Answered by Dr. Brian Speer, DVM:

I can offer you some generalities to consider when you speak with your regular attending veterinarian about your concerns with this bird. First, what you describe as recurrent ear infections - do we know that this is the case, or is the inflammation being seen caused by non-infectious factors? You are right to be suspicious that if "standard" treatments including antibacterials are not making progress, a more accurate diagnosis is likely indicated. There are a number of nutritional concerns, particularly malnutrition, that can set the stage for some of these recurring problems, for starters. I'd suggest you ask your veterinarian about pursuing a bit more of an accurate diagnosis here, including a review of the nutritional and metabolic status of your bird. Deficits in these arenas certainly can set the stage for problematic and non-resolving otitis externa. The fractured "thighbone" - assuming that this is a femur; these are rarely stabilized adequately with splinting methods in parrots, viewing the specifics of their anatomy. The fact that your bird consistently is chewing off the splint makes me wonder if it is in pain, discomfortable or if the splint is not serving its intended goal of stabilization. I'd suggest that you ask your veterinarian about things such as analgesia (pain relief), options for better stabilization of the fracture site, and progressive evaluations of the nature of healing to best serve the needs of your bird.

Answered by Dr. Brian Speer, DVM:

Your bird is very ill and needs veterinary attention as soon as possible - if it is still alive. If your primary attending veterinarian is on holidays, you should ask their office to whom they would refer you to in order to see to the needs of your bird's healthcare. As I see it, there is a dramatic need for hospitalization, supportive care including parenteral fluids, warmth and tube feeding, accurate diagnosis and treatment here. "Liver disease" may be present, or may not - but regardless, the specific cause of liver disease needs to be diagnosed in order to enable appropriate treatment, and supportive care also will be indicated. Although Baytril is a popular broad spectrum antibiotic, there are many, many, many infectious and non-infectious diseases that could be present that this drug simply will not help your bird with. I wish you the best of luck in obtaining the appropriate diagnostic and therapeutic attention that your bird needs,

Answered by E.B. Cravens:

Dear Jeffrey, As your budgerigars are still quite young, it should not be too difficult to accomplish their first flying training. Once their flight feathers are all grown out, you can encourage them to begin flapping on your finger or on a stick by raising and lowering the stick to get them to begin feeling their wing downbeats supporting their body weight. Flight training is all about landing skills, so you need to teach them to land competently. This we accomplish on the master bed where the bird can be encouraged to fly six or eight inches at first down to the soft surface--learning through repetition to brake with its wings, put out its feet and look downward to a feet-first landing. Make sure you do not allow them to over-flap and fly a long distance to crash to the floor. Such mistakes ruin their progress and make them fearful of bumps and bruises. From there you can progress to getting them to take longer two, three, four-foot flights to build up confidence on the soft surface. Once they get that down, a folded bath towel on top of their cage or the couch back, etc. can be another landing site. Flying to a perch can take place a bit later as it is a more precise skill and can involve a harder landing on the feet and leg muscles. You will know when they are flying better because most parrots begin to increase their speed. Make sure they learn to fly down, turn left and right and return, and of course are able to adjust and fly after a bath when still wet. Feel free to contact me with any specific questions about your pets' fledging. Cheers, EB

Answered by Dr. Brian Speer, DVM:

I am not aware of specific blood typing done in avian species. There is a difference, however in that when transfusing avian species, homologous transfusions (from the same species) have a longer effect as compared to heterologous transfusions (from different species).

Answered by Jim McKendry:

G’day Keith, It’s great to hear that you are motivated to interact with your African Grey and hopefully achieve some training goals! To set you up on the right pathway to developing some `trick’ training skills I would suggest checking out the following resources already available to you via the WPT website...

Link 1:
http://www.parrots.org/index.php/referencelibrary/beginnerguidetoparrots/

At the link above make sure you download the following two articles...
• New Parrot Owner Behaviour Guidelines by Barbara Heidenreich
• Training a Bird to Turn Around on Cue by Barbara Heidenreich

Link 2:
http://www.parrots.org/index.php/referencelibrary/behaviourandenviroenrich/

At this link try checking out...
• Empowering Parrots by Susan Friedman
• Does Your Parrot Have a Trust Account? by Steve Martin
• Shaping New Behaviours by Susan Friedman

The above articles will offer a huge insight into how you can apply positive reinforcement to achieve any training goal you might set with Jack. I would also highly recommend purchasing two excellent DVD’s from Barbara Heidenreich. These will be a great visual reference for you for developing your trick training skills and have many examples of both novel `tricks’ and practical behaviours that you can start working on with Jack. Check out...
• Parrot Behaviour & Training DVD
• Training Your Bird for the Veterinary Exam DVD

Both of these videos are available from the WPT store so click on the links to get there and get the credit card ready ☺

Lastly – you have asked about `potty training’. There are a number of articles already available on the Internet that do a reasonable job of explaining this training goal. I would suggest simply doing a quick Google search for `Potty Training a Parrot’ and access the information that is readily available. I do have a caution with Potty Training though. In my experience it can result in a parrot that holds out on defecating for excessive periods of time if the behaviour has been placed on a cue and there hasn’t been variable reinforcement also offered for defecating within the cage or on a stand without a cue. You will find in the articles available that there is general advice on how to capture the defecating behaviour and reinforce this, but make sure that you also set up a reinforcement schedule for defecating at other times either in his cage and on any suitable stand away from his cage. This will hopefully ensure that he doesn’t sit around waiting for your cue to relieve himself! Everything that you will learn from the above article links and DVD suggestions will certainly help you out as a master potty trainer ☺

Kind Regards from `Down Under’
Jim McKendry
Parrot Behaviour & Enrichment Consultations
http://www.pbec.com.au

Answered by Susan Friedman & LLP Course Graduates:

Hi Lindsey, Your question fits right in with a discussion I was having just this morning with exotic pet veterinarian, Lore Haug. We were talking about the importance of distinguishing between behavior problems that are primarily the result of a disease process vs behavior problems that are primarily the result of a learning process. In the case of a disease process, behavior is considered a symptom and the medical model is appropriately implemented to investigate the underlying cause of the symptom and to determine a cure. The question,"Why does he do that?" is answered by determining the way in which an animal is sick.

In the case of a learning process, behavior is not a symptom of underlying disease. A different model, the behavioral model, is the appropriate framework to investigate and resolve the problem. With the behavioral model, we aren't looking for a cure for an illness but rather teaching opportunities and new environmental arrangements that make the problem behavior irrelevant, inefficient and ineffective. We reframe the question "Why does he do that?" by asking, 1) what does the animal get, or get away from, by behaving like that, and, 2) what events or conditions in the immediate environment signal to the animal that the problem behavior will be reinforced with some outcome.

This translates to the ABCs of behavior - antecedents-behavior-consequences - a feedback loop whereby antecedent events signal that a particular behavior will yield reinforcing consequences, which accounts for the motivation to perform the behavior again when similar signals appear again in the future.

Of course there are plenty of behavior problems for which these models overlap. Some behavior problems can be helped by using both the medical and the behavioral models, concurrently. The reason I shared the difference between the medical and behavioral models is that it isn't clear to me which model is most appropriate to resolve the behavior problems you describe. It is possible that the feather picking and vent kicking are learned behaviors, that is, the behaviors are maintained by antecedent conditions and reinforcing outcomes (e.g. insufficient opportunities or skills to engage in alternate species-appropriate behavior and social or sensory reinforcers). There is abundant research in the human literature demonstrating that highly destructive, self-directed behaviors can be learned and maintained by antecedent conditions and reinforcing consequences.

However, my guess is that the behavioral explanation is less likely in this case than physical explanations, such as allergies to particular foods or other items that your bird comes into contact with. As a result, I urge you to continue to pursue the physical possibilities with experts in the medical and nutritional fields, as well as with professionals with a special knowledge of captive eclectus parrots.

That said, given our commitment to an ethical standard of behavior management in which our teaching interventions follow the "most positive, least intrusive, effective solution" rule, we will do no harm by considering behavioral interventions at the same time you pursue the physical possibilities. In this case, you should first try to identify the antecedent conditions that predict when your bird will engage in these behaviors and also carefully observe what are the consequences immediately gained by feather picking and vent kicking. To do this well, keeping a written log of the ABCs for a week or so will be really helpful.

In terms of interventions, the bottom line is that your focus should be on what you want Fenway TO DO instead of feather picking. You can then develop a positive reinforcement teaching plan to teach these alternate behaviors. You should also consider changing the environment so that the alternate behaviors are easier to exhibit and more reinforcing than the problem behaviors.

This program can be concurrent with ongoing medical investigation because even if the problem is not behavioral, Fenway only stands to gain by learning more enriching behaviors in a well-arranged, complex environment.

I hope that gives you more direction with which to understand and resolve this behavior problem. Your commitment to Fenway comes through loud and clear, for which I greatly admire you.

All best,
S
Susan G. Friedman, Ph.D.
Utah State University
Dept of Psychology
Dept of Special Education


"The great aim of education is not knowledge, but action." Herbert
Spencer

Answered by Steve Martin & Staff:

Hello Oliver! My name is Chris Jenkins, and I am one of the Senior Trainers at Natural Encounters, Inc. I would be happy to offer some advice on some strategies that may help you with the challenges that you are having with your new African Grey.

First off, I would like to commend you for the care that you are giving the companion parrots with which you share your home. It sounds like they are getting an excellent diet, an enriching environment, and lots of attention. It’s always heartening for us to hear about people who are as devoted to their companion parrots as you are, and the fact that you are seeking out advice from others is another example of that.

As far as the question about the behavior that you are seeing from Clayton at “bedtime” is concerned, my guess would be that it may actually be stemming from the care and attention that you have provided him. From what you’ve detailed above, it sounds like Clayton has become very fond of both you and the attention that he gets when he is outside of his cage. My guess is the loud calling and cage banging that you are seeing at night is an attempt to solicit more attention at a time when he knows it is going to be taken away for the night.

As to your specific question, I wouldn’t at all say that the behavior you are seeing is an example of Clayton being, as you put it, “fundamentally unhappy”. You are providing him with a very enriching environment, and it seems that he has really taken to his new environment during the time that you’ve had him. Instead, I would say that you are facing a situation in which the use of a few training strategies can help to make bedtime more enjoyable for Clayton, and far less of a headache for you.

When looking at a behavior like unwanted vocalizations, ignoring it is a good bit of advice that we offer people. One thing to keep in mind, though, is that screaming and contact calling are natural, hard-wired behaviors that may never disappear completely. Parrots in the wild tend to scream first thing in the morning and in the evening, so dealing with loud vocalizations at these times of the day is a fairly typical thing many companion parrot owners deal with. I would definitely make sure that you are not reinforcing this behavior by giving the bird attention or treats when it is screaming – even going as far as making sure to not walk into the room or to let him hear you approaching - otherwise you may end up actually making the situation worse. If Clayton learns that he can get a desired response by calling loudly, he will definitely continue to do so. We’ve heard of one companion parrot owner who, when they hear their bird screaming, actually freezes in place wherever they are, therefore making sure that they’re not in some way reinforcing their bird’s screaming behavior.

In addition to ignoring behaviors that you don’t want to see from Clayton, a great strategy is to train him to do things that you want him to do. A great way to get an animal to stop doing an unwanted behavior is to train it to do something that is incompatible with it. In your specific example, some incompatible behaviors might include sitting quietly on a perch, interacting with a specific toy in his cage, or offering non-screaming vocalizations. It sounds like you are already offering Clayton some of his favorite treat in his cage at night. I would suggest using this treat not only for being in his cage, but specifically for doing something that you want him to while he is in there. One of our general rules of training is “You get what you reinforce”, so you want to make sure that when you are offering him the treats he is doing something at that moment that you want to see more of. If he gets something he likes while he is calling loudly or banging on the bars, you may end up actually training Clayton to do the things that you want to see less of!

One of the other things I noticed in your question was that you said that, while you are experiencing Clayton’s “tantrums” at night, he readily goes in and out of his cage during the day with no issue. I think that it’s important to note how different these two things are, and to look at how we might take advantage of this in order to help troubleshoot the issues that you are having with Clayton at “bedtime”. I would guess that one of the reasons that Clayton goes into his cage so easily during the daytime is that he always has the ability to come back out again if he wants to. At night when he goes in, that’s where he stays until morning, a very different situation. Everything you’ve detailed above makes me think that it’s not that he has any issue with being inside his cage, just that he would rather be outside of it, as he has a history of so many positive interactions happening there. I would suggest maybe changing up Clayton’s routine a little bit in order to make being inside the cage just as much fun as being outside of it. Instead of having the cage be a place that he only gets shut inside of at night, I would work towards being able to have him in the cage at other times as well, and making sure he gets just as much attention and head scratches there as he has been in other places in the home. In working to make being in the cage more fun, I’d also suggest that you start with him only being closed inside the cage for short periods of time, and always letting him come back out again if he wants while he is continuing to offer acceptable behaviors (sitting quietly, soft vocalizations, playing with toys, etc). For example, you might try shutting him in his cage for a short time in the early evening, giving him some of his treats, talking to him and scratching his head, and then opening the cage back up again. By opening the cage back up again, you are empowering Clayton to be able to leave the cage by choice, which will ultimately increase his level of comfort with being closed into the cage. The goal is to be able to do this for progressively longer periods of time at various times in the day, and to give him the option of coming back out during these sessions before he displays behaviors such as loud calling or banging at the bars. Just as if you were to give him treats while he is displaying undesirable behaviors, letting him out while his is screaming or banging at the bars will teach him to do those things more often.

Another fun option might be to train Clayton to go into his cage by himself in order to be shut in for the night. You might start with him on top of his cage, and then first begin baiting him inside with one of his favorite treats. While you are baiting him in, you can also introduce a cue that will ultimately replace the bait itself – I’d suggest some sort of a hand cue, such as a twirl of your index finger, as birds are very visually oriented. By repeatedly pairing this cue with the bait, Clayton will learn the connection between the two, and the bait can eventually be faded out so that he performs this behavior when the cue is performed all on its own, and then he can get a nice big treat once he’s inside the cage. It’s a fun learning experience for the both of you, and once Clayton understands the basics of this “training game”, you are only limited in your imagination in the things that you can try to train him to do in the future!

The key to success in all of the above is to be clear in your communication to your bird, to be consistent in what you are reinforcing and what you are ignoring, and to be patient and remember that while this process can take some time, the rewards that you will reap will be well worth it. I hope you’ll find that the suggestions I’ve made not only help you with the bedtime issues that you are having with your new companion parrot, but also helps you to build a better relationship overall that will keep your bird enriched and stimulated for many years to come.

Sincerely,
Chris Jenkins
Senior Trainer
Natural Encounters, Inc.

Answered by Susan Friedman & LLP Course Graduates:

Hello Eva, Asking this question is like lighting fireworks: It produces a shower of bright lights about behavior! You asked if there is a way to discourage your parrot from climbing to the floor and walking around the living room. Further, you hypothesized that his motivation may be being with the dogs you are pet sitting. I see that you have a good nose for behavior by how naturally you assessed the probable function of this behavior and the events that set it into play:

Antecedents (Predictor): Dogs in house
Behavior: Climbing to floor
Consequences (Purpose): Access to dogs

To know for sure if this functional assessment is correct, we would need to test it by varying the antecedents and consequences, and observing the resulting effect on the behavior. However, it sounds like a reasonable working hypothesis if Pyewacket has not gone to the floor before the arrival of the dogs and if he orients himself toward the dogs once he's on the floor.

As you imply, behavior doesn't spew out of parrots (any animal) willy-nilly and Pyewacket is not being "obstinate", "stubborn" or "recalcitrant" or any other such vague label. Even positive labels like "curious" and "bold" don't tell us what we need most to know: The behavior that Pyewacet *does* and the *conditions* under which he does it. Pyewacket behaves in this way given the particular conditions described in the antecedent because it serves a particular purpose described in the consequence (pending further info). That's very informative.

You mentioned parrot-proofing the house and by that I'm guessing that you mean doing whatever it takes to prevent the dogs and parrot from having access to one another. That is certainly a reasonable approach to the problem. However, if you are looking for a learning solution, this is what you need to know: We have only antecedent changes and consequence changes with which to change behavior. That's the short and the long of it! So, rather than giving you a recipe, here are some suggestions to consider as you develop your behavior intervention:

First, let's change the orientation of your question: Instead of asking if we can get Pyewacket *not to do* something, let's ask a more empowering question:"What do we want him *to do* instead? This way we identify a behavior target to increase, which puts us squarely in the positive reinforcement zone where we want to be (given the known postive relationship between rate of reinforcement and quality of life).

It's tempting to choose a behavior target like *staying* on the cage or tree but we know that parrots, like all animals, are *built to behave*, not to be still. So, we need to identify an *active behavior* for our target. From there it becomes a relatively straight-forward matter of either 1) arranging the environment so that a behavior your parrot already does is even more reinforcing than going to the floor, and/or 2) teaching a new behavior that requires the cage or tree location and then following the plan in #1.

Now we're thinking like behavior analysts!

Competing with the novelty reinforcer produced by investigating dogs won't be easy but it can be done by arranging *highly reinforcing* activities on the cage and tree. That may take the form of favorite chewable and manipulable items and food treats presented in interesting and engaging ways and changing them frequently to add a high degree of novelty and variety, the reinforcing spice of life!

We can add to that the strategy by "draining" the strength of the reinforcement provided by going to the floor. This may be accomplished with a supervised introduction to the dogs, depending on the dogs' behavior of course. But, this may be less practical with dogs who are only temporarily in your home as you may not have the time needed to build a safe relationship.

Increasing the behavior we want to see more is always a matter of making the right behavior easier than the wrong behavior and making the right behavior more reinforcing. How we accomplish that is only limited by your creativity.

Hope that helps you solve this and any future problems that may arise!
All best,
S