Scaring your parrot on purpose

[Michael]

WARNING: for advanced bird owners with a solid relationship with their parrot only. Not for beginners, you'll only ruin your relationship with your parrot.

I've found it useful to tame my parrot by running at her or swinging my hand in really quickly to grab her and then rewarding her for it.

Sometimes when I'd get fed up with her or just need to put her away in a rush, she'd start flying away from me and it would turn into a game of chasing her back and forth across the room from perch to perch. This is not good and drives the flee from predator reflex. So what I've been doing is counter conditioning the natural response through flooding, desensitization, and positive reinforcement. I start slower and more gradually where I know she won't flee and just reach in and grab her, then I work my way up where I am running across the room full speed at her and grab her suddenly. Then when she's no longer flying away from this, I reduce the rewards and only reward this exercise on occasion.

This may sound silly but there can arise times when my parrot trusting me could mean life or death. Whether its outside and I need to grab her to save her from an animal or person or inside when she is near some dangerous object. By desensitizing her to an exaggerated situation in training, I can be more certain that I will be able to get her when I need to in a real scenario.

The only down side to having such a desensitized pet is that it could put it in danger from other people or animals because it will have a disarmed flee response. This is great for me at home and in controlled settings but I know I won't be able to free fly her because she doesn't have an adequate sense of danger. For this reason it is almost impossible to mix a good house pet parrot and an outdoor freeflight one. You're almost forced to have one or the other: A skittish parrot that flees at the sight of danger or any questionable situation or one that is so tame you can do pretty much anything to it.

[sash4]

Ive read this quite a few times, and think this is totally disgusting!!! Why on earth would you want to take away one of required responses in any animal, There is absolutely no logical reason for you to do this!!
Surely your place is not full of dangers that this is required,If it is you need to rehome that bird instead of stripping it down to a robotic animal which will do everything you say with no choices, According to all your other topics lots of times you preach (for want of a better word) the rights and wrongs according to your views,,,,
This "training" in my opinion is not for the safety of the bird, but "how much can i control this bird" All of this comes across to me that this bird has no playtime and time on its own to do anything it wants,And just to be a Parrot!!.

[Michael]

What?? That doesn't make any sense. This has nothing to do with control. I'm just trying to expose her to slightly more frightening situations at home so that she would be able to handle less frightening ones away from home. She is flighted and can fly away when she is scared. I don't want her to be getting scared of me or other people and flying off. This is why I train her from time to time to stand her ground for slightly scary situations like me running over to grab her. I take her outside on a harness. If she lands in a dangerous place and I run to grab her to save her, I don't need her to get scared and try to fly off.

This has nothing to do with control but rather desensitization. I can recall her just fine but now I'm teaching her not to fly off as the result of situations that may appear frightening to her but are really completely harmless. I'm not destroying her reflex or independence, I am just teaching her situations that she does not need to be scared of.

[entrancedbymyGCC]

As it was posted on April 1, I wasn't sure if it was a joke or not!

If I can draw an analogy with horses, where I have much more experience, it sounds a little like working with a horse to reduce spooking. Horses are also prey animals and I like to say that their motto is "run away first and ask questions later". We do two somewhat different things to approach this, and neither "disarms" the flight response when the horse is turned out and not with a human companion. One is selective desensitization to common things (like hoses, for washing). The other is to trust the human and to put attention onto following the human's instructions rather than on being independently frightened. The latter is quite useful when ridden -- sitting on top of flight response isn't the most fun thing on the planet. The horse may start to react, but if the human remains calm and focused, the horse will follow the human's lead. In none of the cases do we deliberately frighten the horse, although we may introduce stimuli that elicit a mild "what's that?" response. For desensitization, the key is to remove the stimulus before a full-up flight response occurs and the second is establishing a good trust based leadership relationship, which is built on the sum total of interactions, especially training work.

Would these things not work with birds as well?

[sash4]

First and foremost this is about bird "training" and i am only responding with my own personal view based on what is written and its not personal, Take it as reading a book that you dont believe what youve read, "that type of context"

What has been written is absolutely wrong, You cant "train" force a bird to do this type of thing, some may consider it animal cruelty!!
Taking away one of the basics of survival is cruel, regardless of how its done..
"Quote" i can recall the bird just fine" but then say when im fed up with it and want to put her away she fly's off and its a chasing game to get her" and this is the objective of this training, to put it bluntly its written in a way, for your convienance,and not for the safety of the bird in situations, and as was written,teaching her not to fly off in situations that may frighten her , but really are completely Harmless, Why do it then???
Every animal and human must know what is going to scare them.
And if taken outside on a harness, she gets into a dangerous area where i can run and save her!! Dont put the bird in that area in the first place, after all she is in a harness, you control where she goes, Right??

[entrancedbymyGCC]

Well, we do desensitize birds routinely -- to towels, to nail-clipping. I don't think we routinely de-spook birds. But, could we not so strongly reinforce step-up or flighted recall such that the bird would respond even if frightened?

[Michael]

No and that's the issue. If recall were so solid that the parrot would recall even mid-spook, it would not be an issue at all. I think the flee response is so strong that it overrides all others. Perhaps training during the tailing end of the flee response could bring down the time between flee and rational recall but it is very difficult to create and amend these situations. So instead I am desensitizing her to basic situations.

To Sash4, I'm sorry but it really doesn't sound like you know what you are talking about. Practically everything we talk about on this forum and in terms of parrot ownership is about blending them into human life. Sometimes we adapt our environments and the things we do to their needs. But many times we adapt them to ours. There are hundreds of objects in our home that a wild bird may be scared of and yet our parrots take them for granted. Everything from twitching a finger to sneezing would scare a wild bird and yet our parrots have been desensitized to all of these behaviors whether on purpose or inadvertently just from living around us. They have been desensitized to our presence, to our hands, to being touched, to being grabbed. None of this is natural so don't you dare say that what I am doing is any more cruel than owning a pet.

If I walk toward her slowly, she doesn't flinch. If I walk toward her quickly she is fine. She used to fly off if I'd walk to her very quickly but I already desensitized that through a little bit of grab training. Now I'm taking it to another step where I can run toward her. She's not scared of me. Normally she does not flee me. However, now that I take her outside more, I feel the need to train her NOT to fly away if I'm running to grab her before a dog bites her or anything bad can happen.

In terms of fed up, we're talking about things that are normal for parrot owners to get fed up with. This can be biting, inappropriate destruction of our property, screaming, or other things that do not blend in with our human lifestyle. They are like a small child and do need to be supervised. If they engage in behavior that is dangerous to them (without them knowing it, say chewing wires), to us, or to our property, we sometimes have to take matters into our own hands. With a clipped parrot, it pretty much can't get away and is automatically at the mercy of its owner being able to grab the bird instantly when necessary. With a flighted bird it's not that simple and if it wants to it could keep outflying us and we never catch it. So by mostly positively reinforcing "catch" behavior where I can grab the bird no matter what, the few instances where the bird may not want to be caught but it is necessary, it will not be such an issue. This may well be unnecessary for people who keep their flighted parrots home and never take them anywhere. However, I do take her to different houses and outside on a harness. The last thing I need for her to do is fly off when I need to get a hold of her really quickly. So if someone wants to talk about how "controlling" or "taking away natural survival behaviors" is terrible, you'd better not be a parrot owner or I will call you out on being a hypocrite (or the parrots are permanently caged and void of any interaction). Anyone that has a hand tame parrot has taken away their number 1 key survival instinct from the wild which is to stay away from all other animals.

PS this wasn't meant as a joke. I exaggerated the title for sure but it's a serious and important matter. It happens to a large extent inadvertently as parrots just get "used to" things that go on in our households. Sometimes I just think these things can be sped up through taming/training. I did this to teach Kili to wear a harness, I did this to teach Kili to let me open her wings, now I am using it to teach Kili not to get scared if I run toward her to get her.

[sash4]

Unbelievable how many times you have contradicted yourself in this topic, and believe this is a good thing, Your reasons are beyond belief as they are easily avoided,

Your first paragraph shows the true reasons behind this, and this viewtopic.php?f=15&t=285 and then its trivial scenarios to back it up...

[entrancedbymyGCC]

The main issue I see is that this approach seems as if it would decrease the trust of the parrot in the person. What you really want is to increase that. I don't think pushing the boundary of YOU being scary is the best way to accomplish that, I think what you want to train is the response to you when something scary is going on. I know how I would do this with an equine, which also has a very strong flight response, but is seemingly more hierarchical in terms of group response to something scary. How does a flock work when a perceived danger is present? Is it every bird for himself, or do they coordinate following some form of leadership?

Also, I would assume as with any animal that in an emergency situation you need to keep your demeanor, voice and body language calm. So rushing up in a panic would not buy you a lot of time over walking rapidly but calmly.

Silly question... with the proposed dog scenario, why would you not want to allow the startle response and then recall? The bird gets herself out of danger and then you reconnect.

[Michael]

She is unfamiliar with dogs. She hasn't been around dogs. She's not going to startle from a dog specifically (unless the dog is very abrupt). If the dog is sitting still but very near the parrot and I am at a slight distance, the parrot would sooner startle from me rapidly approaching than the dog itself. I think in the long run my parrot has developed greater trust in me because of these exercises. At first she may be awkward about the situation but before long the situation is rewarding and she leans into my hand to be grabbed. It's just a matter of doing it at home a few times under controlled conditions, then she will be more accepting to the behavior in general. Don't forget, it doesn't harm her. It just scares her. So I just do it enough and compensate her for it till it is no longer startling.

I'm not trying to desensitize her to danger or make a vegetable out of her. I'm just desensitizing her to me and things in my household so that she doesn't get spooked at home or of me if I have her elsewhere. I think the little bit of increased stress under controlled conditions in training pays off on a less stressed/scared bird in the long run.