Hello all, I wanted to start a discussion about something this time, rather than talk about my own birdie problems.
So, at my most recent vet trip with Yui, I asked their opinions about her aggression problems. I was very irritated about their response, and I wanted to see if anyone else wanted to share what they think. Also I wanted to ask if anything they said might be correct or good for taming/training.
So the biggest thing was, they repeatedly asked me to think about trimming her wings. Their theory behind this was, is that (I'm going to use almost direct quotes) she will rely on me more, because she can't fly to go where she wants. She will also feel smaller, and she will realize that she can't dominate me and she will begin to stop because territorial and possessive.
Now most of us as far as I have read, don't clip our birds' wings. Also in Micheal's theories, clipping a bird's wings causes more behavior problems than if you don't. Also health problems, because the bird can't excersize. The bird can't fly away so it resorts to biting.
The vet also told me to "reduce shoulder time". They said that when she is on my shoulder she feels bigger than me and that encourages dominating behavior. I just thought that was silly, even if it was true. Because if Yui wants to sit on my shoulder, she's going to climb up to it. If she wants to sit on my finger, she's going to stay on my finger. I can only annoy her if I keep preventing her from going on my shoulder which results in biting eventually. And under normal circumstances, she does not behave aggressively on my shoulder anyway.
Lastly, they told me that as punishment for aggressive behavior or anything else that is undesirable is a time-out in the cage or a different, smaller cage. But it's obvious what happens if you do that, the parrot just gets locked up forever because it keeps misbehaving and it can't associate the time out cage with what it did because the punishment did not happen immediately after. Also, the parrot just becomes afraid of the cage and never wants to go in it, which is obviously problematic.
So I just wanted to see what everyone else thought! Or maybe share some other ways to overcome possessiveness. Yui has been becoming more possessive and territorial, especially about her food bowls, and I am determined to overcome it! There must be a proper way!