blog_sargent: 2008-09-23T17:52:19Z Copyright (c) 2008, Eva Sargent ExpressionEngine tag:parrots.org,2008:09:23 tag:parrots.org,2008:index.php/57.1708 2008-09-23T17:50:01Z 2008-09-23T17:52:19Z Eva Sargent EvaPyewacket@gmail.com
I’m not a patient person. I want to be taking Pyewacket to work with me, and to the park, and to the vet, and to stylish cocktail parties with understanding hosts. I bought the aviator harness and the accompanying video is so compelling. If you ever get the chance, watch those macaws flying on their leashes at the end. It is amazing and inspiring. But the training part doesn’t fit my style. We see a macaw being rewarded for tolerating three moves that will eventually be used to put on the harness: a hand sliding over the face, wings being lifted (to slip through the harness) and being pushed off balance (to tighten the belt). This young bird then hardly notices when the harness is put on. My Pyewacket is a bit more playful and full of himself, so I’m hoping to use more of a step by step approach to get him to love getting into the harness. I took those behavior mini lessons at the ParrotBAS yahoo group, and so I know that little steps that make up a behavior are called approximations. The idea is that I break it down into these simpler steps and then reward Pye as he learns to do each one. Here’s what I’ve go so far, but I’m hoping one of my readers (and you’re out there, right?) will know about the aviator harness and help me with this.

1) Pyewacket comes toward me when I show him the harness.
2) Pyewacket lets me touch him with the harness
3) Pyewacket stands still while I touch him with the harness
4) Pyewacket lowers his head and stays still while I pet his face (in the motion of slipping the harness over)
5) Pyewacket stays still while I slip the harness over his head and remove it immediately.
6) Pyewacket stays still with the harness around his neck
7) Pyewacket allows me to lift one wing
8) Pyewacket lets me pull wing through harness
9) Pywacket stands still with one wing through harness
10) Pyewacket allows me to pull other wing through harness
11) Pyewacket stands still with both wings and neck through harness
12) Pyewacket stands still while I tighten the belt
13) Pyewacket says “Let’s go!” (okay, maybe this last step isn’t really necessary)

Meanwhile, I’ve had an odd week with Pye. He hasn’t wanted me to touch him – turning around quickly and hitting my hand with his beak when I ask if he wants a tickle. He’s even added a squawk if I persist in trying to touch him (we humans can be awfully dense). I was feeling pretty low about it, thinking that I hadn’t been spending enough time with him. Then tonight I put him to bed, and instead of sitting in a chair and singing to him (I can’t sing at all, but he doesn’t know that, and so he seems to like my silly made up lullabies), I stood by his perch and sang right to his face. He was delighted, bopping his head excitedly and letting me pet his face (in, of course, the exact motion needed for the harness).

So it goes, one step forward and one back. But I have a plan, and I have sunflower seeds, and one of these days he’ll be dressed and ready to go out.

Send me those comments and suggestions!
]]> tag:parrots.org,2008:index.php/57.1662 2008-07-03T16:54:00Z 2008-07-03T17:13:29Z Eva Sargent EvaPyewacket@gmail.com
The problem is, I’m completely in love with Pyewacket. With his laughing, his bizarre mumblings, his repeating my name over and over, his sweetness and his many mysteries. I could never give him up! So I am no longer his foster buddy; I’m now his friend for life.

You know that honeymoon period everyone talks about with parrots? I’ve been waiting for that to come to a screeching halt, for the screaming or biting or whatever to start. And it hasn’t. I’m no behavioral genius, I’m lucky. For those of you who aren’t so lucky, I’ve been discovering all kinds of resources to help. Not surprisingly, many of them are connected in some way to WPT. Have you checked out the Ask an Expert section? You’ll find amazingly impressive and experienced folks to answer your questions. I’ve been learning a lot just reading other people’s questions, and their stories are sometimes fascinating. I found out that Susan Friedman has an entire course on parrot behavior that you can sign up for, and while you are waiting for a class, you can try the ParrotBAS discussion group () which has “mini lessons” where you and your classmates learn to analyze behaviors objectively and figure out how to change them. I’ve started the mini lessons, which I see as both preparation for the day Pyewacket turns into a little devil, and as some sort of karmic insurance against that happening (you know -- if you’ve spent hours boarding up your house for a hurricane, it will make landfall 50 miles north of you). ParrotBAS also offers one on one help with your pesky parrot. They assign someone to help you make a plan for modifying behavior, and this person will follow through with you until things are solved. Perhaps you all know about these resources, but I didn’t. Of course if you’re like me, you’ll be tempted to buy DVDs from parrot “experts” on the internet. I’m a real sucker for programs and systems that seem very organized and complete – the idea that a box will come in the mail and have everything I need, and have it all laid out step by step, is enormously appealing. And spending real money might be the push some of us need to commit to working with our birds. But before you buy, think about this. I googled the name of one of these costly self-proclaimed parrot gurus, and found him being lauded as the star student of a system for marketing things on the internet. That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with marketing your product and doing it well, but it certainly caused me to pause and consider other ways to find information.

I started the above just to tell you what I’ve been thinking about recently as Pyewacket settles in, and I’ll end with a Pyewacket update. I’ve taught him to pretty reliably come to me and climb on my arm when I say “Here.” He was averse to the phrase “step up” for some reason, although he definitely understands it. He still doesn’t like to ride on my shoulder much, so the perch on wheels has become his taxi. I roll it over to his tree and say “taxi” and he runs to climb aboard. He knows that “tickle?” means he should lower his head if he wants to me to scratch him. He even said “tickle” once himself. Alas, he hasn’t shown any interest in “I’m Pyewacket. Meow” although he occasionally says “Pyewacket” in a sort of tentative way. Twice he has rolled over and let me tickle his belly. The hilarious part is that after just a few seconds he seems alarmed at his own willingness to do this, and hurriedly gets back up. I even think he looks a little embarrassed.

But when a parrot lets you tickle his belly, even for a second, life is good.
]]> tag:parrots.org,2008:index.php/57.1630 2008-05-28T19:04:00Z 2008-05-28T19:08:29Z Eva Sargent EvaPyewacket@gmail.com
In the meantime, barking dogs in my neighborhood always set Pyewacket off on a screaming binge. Granted I have no experience here, but he didn’t seem upset by the barking, but like he wanted to join in. I didn’t know if he had dogs at his former home, and I was worried that he would be terribly afraid of these big furry predators. I had confidence that I could train the dogs to behave around him, but I knew I could never teach him not to be afraid.

Finally the dogs came over. Sparky came inside first, pulling at his leash to get closer to the big bright bird – nothing like the quail he chased at his house. Pyewacket wasn’t scared; he was looking on in fascination. Sparky got to the cage and Randall held him still – I mean really still – Sparky was locked between his knees, and Randall had hold of both his leash and his collar. Pyewacket was on top of this cage, and he started to squeal and run. He was moving as fast as his feet and beak would carry him, climbing DOWN his cage toward Sparky. I was pleading “No, don’t get on the floor, please don’t get on the floor.” He stopped inches from Sparky’s face and leaned toward him saying “Hi, Hi, Hello” and squealing and whistling, delighted that a dog had come to visit. I was a little jealous; after all he doesn’t climb down his cage with a squeal of joy to meet me!

Sparky, bless him, was interested but not obsessed. After just a few minutes he laid down and went to sleep two feet from the cage. Cholla got the same reception. She was a little scared of this beast who talked, but soon she too was bored and went to sleep. Both dogs were taken aback when Pyewacket let out a high-pitched ear splitting squeak. I hope he noted their reaction and now knows how to make them back up fast.

When Sparky first met my beloved cat Rocky (RIP), they launched toward each other so fast I couldn’t stop them. But Sparky had play bowed first, so I relaxed. From that day on they were best friends. They wrestled and chased each other and just when I thought Rocky was fed up (like when he was backed into a corner and hissing), he’d start it all again by chasing Sparky across the furniture, both of them bouncing off the walls. Rocky learned how dogs move, and Sparky learned to out box cats, much to the consternation of the strays in the yard he tries to play with.

And so it may be with Pyewacket. I’m not about to let them wrestle or back each other into corners, or be unsupervised, but Sparky did play bow to his big-beaked friend, and that’s the right start.

Bulletin: Pyewacket stepped onto my arm from his cage for the first time! Thank goodness I had a walnut in my pocket.

Leave me some comments below – tell me about your birds, or give me some Pyewacket tips.
]]> tag:parrots.org,2008:index.php/57.1621 2008-05-19T18:04:01Z 2008-05-20T18:36:36Z Eva Sargent EvaPyewacket@gmail.com
I can tell you that I never cared whether Pyewacket spoke English or not. It was way down on my rescue parrot wish-list, below liking me, not screaming too early in the morning, not biting, being able to be alone while I was at work, etc. The first time I heard him talk was in the quarantine room at the rescue – he suddenly said “Hi” in a loud and lurid man’s voice, the kind of man who would say “Hi, little girl. Want some candy?”

Once he got to my house, he started saying “Eva” all the time, with all kinds of inflections and intonations. My name (which is pronounced with a short E) turns out to be a natural macaw vocalization, but it is hard to shake the impression that he is specifically calling me (and maybe he is).

Last week I was in the back of the house, far from his cage (that he lives mostly on top of – another story and challenge for another day), when I heard a woman’s voice say “Hi Honey.” I crept into the hall and listened. He was practicing talking, saying over and over “Is it good? Mmmmm, good” with an occasional “Hi Turbo” thrown in. This was a wonderful discovery, not the talking per se, but my sudden realization that his former owners, who had given him up at age 3 because they had (human) babies to care for, spent time with him and taught him things. That night I gave him a bite of corn, and he said “Is it good? It’s good,” a slight variation on what I had heard earlier. This was delivered loudly, very clearly and completely in context. Even having heard him practicing earlier, I was floored and delighted.

I’m taking it slow with Pyewacket. He doesn’t like to step up off his cage, but I’m working on stick training him. I don’t force him onto my arm. We play little head-swaying parrot games but I stop when he gets really wound up. Sometimes he lets me scratch his head, but I only do it for a few seconds. I let him try some carbonated water and he was full of joy – laughing and getting his head wet and drinking more and more. I’m falling under his spell for sure, and I figured out why people want their parrots to talk, because it makes me laugh and laugh. I’m tempted to get one of those parrot speech courses (you know the guy – he’s discovered the secret and it’s guaranteed to work in 15 minutes a day or your money back). If nothing else it would give me a new game to play with my big blue friend.

Right now we are working on “I’m Pyewacket. Meow.” He’s only had that name for a week, and this morning I heard him say “I Pyewacket.” So, if you ask me, macaws are good talkers, and even better squawkers.

Over the weekend, Pyewacket met some dogs. Tune in next time.
]]> tag:parrots.org,2008:index.php/57.1616 2008-05-14T21:26:04Z 2008-05-14T21:39:24Z Eva Sargent EvaPyewacket@gmail.com
When I was in college, I desperately wanted a parrot but slowed down just long enough to figure out that I was short on patience, commitment and resources. Years later I was working at Audubon Zoo in New Orleans, in a tiny office with two screaming macaws posted permanently outside my door. I not only didn’t want a parrot, but figured that anyone who kept macaws was clearly insane.

Then a couple of years ago I found myself in Mexico watching wild thick-billed parrots with Jamie Gilardi. Defenders of Wildlife had teamed up with World Parrot Trust to support thick-billed research and conservation, and Jamie and I were at the Madera (Chihuahua) nest site, talking to the field team and looking at thick-bills. I’ll admit right here that I’m a closet bunny hugger– despite years in the zoo biz, and the respectable objective veneer that comes with a PhD, if there’s a lemur to be hand fed or an elephant to be hosed or a tiger cub to take corny and potentially dangerous pictures with, I’m first in line, and will knock over little kids to get there. A baby thick-billed parrot needed to be banded, and I was the woman for the job. I held this little thick-bill, one of very few of its kind hatched that year, and all of a sudden I was in love with parrots again. This is obviously dangerous – I admired thick-bills in flight, I heard their laughing calls, and I was determined that they would someday return to their former haunts in Arizona and New Mexico – but hold one and smell its dusty sweetness and you start thinking crazy thoughts about having a parrot of your own.

So what’s a thinking conservationist to do? I knew I didn’t want to support breeding more pet parrots, because so many ended up unwanted. At every zoo where I’d worked, people called begging us to take their birds, because they screamed or bit or simply acted like parrots, rather than docile dogs or indifferent cats. On the long drive back from Madera, Jamie told me about parrot rescue. I found my local avian rescue organization the next week, took the required care class, and in short order I was in love with a Mexican red head named Clarita, who preened my hair and whispered in my ear. A few days later she came to my house to meet my cat, a Bengal named Rocky.

In class they said they’d adopted out over 500 parrots and never had a problem with a cat, but they can’t say that any more. Rocky was determined to have fresh parrot for lunch, and it was all I could do to hold off Rocky, stuff poor Clarita back in her carrier, and send her out the door. My heart was broken, but not nearly so much as it was as six weeks ago, when the remarkable Rocky, a cat like no other, went off to his next incarnation.

So I was back in parrot class, a year and a half after my first try. I went into the quarantine room with high hopes, but there was no whispering amazon of my dreams, just a biting mini macaw, a lovely but loud conure, a plucked cockatoo, and a blue and gold macaw with the testosterone-soaked name Turbo. The rescue angel got Turbo out of his cage and he stepped onto my shoulder (I know, say what you will, but I walk with crutches so I don’t usually have a free hand or arm for a perch). He settled down, spoke softly in macaw, and after awhile rubbed his face on mine (You’re still worrying about him next to my face, aren’t you? Me too, but let’s stick with the happy meeting here). Boy, was I in trouble, because I knew my first ever bird was about to be a macaw.

Since I’ve completely disregarded the bloggers’ guideline to keep it short, I’ll write about our adventures settling in next time. He seems perfect, but isn’t this the honeymoon period I read about? I have given him a proper name: Pyewacket.

Oh, one other point from the blog guidelines: these posting are my own, and don’t in any way represent the views of World Parrot Trust. Believe me, if this were written by WPT, it would be more scholarly, and twice as interesting!

Come back soon – Pyewacket and I are just getting started.
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