Luna Wants to Bite Sarah

Our kid has a friend named Sarah.

Luna is terrified of her.  Whenever Sarah comes around, Luna immediately responds by making loud distress calls.  If Sarah stands too close to her perch, she’ll start snapping at the air, in the hopes that she’ll be able to give Sarah an ugly bite.

Now it’s not that Sarah is a bad kid.  She’s not.  She’s actually a very nice girl, though she’s definitely not your typical teen.  Where most girls her age are worried about fashion, style, and Justin Bieber, Sarah is just different.  She’s incredibly smart and sweet, but when she comes into a room you know she’s there.  She’s certainly the kid who stands out as being different.

For whatever reason, Luna finds her extremely alarming.  She is so frightened of Sarah that when we once had a different visitor with the same name, Luna started making her hard-to-ignore cries of distress.  She wouldn’t stop screeching until someone picked her up and quietly explained that the Sarah we had visiting that day was not the same Sarah who scared her so.

Frankly, I find Luna’s fear of Sarah to be rather strange.  Sarah has never done anything mean, upsetting, or nasty to Luna.  The truth is, she’s never had the chance to try.  The first time she came to the house, Luna started making distress calls, and that habit has persisted for all the years our kid has been friends with her.

This situation is distressing for a couple of reasons.  First off, I don’t like seeing Luna that upset over a person simply walking in the door.  Secondly, Sarah really wants to make friends with Luna.  Even though she knows that Luna would like nothing more than to make her bleed, she feels badly about it.  Sarah wants to make friends, even if Luna isn’t so keen on the prospect.

Now I don’t expect that Sarah and Luna will ever be best buddies.  I don’t even expect that Sarah will ever be able to touch Luna safely.  What I do want to do, though, is call some sort of truce.  Sarah likes to hang out with her friend, my kid, and it’s not very nice to come visit when someone’s macaw cries out in horror each time.

We had a similar problem with our African Grey, Coco.  For some reason, he absolutely hated the Schwan’s frozen food delivery guy.  Whenever Judd would show up, Coco would start by making sounds that resembled a gurgling coffee percolator.  The longer Judd stayed, the louder the bubbling sound would become, until it would evolve into a full-on squeal.  The noise was so bad that it sounded like a pig was being slaughtered in our living room.

We solved that problem with corn.

It turned out that Coco’s favorite vegetable was corn.  It just so happened that Judd carried an almost-inexhaustible supply of it in his truck.  To cure Coco’s unhappy squealing, we started buying bags of corn from Judd every time he came to the house.  We’d make a big deal of announcing, “Oh look! It’s the corn man!” as we’d buy our stuff.  We’d make a big deal of showing Coco the bags of corn as they came in the door (they were partially transparent) and then, we’d immediately heat up and serve a few niblets.

It didn’t take too long for Coco to realize that Judd was the source of all things corn, and he stopped growling at him.

But even better, when Judd was promoted and our new driver Oscar came on the scene, Coco was able to generalize that Oscar was the new corn man.  He never growled at Oscar, not even once.  One day, when we were standing around like unprepared idiots asking each other what we should order, Coco loudly answered, “Corn!”

Poor Oscar nearly dropped his hand-held computer.  “Who said that?” he demanded.

“The bird,” I answered non-nonchalantly.

Oscar hesitated.  “So what do I do?” he asked, uncertain.

“The bird wants corn,” I explained.  “Give him corn.”

Since Judd and Oscar, we’ve had several drivers.  Coco never growled at any of them, as he realized that they were the purveyors of the most delicious vegetable in the world.

What a good boy he was.  I sure miss him. Ah, I best be careful.  Otherwise, I’m bound to get all teary-eyed over my lost buddy. Heart disease sucks.

So after years of Luna crying out her distress every time Sarah visited, I figured it was time to see if we could put this behavior to an end.  Since we started Birdie School, we’ve noticed that Luna has been in a better mood than usual.  She can be something of a grump at times, but she’s been a lot more social and a lot more cooperative of late.

My kid spent the night over at Sarah’s this past weekend, so when she and her mother showed up to give my kid a ride, I decided to try an experiment.  I intercepted Sarah at the door, and asked her to be quiet, as I handed her a big slice of apple.

I stuck a piece of apple in Luna’s beak.  Immediately, I had her attention, as she loves sour green apples.

“Speak to her softly,” I instructed, “and then immediately put the apple in her beak.”  I demonstrated the correct way to hold the apple, so that there was no chance of Sarah being bitten.

“Hi Luna,” Sarah said obediently as she stuck the apple in Luna’s beak.

Luna ate the apple.

We repeated this a couple of times.  Luna did make a few small, almost experimental, distress calls, but she continued to eat the fruit, which is huge.  When Luna is really upset, she won’t eat even her most favorite of treats.  The fact that she kept eating was a great sign.  Sarah was equally thrilled, as our seemingly-vicious macaw was now eating from her hand.

We’ll keep doing this and hopefully, someday, Sarah will be able to come over without sending our poor blind macaw into fits.

Oh, and before I go, it’s probably worth pointing out that the above picture is not an unlucky photo of Luna biting Sarah’s finger.  Luna was actually putting her beak on my finger (not biting) but the picture looked like a pretty nice illustration of what she, at least until now, has wanted to do to poor Sarah.

A great example of this is how the game of puff evolved with my cockatoo.  I didn’t set out to specifically teach Static to enjoy having puffs of air blown in her face.  Rather, the game was something of a lucky accident.

We are finding this to be true as we are teaching Static to play the game of fetch.

Static, it seems, has something of an obsession with empty plastic pill bottles.  There is almost no other toy that she’d rather play with, and she can become quite aggressive in defending her precious bottles once she has them.  If she sees an orange plastic pill bottle, she wants it.

So, when we have an empty available, we carefully wash it out and hand it over.

Well, that’s not exactly true.  We don’t hand Static a pill bottle, because she gets so excited, she’s prone to nip and bite the hand that gets between her and the toy.  Usually, we show her the bottle, put her on the floor, and then quickly toss the empty bottle next to her.  She’ll delightedly respond by grabbing it and tossing it into the air.  She’ll chase it, sometimes getting so excited that she’ll somersault across the carpet.  Here’s a video of Static playing with one, though this effort is somewhat anemic compared to some of her play sessions.  I think she was a little distracted by the camera.

When we first started this game, she would become so territorial over the bottle that we had to use a wooden spoon to retrieve it from underneath the coffee table or other inaccessible places.  After a time, Static realized that we weren’t going to take her toy away, until she was done with it.  We found that if we were quick, we could reach in and bat the toy within her reach.

Now that we’ve been playing this game consistently, Static has become much less aggressive in her play.  If we reach for the toy slowly, she’ll let us pick it up and toss it for her.  She loves chasing it, and after she’s wrestled with it for a while, she’ll pause and wait for a human to bat it around for her.

The other night, I was home alone, so the game became a little harder for Static to play.  Until that point, we’d played it with two people stationed on either side of the living room. We’d bat it around some, and Static would often play the role of monkey in the middle, trying to intercept the bottle as it went zinging across our carpeted floor.

Without another player, I could only toss the bottle.  Static, predictably, chased it across the floor.  Once she caught it, she wrestled with it for a bit, and then stopped.  She was waiting for the next human to bat it around, but of course there was nobody playing but me.  A few times, I moved to the other side of the room to knock it back.  Then I got lazy and stopped.  I started throwing the toy not as far, so she was playing within my easy reach.

At one point, she held the jar in her beak, as she was taking a breather.  I slowly put my hand down, and at that moment, she moved so that the jar touched my hand.  I gently took it from her, immediately gave her some verbal praise, and promptly tossed the jar.

Before I knew it, she started to bring me the bottle when she wanted me to throw it for her.

This afternoon, we caught some video of her doing this with my wife and kid.  As you can see, Static takes her time bringing the pill bottle back, but she’s getting the idea.  We aren’t using treats or rewards for this game, as we want the game itself to be the reinforcer.  Since Static enjoys chasing pill bottles just for the pure fun of it, that’s sufficient to keep her interested and involved.  Be sure to watch this clip to the very end, as our video shoot didn’t work out quite the way we’d planned.

Things first got tough around here because everyone in the house (except the feathered ones) caught a nasty cold.  When I say nasty, I mean nasty.  This one drug on for more than a week and left me feeling tired, fuzzy-headed and unmotivated.  Although I did sit down at my computer and do at least some work that week, I couldn’t put in full days.  I was in that crummy state where I felt too lousy to be productive, but not lousy enough to where I could just crawl into bed and sleep the germs off.

Then, just about the time I started to feel better, Luna had a couple of seizures.

“Seizures?” you ask.

Yeah, seizures.

Now the “good” news in all of this is that Luna has had them before, so when they happen we are (mostly) prepared for them.  When she first started having them about a year and half ago, the vet thought they might be due to insufficient calcium in Luna’s diet.  We started adding a prescription calcium supplement to all the birds’ water, but even still, she has them about once every four to eight weeks.  Usually, she’ll seize early in the morning, and we’ll find ourselves waking up to the sound of her distress calls.

Fortunately, these episodes pass pretty quickly, but they are still scary for bird and human alike.  Last Sunday morning was no exception.  When the episode started, I fished Luna out of her sleeping cage, and gently held her against my bare chest until the seizure ended and she had calmed down.

I should probably point out that grabbing a seizing macaw out of her sleeping cage might not work for everyone.  For some birds, this might be a recipe for a bad bite.  In our case, Luna seems to appreciate the comfort, and has never seemed inclined to bite during or after one of these episodes.  This is definitely one of those cases where you need to carefully analyze what works for you and your bird.

Usually, Luna will have one seizure and that will be the end of it.  This time around, though, she had two.  The first came just a little before 4:00 AM, and the second came during breakfast.  Fortunately, our kid happened to be nearby when the second episode started, and she was able to collect Luna from her perch before she lost her balance and fell.

Since she had two seizures in a single day, we started a three-day course of phenobarbital.  We generally try to avoid giving her the medication, since her seizures aren’t frequent, and the drugs make her very sleepy.  Although the medication does stop the seizure activity, Luna tends to become very quiet and almost depressed.  She eats less, she plays less, and she doesn’t feel like doing much of anything but sit on my shoulder and cuddle. While cuddling with a gentle macaw is a nice way to spend part of a day, seeing her like that makes me feel sad.

I worry about my little macaw buddy.  We aren’t sure how old she is, but based on her history, we think she’s somewhere around 28-30 years old.  According to some sources, that’s pretty old for a Severe Macaw, though others say that she might live until she’s 80.  I think the truth is, there really isn’t a lot of scientifically-documented information on how long these birds can live.  I try not to think about it, and just take things day by day.  I’d hate to lose my little green bean buddy especially so soon after Coco died.

But of course all of this once again highlights the importance of training medical behaviors.  Immediately after her second seizure, she was an absolute gem when we asked her to take her phenobarbital.  Later, though, after she started feeling better, she was substantially less cooperative.  Now the good news is that we were able to get the medication into her beak without a huge fuss, but I’d still like to teach Luna to take mediation calmly from the syringe.  She has a tendency to bite the darn thing with her powerful beak, and I’ve lost count how many syringes have been destroyed by her habit of biting that which she does not like.

The good news is that Luna seems to be feeling better, so we’ll be able to get back to training with positive reinforcement.  Since we’ve been again reminded of the absolute importance for Luna to cooperate with her medical treatment, we’ll obviously be focusing on this.

Now, so as not to leave you on a completely bummed-out note, I’d like to spotlight something amazing Luna did the other day. It has to do with poop.  If you are a bird owner, you’ll appreciate this.  If you are not, well you can just close your browser window now.

Macaws, unlike small cockatoos or African Greys, tend to have really big poops.  Luna’s, compared to my other birds’, are massive.  Not only are they big, they are wet and sloppy. If she hits the tray of her play gym with them, the clean up is easy.  If she misses, and nails the wall or the floor, it’s a lot less pleasant.

So yesterday, Luna ended up shooting an enormous poop over the side of her gym.  It was one of the biggest I’d seen, but it landed in the most amazing place.  It didn’t hit the floor or the wall this time.  Instead, she managed to shoot the big one into Static’s neighboring cage.  Even better, she didn’t hit any of Static’s food bowls, toys, or perches.  Static, fortunately, was not in the cage at the time, since she was busy playing on her gym, but I suspect that Luna’s aim was so good, it would have missed Static anyway.

Seriously, for a blind bird to aim so well, that takes real talent.

I’ve been reminded of the fact that bored birds tend to be naughty birds.

The girls have been bored because I haven’t spent as much time interacting with them as I usually would.  I’m sick, my head hurts and I feel dizzy when I stand up, so birdie school has been out of the question on the days that I’ve felt especially rotten.  Although I’ve spent probably more time than usual sitting there, vegging on the sofa with someone velcroed to my chest or shoulder, I haven’t done much in the way of intellectual enrichment.

Static is bored and Luna is bored. Both girls are getting grumpy.  Both girls are expressing their dissatisfaction by being noisier than I would like.  It’s clear they miss the daily mental challenge of Birdie School. Static keeps wanting to stick her beak up my nose, and Luna is getting cross and pinchy.

Fortunately, we don’t get sick very often, so this won’t be an ongoing problem around our house.  Still, it makes me realize that I need to have a better plan in place for days when we can’t be as interactive with the feathered ones as they would like.

I’ll write more when I’m over this nasty cold.

Oh my. I think my parrot Delbert has said “That’s a Poo Poo” 400 times today. Ah yes, positive reinforcement does work : )

If one of my birds started repeating that phrase, I would surely have to stab myself.

Granted, the behavior is cute, once.  You can see for yourself in the video Barbara posted on her YouTube channel:

So what do you think? Adorable or annoying?

Don’t get me wrong, I think Delbert is adorable, and I’m glad that Barbara is so tickled that her bird is repeating a phrase that she likes.  She’s a smart lady, and her training techniques are the bomb.  I’ve been to one of her awesome workshops, and I plan on attending more in the future.

I just don’t want my bird saying, “that’s a poo poo!” I am sure that it would drive…me…crazy.

Which is why it’s worth pointing out that desirable behavior, just like positive reinforcement, is in the eye of the beholder.

I find it interesting, and somewhat coincidental, that Meg over at A Parrot for Keeps wrote about the same thing, yesterday:

What qualifies as a well-behaved parrot is always going to vary from person to person. And how to achieve whatever your definition of a well-behaved parrot is will also vary widely.

She is absolutely right.

Here are a few examples that come from my experience:

My old African Grey, Coco, absolutely would not put his beak on anyone, unless he was going to bite.  I got the impression that his previous owners discouraged him from beaking human skin, and when he first came to us, he would actually appear nervous if his beak accidentally touched someone.  He had somehow learned that beak touching skin was equated to biting, which was forbidden.  Although I tried, I was never able to fully convince him that nibbling was okay, while biting was not.  The closest he would allow himself was some gentle nibbling on my shirt.  Every once in a while he’d let me grab his beak and poke at his tongue, but he would never reach out and nibble skin.  He’d been taught that it just wasn’t okay.

Now in my house, beaks on skin is 100% permissible and encouraged.  Parrots use their beaks to communicate, to preen and to play, and it would be a whole heck of a lot less fun around here if my birds didn’t nibble and sometimes play-bite me.  As far as I’m concerned, as long as a bird isn’t hurting me or punching holes in my clothing, she’s welcome to nibble, play-bite or preen away.

The same thing can be said about birds sitting on your shoulder.  Some experts will tell you that, under no circumstances, should a bird be allowed to sit there.  Other people will tell you it’s fine.  I let my birds sit on my shoulder because a) it’s a convenient place for them, b) they like it there, c) they usually step off without much complaint and d) they aren’t inclined to bite me in the face.  That doesn’t mean that inviting Luna to your shoulder would be a good idea (it probably isn’t) and it doesn’t mean that I’d let anybody’s random parrot sit on mine.

So again, desirable behavior is in the eye of the beholder.

As I’ve started working more with my birds, when I consider the behaviors I want to reinforce, and those I don’t, I try to keep an eye towards the future.  I find myself asking the question, “if something were to happen to me and my wife, is this a behavior that my birds’ future human companion would find desirable?”

If the answer is a resounding no, then I skip to the next thing.

This is why, I think, it’s probably not a good idea to teach your bird to curse.  Although I know young guys in college dorm rooms think it’s hilariously funny if their cockatoo can swear and open beer bottles, the next family that takes him might not be so amused.  Worse, these kind of parrot antics can really offend the neighbors, and make for difficult relations.  The family next door might not resent a few minutes of Tweety’s noise in the mornings and evenings, but they absolutely won’t appreciate his cussing up a blue streak in front of their five-year-old.

True story: as a kid, my family ended up with some temporary neighbors who had some sort of parrot that cursed all day long.  I’m guessing I was about 11 at the time, and my sister would have been about 9.  My mother was completely offended that we were hearing the f-word dozens of times an hour.  She marched over and demanded the neighbors hush their bird, and they responded by keeping him covered all day long.

At the time, I didn’t think much of it, but in retrospect, I feel sorry for the parrot.  It wasn’t his fault his owners had taught him bad manners.

So I guess the upshot of what I’m saying here is that it’s probably wise to give some consideration to the behaviors you encourage from your parrot.  It’s important to remember that they have incredibly long lives, and it’s not uncommon for a bird to live in a few different homes during the course of his life.  Just because you think something is cute doesn’t mean that the next guy won’t find it a problem behavior, so give a little thought to the long-term consequences of what you teach.

In my experience, it’s easier to teach desirable behaviors from the beginning, than to erase undesirable ones.

Of course it’s very hard to sort out the good advice from the bad, especially if you are inexperienced.  My advice on that score is to read and study a bunch before you jump in and get your first bird.  If there’s a bird owner’s club in your area, go talk to people there, first, before you make your visit to the pet store.  Once you hit that store, the sales people will be looking at you with dollar signs in their eyes.  If you want a parrot, especially a larger bird, they are going to expect that you are going to be spending a pretty significant chunk of change, not only for the bird, but for the cage itself.

Be knowledgeable before you walk in the door.

One piece of advice that I see consistently bandied about is that you should, whenever possible,  start with a baby bird.  I’m going to argue against that piece of advice, especially if you are getting your first bird.

The trouble with a kitten is
THAT
Eventually it becomes a
CAT.

~ Ogden Nash, Famous Poet

The same can be said for companion parrots, though I’m not sure I can come up with a ditty that is nearly as cute.  Well, here’s my attempt just the same:

The trouble with a bappy,
is that he will grow to be quite crappy.
He will bite and he will scream,
to your mate he will be mean,
and when that happens, y’all won’t be happy!

~ Alex, BirdieSchool Web Lackey

Okay, so what is a “bappy” you ask?  It’s a term I’ve seen some folks use to refer to those cute, baby birds that everybody wants, oh so much.

Now it’s true, baby birds are cute.  If they are hand-fed, properly weaned, raised and socialized, they are already quite tame, and they probably are starting life with few bad habits.  They probably won’t pick feathers, bite, or scream, which is all very pleasant.

The problem is, these cute little babies soon grow up to be adult parrots that have the same needs as any adult parrot.  Within a few years, your cute baby won’t be a baby any more, and you’ll see personality and behavioral changes as your bird hits puberty.  For some birds, especially if their owners are unprepared, this can be a challenging time.

Speaking from my own experience, you will make lots of mistakes with your first bird.  It’s only natural.  That doesn’t mean you are a bad person, or unfit to have companion parrots in your home.  It just means that, like with everything in life, you’ll get better at it the longer you do it.  If you get good advice, are a quick study and motivated to do right by your feathered buddy, hopefully your mistakes won’t be too terrible.  You’ll learn from them and move on.

Unfortunately, for some people, the lesson they learn with their first bird is that parrots are too much work.  Maybe your cute little buddy has developed some behavioral problems, or he isn’t as friendly as he once was.  Maybe you just don’t have time for him any more.

A quick scan of Craigslist in the two major metro areas closet to me revealed the following birds looking for homes this afternoon:

• Male Amazon
• Male Goffin’s Cocktoo (1 year old)
• Red Crowned Parrot
• Pacific Parrotlet (1 year old)
• African Grey
• Senegal Parrot
• Male Yellow-headed Amazon (7 years old)
• African Grey (10 years old)

Do you notice anything about these listings?  For the ones that list the birds’ ages, none of these animals are very old.  The oldest, at ten, is still a young bird.  I am assuming that most  of these birds were bought “new” as babies by their current owners, so why are so many of them looking for homes only a few years later?

Because it is not cheap, convenient or easy to live with a companion parrot.

So why do I recommend you start out with a secondhand bird for your first feathered companion?  I have several reasons:

1. Secondhand birds usually are fully mature by the time they are re-homed.  This means that you won’t have to deal with any sudden, major personality changes when your bird hits puberty.
2. An older parrot is generally cheaper than a recently-weaned baby, and often will come with a cage, some supplies and toys.
3. If an older bird has been properly socialized, someone else may have done some of the training for you.
4. As an inexperienced human, an older, wiser bird can often teach you a few things.

So what about the idea that all secondhand parrots are being re-homed because there is something innately wrong with them?  Sure, you will find that there are some birds out there who, because of profound abuse and neglect, are extremely troubled.  However, my experience has shown me that secondhand birds can be wonderful, loving companions.

Take the larger-sized birds I’ve lived with, and their ages when they arrived:

• Static – female Goffin’s Cockatoo, 4.5 years
• Coco – male Congo African Grey, 25 years
• Luna – female Severe Macaw, 18-20 years

I can’t say that any of them didn’t work out, after a period of adjustment, to be great companions.  Even Luna, who had been profoundly abused, eventually came around.  She’s a wonderful cuddler, and a great friend, which I never would have imagined given her history.  Sure, she was a handful at first, but cultivating a relationship with her was a growth experience for both of us.

My only regret in adopting secondhand birds is the regret of not having more time with the ones who have passed on.  I wish I could have had more than nine years with my grey, Coco.  He’s been gone a month, and I miss him terribly.  As hard as it has been to say goodbye to him, I know that I made a difference in his life, as he made in mine.  Our years together were well-spent, and my only sadness was that we couldn’t have had more of them.

But even fear of saying goodbye to an older bird shouldn’t stop you from adopting him.  The truth is, we don’t know how long any of us will live, so we should treat each new day as the blessing it is. Likewise, we should enjoy each of our companion parrots, in all their uniqueness, for as long as we live.

The hated and feared postage scale of doom

According to Static, we have a new bird-eating monster in our house. It is what is now being known as the hated and feared postage scale of doom.  Static fears the scale, and we have the problem of trying to convince her that it’s entirely benign, because we want to use it to track her weight.

For those new to living with companion parrots, one way to keep track of your bird’s health is to weigh her on a weekly basis.  If you see a sudden unexplained change in weight, it might be a sign that your feathered buddy needs a quick trip to your avian vet for a check-up.

Of course the trick is convincing your bird that this is a brilliant and necessary idea.

Our star pupil, standing proudly on the scale

If we want to weigh Luna, it’s relatively easy.  We simply pick her up, turn on the scale, and place her there.  Most of the time she’ll sit there for a bit before she decides to move off.  Our biggest challenge in weighing her is getting her to hold still.  Her constant Stevie Wonder head wiggling doesn’t make for a very stable reading.

In this case, her blindness is an advantage.  She can’t be concerned about something she can’t see.  To her, the scale is a raised extension of the table.

Still, getting a picture of Luna on the scale proved to be a little challenging.  It seemed like every time we went for the camera, she started to move so the photo came out blurry, or she decided to turn the wrong way.  We ended taking about 20 pictures before we finally got one that we liked.

Static fleeing from the scale

But Static?  Oh no.  To her, the scale is an alarming, bird-eating monster.  She doesn’t even want to get near the thing, let along get on it.  Her initial reaction to the idea was to raise her crest and run away.

At her last veterinarian appointment, we couldn’t convince her to get on the scale for love nor seeds.  We finally had to resort to stuffing her in an empty muffin box from the vet’s break room.  Needless to say, the bird wasn’t too happy with her treatment, and we had to tape the lid shut so she couldn’t escape.

I don’t relish the thought of cramming my bird into a muffin box every time we want to get her weight.  I would hate to think what might happen if someone mistook her for something edible.

Clearly, we have to convince Static that the scale isn’t a bird-eating monster.

To do that, we resorted to simple bribery.  We offered her some seeds, and kept moving the treat closer and closer to the scale.

Static being lured in the direction of the scale

Static gets braver and comes a little closer

At last, Static finally eats from the scale!

Now you’ll notice in all of this that we didn’t manage to get Static on the scale, which is the ultimate goal of this exercise.  Since Static finds the scale so alarming, just getting her near it is a huge step in the right direction. Once she gets over her fear of the dreaded scale, then we’ll start working on getting her to actually stand on the thing.

In each of our training sessions, we are aiming for progress, not perfection.  If we can get our birds to exhibit a behavior that is one step closer to our desired end result, then we reward that behavior.  Once the girls become confident in a given task, then we raise the bar a little so that the bird gets closer to the desired result.

I should mention, to my readers who are hoping for daily posts, I had intended to write this yesterday, but I came down with an unpleasant cold over the weekend.  Instead of blogging, I spent all of Sunday curled up on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, watching classic episodes of Star Trek.

Ah, The Shat was certainly gorgeous in his day, wasn’t he?  Did you ever notice how whenever he got in a fight, he always managed to tear his shirt which showed off his incredibly manly chest? Too bad he now makes fun of himself in his ridiculous Priceline commercials. But I digress…  This blog is supposed to be about training birds using positive reinforcement, not how studly William Shatner might have been back in the 1960′s.

Our hapless victim requires medication

As I mentioned earlier this week, we’ve figured out that we have a definite need to train medical behaviors.  Our last visit to the avian vet wasn’t exactly what I would call fun.

Well, unless chasing your bird around the exam room and listening to her scream is your idea of a good time.

No?  Not so much for us, either.

Although there are quite a few medical behaviors that are useful for regular maintenance, such as weighing, toenail clipping and wing trims, there are others that are important in the event your bird becomes ill.  If your bird is comfortable taking liquid from a syringe, it becomes a whole lot easier to give her mediation.

We have an immediate need to teach Luna some medical behaviors.  Due to her damaged eyes, her sinuses have a tendency to get plugged up.  To reduce this problem (and lessen the number of times a year we have to go to the vet to have her sinuses flushed out) we have to figure out how to get some of this

The offending liquid

into this

The desired target

on a daily basis.

Now certainly, we can do this the easy (for us) way, which would be to wrap Luna in a towel, restrain her, and drip the saline drops into her nares as we are serenaded by her squalls of protest.

The saline drops are important.  If we manage to get them in regularly, they tend to keep her sinuses lubricated, and excess tears and mucus tend to drain instead of creating a giant birdie booger which eventually plugs her up enough that she’ll whistle a tiny bit when she breathes.

Oddly enough, she doesn’t seem to be bothered by the condition, but clearly it’s not normal, and all the accumulated crud tends to create an environment that can breed upper respiratory tract infections.

At her last checkup, Luna still needed her sinuses rinsed, but she didn’t need any antibiotics.  Score!

But the real question is how can we get these drops into her nares easily?  We have restrained her and forced her to comply, but nobody likes it.  Sure, it gets the job done, and it’s over quickly, but it’s still not fostering the kind of relationship I want to have with my bird.  Even though Luna doesn’t hold a grudge, I still don’t like the dynamics of the situation.  It’s a two person job, where one of us holds her down, and the other aims carefully with the drops.

I see this as an ongoing project, not as something we’ll be able to train in a day or two using 100% positive reinforcement techniques because we are dealing with a blind bird who can’t see what’s coming at her until it’s already happened.  Still, I want this to be as pleasant as possible, and I hope that if we can teach Luna that nose drops = good things, the entire process will be a lot less unhappy for everyone.

So for this week, I’m working on convincing Luna to allow me to hold her head in the right position.  Even when she’s mostly still, she still tends to wave her head in a way that reminds me of Stevie Wonder.  Since she’s rather wiggly, I want to teach her to allow me to hold her head still and in the correct position for just a few seconds.  Right now, I’m working on this during our regular snuggling times.  She likes head rubs and scratches, so as I’m rubbing her head, I pause for a moment to hold her in the correct position.  I hold her there for a second or two, and then promptly release her and go back to preening.

Eventually, I expect that she’ll allow me to gently hold her head in the correct position (without actually restraining her) for longer and longer periods, so that we can get the drops in the proper place a lot more easily.

I’ll keep you posted on how this project goes.

Or, as my mother would say, “Make that darn bird stop screaming!”

In Static’s defense, she’s not a constant screamer.  In fact, the amount of noise she makes rarely bothers me.  She hollers a couple of times day, and usually for not very long, so it’s not all that obnoxious.  For others, like my mother, who isn’t a bird lover, even the small amount of racket is pretty unpleasant.

Now I’ll admit that there are some noises that Static makes that I like more than others.  Our family goal is to encourage her to make more of the sounds we like and fewer of the ones we dislike.

One of the sounds I don’t like so much is the noise she makes when I’m out of the room and she wants me to come pick her up.  It’s this loud screeching/hissing sound, and I think her name is very descriptive of the racket.  It’s certainly not a pleasant sound at all, and it’s even less nice if she decides to make it while I am on the phone in the living room.

I view a certain amount of noise is as part of life with companion parrots, but I do agree that in this case, less is more.

So, how are we encouraging Static to make more of the nice noises and fewer of the unpleasant ones?

We are using positive reinforcement to encourage the sounds we like, and doing our best not to reinforce the sounds we don’t.

Static doesn’t have a huge repertoire of vocalizations, but she does have a few sounds and phrases I like.  My favorite is, “Hi baby,” which is the vocalization I’ve selected to reinforce.  Every time Static says the desired phrase, I get up, go over to her perch, and give her some attention.  Depending on what I’m doing, I might pick her up and carry her around the house for a while, or let her join me on the sofa.  If I’m busy with work, I’ll check in with her, and if she’s being quiet, I’ll let her sit on my shoulder and watch me type.  If she’s being rowdy, I’ll give her a toy and a couple of scratches, but leave her on her tree since I can’t really concentrate on work with a cockatoo bouncing up and down on my shoulder.

When she screams, I mostly ignore her.  If her hollering sounds important (she is also our watch bird and yells when someone is at the door) I’ll get up, walk into the living room and look around to make sure everything is okay. I don’t want to encourage habitual screaming, but I do want to encourage her to yell when appropriate.  Static is pretty bright, and has warned us about things like oven timers going off, and strangers messing around in the street.

When she does scream, unless I deem that her yelling was for a good reason (like the aforementioned strangers or oven timer) I don’t pick her up, look at her, or interact with her.  I still respond to her distress calls, because I don’t want to create a situation where she’s screaming and I don’t respond at all.  I still answer her call, but she doesn’t get exactly what she wants.

Static is no dummy.  She likes attention from her humans, and she’s quickly learning that saying “Hi baby!” gets her one-on-one attention.

Right now, she’s still figuring it out, so she is still occasionally forgetting herself.  She’ll scream a little bit, think about it, and then she’ll say “Hi baby.”  If she mixes the two, I tell her “talk nice,” and wait for her to offer up a few more of the desirable sounds.  She’s definitely getting it, and just over the course of a few days, we’ve seen a lot less hollering and a lot more desirable sounds.

Now I have to admit that I am fortunate in that I work from a home office, so I have the opportunity to reinforce this all day long.  Even if you aren’t home all day, you can still use these techniques when you are home evenings and weekends.

Luckily, Static doesn’t call me every second of the day.  There are times where she’s content to play with her toys independently.  If she did continually ask to be picked up, initially I’d respond every time she called me to encourage the desired vocalization.  Over time, I’d gradually respond less frequently.  I’d still make sure to reinforce the desirable sounds and ignore the undesirable ones.  As long as a bird thinks a particular behavior will be reinforced, she’ll continue to demonstrate it.

For habitual screamers, this might take a bit of patience.  Keep at it, and whatever you do, don’t give up.  Sometimes, birds will yell more, in a last-ditch, frantic effort to get your attention.  Don’t cave in, or all you will do is teach your bird that she has to scream longer before you will respond.

In my experience, most birds yell because they want something.  It might be that they are bored, want to move to a different location, want attention from their humans, are distressed about something, or they are hungry.  It’s our job as caretakers to try to figure out what’s causing the racket, and to address it.

In some cases, screaming can be stopped ahead of time, by being just a little bit proactive.

Luna, my blind macaw, is an unusually quiet bird, but there’s one thing that is guaranteed to make her scream.  She has huge food issues, and if her bowl runs empty, the entire neighborhood will hear about it.  It’s hard to believe that one little macaw can make so…much…noise, but she can! It doesn’t matter if she has just eaten and her crop is entirely full.  If she perceives that there is insufficient food in her bowl, she finds it very distressing, and will scream until the food is replaced.

Preventing Luna from screaming is easy.  I just have to make sure that her dish never runs out of pellets.  As long as there is something in that dish, even if it’s not her favorite food, she won’t scream.  If Luna feels secure about her next meal, she will be quiet.

It started last Saturday, when my wife and I took all our cages and perches outside for a deep cleaning.  We had some incredible weather that day, so we decided to get started on our Spring cleaning a bit early.

We were outside all day.  Now I’ll admit that the job would have been a lot less work if we still owned a pressure washer, but our last one died and we haven’t gotten around to replacing it.  It was a nice day, so once we had the girls’ travel/sleeping cages spotless, we popped the birds in them and placed them on the lawn while we scrubbed everything else.

That afternoon, two people came by and asked if I would be willing to take a total of three birds.  I was offered a 25-year-old male African Grey, a 14-year-old Amazon, and a positively ancient 22-year-old Cockatiel.

I was rather surprised to get so many offers in one day.

The reasons the birds needed new homes weren’t surprising.  The Grey had been inherited, and he was a biter.  The Amazon and Cocktiel needed homes because the owner was moving and didn’t have the space or the time for the birds.  I’m sympathetic to all the birds and humans in these situations, because I know just how difficult they can be.  Life changes, and things don’t always work out the way we plan.

I’ve been thinking about these birds quite a lot this week.  I’m a strong believer in the idea of adopting secondhand birds when possible, but I’m not sure I want to add to my flock right now.  We are still grieving Coco’s loss, and it seems like making a big change, too soon.

We want another Grey someday, and we’ve even talked about buying a baby.  The youngest bird we’ve owned was Static, who was 4.5 when she joined our family.  We always thought that it would be nice to start out with a young bird who we could more easily acclimate to new experiences and new people, and who wouldn’t come with a load of baggage we’d have to work on.

I’d like to create my own flavor of birdie baggage, instead of inheriting it from someone else.

I have a small house, so I really have room for only one more bird.  I suppose, if I got rid of the piano I almost never play, I could shove things over for two more, but that would be pushing it.  Besides, three travel cages will fit in the back seat of my truck with room left over for my kid.  Four won’t fit.

I’ve been thinking of these birds and mulling over whether or not I want to take on a rescue, or pursue a later dream of adopting a baby and working with it to become a therapy bird.

And then, on Tuesday, my vet told me about yet another bird.  This one was also an African Grey, who was losing her home through no fault of her own.  Her owner was dying, and she’d need a new place, soon.

It made me so sad.  In one week, I’d had heard of four birds searching for a new place to live.  I have room for one.

It made me think of this video that originally aired on CBS Sunday Morning back in June of 2009:

Now my initial reaction to this video was one of anger.  Yes, birds are a lot of work, but I really disliked the piece’s slant that made it sound like all the work is endless and unrewarding, and that parrots are unceasingly demanding, unforgiving animals.

The line that made me the angriest was when Mira Tweti said, “A parrot will bite the hand that feeds it, as long as it lives.”

I cry bullpucky!

Bites do not have to be a routine part of living with a companion parrot.  Neither does constant screaming, feather picking, or never-ending demands for attention.

Now I’ll be the first one to admit that all my birds have bitten me at one time or another, and most of the time it was my fault.  Even Luna, who should be my worst biter, being totally blind, a Severe Macaw (who have a reputation for being nippy), and easily startled, doesn’t regularly chomp on me.  I did get bitten last weekend, for reasons I don’t completely understand, but the last bite before that probably years ago.

Birds don’t have to be screaming, biting, demanding spoiled brats.

Yup, I said it. Spoiled brats.

Now my birds will suck up as much attention as I can give them.  They are like children who love it when Daddy is home.  The want to play, they want to cuddle, and they want to learn.  They will gladly take up every minute I give to them.  Some days, they get everything I have.  Other days, I have to work, and they have to busy themselves playing with their toys and doing birdie things while I go about my business earning a living.

As a family, we do go on vacation.  Sometimes we take the birds with us in our RV.  Sometimes, we leave them home with a pet sitter coming in twice a day to feed, water, clean up, and give them some attention.  Do they like it when we leave?  No.  Do they go crazy and scream for hours while we are gone? No.  Yes, they absolutely do miss us and they are happy when we return, but being gone for a few days, or even a week, once or twice a year, doesn’t destroy our birds’ psyches.

Likewise, we are not slaves to the birdie diet around here.  We feed our birds  pellets, fresh fruits and vegetables, and some of whatever we are eating, as long as it’s not harmful to them.  We don’t slave over every meal preparing special bird-only chow three times a day.  We try to make healthy choices for ourselves, and share.  This makes everybody happy, because we have less work to do, and the birds don’t get bored by a never-ending diet of seeds and pellets.

You wouldn’t want to eat kibble every day, would you?  Your bird probably doesn’t want to, either.

Yes, birds are messy, but there’s a lot that can be done to contain it.  First off, I’ve made an effort to potty train all of my birds.  Potty training, at least at our house means two things: don’t crap on me and don’t crap on the furniture.  My birds have learned what the phrase “go poop” means, and periodically when they are out, I pick them up and either return them to their tree or hold them over some paper or a garbage can, and say the magic word.  If the bird needs to go, she’ll go.  If not, I keep an eye on her body language, and give her an opportunity later.  Failing that, I will end up with a big streak of dookie running down my back.

I’ve also discovered that if we clean cages and perches daily, the mess isn’t  so bad.  If I happen to pass by and notice there’s a fresh poop somewhere, I wipe it up right away, rather than waiting for it to dry and turn into concrete.

As for the birds’ food dishes, we change those for each meal.  I wouldn’t want to eat my lunch off of my dirty breakfast plate, so I don’t expect my birds to do the same.  Everything is washed in our dishwasher along with our regular dishes on the sanitize cycle.

So as much as I respect Mira Tweti and the other people featured in the video, I’m not sure that they are telling an entirely fair version of the story.  Birds are a lot of work, but I don’t think it’s as bad as they make it seem. I think a better truth is that birds do require more attention than your average dog or cat, but they don’t necessarily need you 24/7.

I think there are two things to keep in mind:

1. if you adopt a parrot, you are adopting a companion, not a pet; and
2. your companion can live a very, very long time.

If you want to adopt a companion parrot, you need to go into it with your eyes wide open.  Don’t just go to a pet store, see the cute birdies, and plop down a handful of cash.  Spend some time with your bird, if you can, before you take him home.  Spend some time with other bird owners.  Talk to them, learn from them.  If you live within reasonable distance, take a class in parrot husbandry and training.  Know what you are getting before you bring your cute little feather butt home.

Parrots aren’t for everyone.  If you know what you are getting into before you start, you’ll be happier for your decision and so will your bird.  More importantly, if you are prepared for the long haul, then you’ll be much less likely to need to re-home your bird in the future.