Pajarita wrote:seagoatdeb wrote:Pajarita wrote:He doesn't want to leave the room. Parrots decide whether they want to do something or not and, personally, I don't believe in insisting or trying to train them out of making their own decisions... They are smart enough to know what they want and the same way that I would not push a person to do something they don't want to do, I don't push a parrot. I would do it with a dog but not with a parrot.
Parrots will push each other, and Gaugan will not let Sunny do some things he wants to do. Thats the way it is and it is perfectly natural and they have learned to understand each other. I can agree with you up to a point. Of couse you dont over push but you shouldnt spoil the parrot either. Its not good for them. Brandon is correct, we all have to do things we dont want to sometimes. We learn to all fit in to the flock. When parrots know the routines and everything is stable they are happy.
Parrots don't need to learn to 'fit in the flock' and they don't do anything they don't want to do - there is no such thing in the wild and, as you know, I advocate emulating natural conditions as much as possible. If a parrot wants to fly to another tree, no other parrot stops him, and, if a parrot does not want to fly to another tree while the others do, no other parrot pushes him to do it. That's the way a flock works... I normally use the word 'democracy' to describe it but, in reality, it's complete anarchy because every parrot decides for itself. In captivity, we take away the greatest majority of the decisions they should be making on their own and that, in itself, it's extremely stressful to them (again, as you know, I advocate eliminating as many sources of stress as possible for them). As to Gaugan and Sunny's relationship, I don't know exactly what you are referring to when you say that Gaugan does not allow Sunny to do things he wants to do but I doubt that this means Gaugan preventing Sunny from going or not going into another room which is, basically, what the issue with Mango is about.
Pajarita, I am sure everything you are saying is true for your huge flock of rehomed parrots. You have a lot of experience there and I respect it and I have had rehomed parrots too. But for us owners of just a few parrots that we got as babies, there is a whole different dynamic. We are all as closely connected as family and we all learn to give and take and our parrots spend huge amounts of time with us. You coud learn a lot from us in this area you dont have much experience in. If Sunny goes where Gaugan does not want him to she chases him off. As many times as she needs to, to be okay. I am actually a lot nicer to him and they both trust me more than each other. But they care about each other and spend a lot of time together.
Gaugan will go everywhere. Sunny was more timid. I sometimes had to persist to get him to go to different rooms. It was never forcing but it was continual progress due to my persistence. He now has an extra play area in another room, and if he could tell me, I am sure he thinks my encouragment was worth his greater enjoyment of life. He now is a parrot who will get tucked in my jacket and go over to my daughters house and happily hang with her parrots. He makes cute little noises all the way over. If I hadnt persistented he would have had a much smaller less happy life. Gaugan did spend some time not allowing Sunny to go near people or go to another room that she had claimed as hers, and because I intervened and let Gaugan know she was going to far, she finally gave in and let him. Brandon has a close relationship with his parrots and he will find his way by a combination of encouragment and allowing. Training and retraining is a form of communication and encouragment and learning.