Recently, Mrs McGill crossed paths with Miranda, a macaw that had been experiencing severe trauma- the perfect example of a pet needing professional assistance.

Miranda had been stressed, anxious and aggressive, but through positive reinforcement training, Ms McGill was able to work with Miranda to adopt better behaviours and work through her trauma.

Positive reinforcement training encourages behaviours using rewards such as treats.

"Positive reinforcement training works well for both [dogs and parrots], and you can get similar training commands for example (you can recall a dog back and recall a bird back in flight)," Mrs McGill said.

"Parrots are hilarious as they can talk back.

"Each species shows different behaviour and body language, we always modify the training to suit the different aspects of that species."

But working with Miranda wasn't necessarily an easy process.

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"Miranda's journey was difficult and very challenging at times, we both needed to take this journey together to grow," Mrs McGill said.

"On arrival, Miranda was traumatized, stressed, anxious, aggressive, severely feather plucked, emotionally shut down and could not fly. I needed to build trust, safety, calmness, routine, and patience and show her love and kindness.

"This process of rehabilitation was difficult for her to trust and feel safe in the beginning, she couldn't handle loud noises and would go into a panic attack and start pulling her tail feathers out leading to massive blood loss."

Mrs McGill describes the journey with Miranda as a long road of ups and downs.

"Miranda has improved so much over time and likes her routines. She has a beautiful male macaw partner that is her companion, she is happy and is fully feathered and can fly again. In the second year, we had her on Parrot b-calm from Vetafarm and this amazing product helped her to be calmer, less anxious and stressed."

A love of, and natural passion for animals has influenced Ms McGill in her career as a pet trainer, but her main goal remains to bring pets and people together.

"Locally, we have enough pet trainers in this area," she said.

"You do find some will move on and we have new trainers arriving in Wagga offering lots of training options.

"My advice is always seek professional trainers with lots of experience that offer all aspects of training and behavioural modifications."

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