What Is It About Cockatoos?

I've been trying honestly to answer that question ever since I laid eyes on a Moluccan cockatoo in a pet store so many years ago. I was enamored from the get go. There was no turning back. I had to have a cockatoo in my life. As it turned out, I've had many 'toos enrich my life over the years and it all started with that Moluccan. 

After acquiring an English degree at Cal Poly, I soon discovered that was not my calling: animals were. I attended the Exotic Animal Training and Management program at Moorpark College in California. That led me to intern as a dolphin trainer in California as well as Germany. Never forgetting my love for cockatoos, I started assembling and caring for a flock of forty mixed species white cockatoos and breeding them for sale.

I no longer breed birds and my flock is down to fourteen. This flock earns its keep by teaching me to become a better trainer. The cockatoos also help workshop attendees at Cockatoo Downs learn and develop fine training skills. I'm weirdly obsessed with learning as much as I can about positive reinforcement training (favoring clicker training) and attend training clinics, be they about parrots, dogs, chickens or horses, as often as I can. 

Oh, and what is it about a cockatoo? Intelligence, flamboyance, playfulness, creativity, drama, wildness,  all wrapped up in a beautiful package. Those are their gifts to me. I can never repay what my cockatoos have given me, but I'll keep trying by promoting positive reinforcement training to all who will listen and learn thereby helping make living successful for both parrots and their human companions.