Is it possible that my cockatiel got this from the parakeet?

Question

The keets were on the desk. When one poo-ed on the white paper, I immediately rewarded it and said Good Bird. My cockatiel saw it, I think it made a questioning whistle, and then it ran to the paper and made a surprise on it! I immediately rewarded it for that with scritching, Good Bird, and giving it a treat.

Do you think my tiel could have picked this up that fast from that one time? Did it really know what was going on when it copied the parakeet, or was it just a coincidence?

(I've also been using newspaper in the cages and I've been working on the tiel, trying to reward it with a treat and saying Poo Poo when it does go so it associates the word with that).

Answer 1

Cockatiels tend to learn tricks from surronding birds whether it be a parakeet or one of its own.

Here is the answer to your questions

Possibly. Your tiel' i would guess learned the trick from observing how you rewarded your parakeets like that.

Your cockatiel should know when a bird is getting rewarded and so he or she just ran by and knew that doing that trick would give him or her praise. Which any bird loves.

Hope this helped.