we asked the vet about it she looked at me like I was nuts. But I need some way of convincing her I am not a chew toy and she needs to poop before getting off her cage.