Biting

[pchela]

Everything Michael has said is pretty much spot on. There is really never a reason to use negative reinforcement with a parrot. They aren't people and don't reason like us so what you perceive as an attempt at dominance is actually the bird just being a bird. He may have been taught to bite you because you may have accidentally reinforced the biting behavior or there could be a number of other reasons. Birds are flock animals and don't operate like pack animals where there is a dominant member. Dominance is just not an issue for parrots and there is no reason to try to dominate them. Anyway, sounds like you are are the right track with dusting off the clicker and starting positive reinforcement training. Just have patience and it absolutely will work and improve your relationship with your bird.

[entrancedbymyGCC]

Causeing it to loose balance (by wobbling / tilting hand) is negative reinforcement. So it will stop the biteing behavior.

Actually this is positive punishment.

Wow, thought you were a regular guy who just loves birds, not a vet.

That would be a psychologist or a behaviorist.

Seriously, these days it is popular for people to use training jargon and I think it is good when people use it correctly, and that's what Michael is doing. People get negative reinforcement confused with punishment and it all becomes a mess. If one wants to do some training with ANY animal, I think is useful to know what positve reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, negative punishment, extinction and flooding are. Because those are the tools we use.

And while I've yet to find a situation where negative reinforcement is useful for a bird... I won't categorically rule it out. Negative doesn't mean "bad" it means taking away something in order to increase teh probability of a behavior. With a horse, you apply pressure on his side until he steps away and the "reward" is the absence of the pressure. This is negative reinforcement.

[meowingaround]

Negative reinforcement with Windy is reaching in his cage with a gloved hand, and gently holding him in my palm until he stops trying to bite the glove. Then the glove is removed and he gets scratched.

I dunno I think we've both trained each other.

This afternoon it was like the past week hadn't happened. I went upstairs he called to me, I went over opened his cage reached in said uppy uppy and he stepped right up. He didn't seem fearful or upset in fact he seemed more lovable than he has in awhile.

And the two hours I held him he stepped up each time I asked, he didn't run avoiding my hand nor did he bite. He snugged right up against my face, didn't fight not being on the shoulder, preened me.

I guess that's the confusing part.

But I'd rather try it the other way because I HATE holding him in the palm of my hand while he has a fit. I also hate having him attack me without warning or a reason I can understand. I do get he has his own reasons .. just wish he'd share before he drew blood.


I hope someday to have both birds in the same room.



He's such a smart boy he's already understanding the clicker means millet. Millet is the one thing he can't resist so that works for me

[entrancedbymyGCC]

Sounds like it may be displaced aggression. The bird feels aggressive towards the other bird, but bites the nearest creature... you. I am also now convinced they can get angry at us. Scooter was a holy terror for 48 hours after we got back from vacation... I'm still healing, but he's back to normal and all we applied was tincture of time.

[Munchy]

I've been reading the discussion and it has been interesting. I myself cannot claim to know why Disney started biting, but I do know it was definitely aggressive. I also have not had a bird in more than twenty years and even then I was a young person. I cringe at the conditions my first bird lived in knowing what I know now. But I was just a kid and did the best I could with what little I had.
This is why I was so nervous about how to correct Disney's biting. I didn't want to reinforce bad behavior and also didn't want to cause him to be afraid of me. He is right now sitting on my shoulder happy as a clam. I have had him try to bite me hard since my last entry and again used the holding his beak method. I wasn't sure if this was working until today. I had him out for a few hours and at one point he tried to bite hard, I went for his beak but it has turned into an easy lifting of his beak and him almost enjoying me stroking it. I then moved my hand over to his head and he seemed to enjoy me stroking the back of his head.
I think because it turned into a positive experience the first time by him placing his head into the area between my thumb and pointer finger, that has helped me realize I could remove his beak from my hand without it being a scary event or an aggressive move on my part. I have also incorporated the verbal "no" as I move his beak.
This has been difficult for me as I really don't want to screw him up, he is such an awesome bird.
He does not enjoy my huge hands going over his back or over his head. So I have been slowly trying to pet him without it being a scary experience.
When he is nervous or afraid of something he takes flight. When I got him his wings were clipped but over the past week or so he has been able to fly a little bit. He does "fly" to me when he can see me and he is out of the cage and he is close enough to believe he can make it. So cute.
A lot of rambling but time will tell if I am doing the right thing.
I hope the other people who posted here have as much success as I have seemingly had with stopping the biting.
There is a lot of good advice here.

[Jontchaav]

Yeah, that...And It is negative reinforcement... When there is à 1kg beast biteing you, you have to take drastic techniques.. You want to remove the biteing because it hurts, not because of the action.. You cannot UN-teach à bird to bite.. He Will always do, but if it is for his protection you have to change that, and fast.. Maybe you havent been bit by à large bird? The moluccan cocatoo has around 600KG pressure, which easily chops your fingers, but hell what am i talking about, why not cuddle with it and Bond..

[footfoot]

Ha ha right.
I'm going to try reverse psychology with a dash of reinforced outcome based behavioral modification. After all, I do have 1 finger left.

[meowingaround]

hahaha The breeder who sold me Windy had a gorgeous Blue and Gold Macaw I fell in love with, during my visits I would scratch his big head and neck. The last visit when I got to pick Windy up, I was petting this beautiful boy, and a man came up behind me in the store and scared him. He promptly bit my index finger hard. I gotta tell you that was NOT a pleasant experience, he wouldn't let go he just held on and seriously if he'd wanted he could have snapped my finger right off.

I'm very happy my bird is just a couple ounces of fluff and feathers, as is I have some scars on my fingers from some of his more savage bites.. When he attacks it's not for show he bites then bites then bites. The worst attack I ended up with 8 separate bites on the same finger. Luckily I don't have a scar where the Macaw bit me, that was deeply bruised but he just made me bleed a tiny bit, mostly it was very painful pressure, and knowing that if I did the wrong thing I might say goodbye to my finger.

[Michael]

And while I've yet to find a situation where negative reinforcement is useful for a bird... I won't categorically rule it out. Negative doesn't mean "bad" it means taking away something in order to increase teh probability of a behavior. With a horse, you apply pressure on his side until he steps away and the "reward" is the absence of the pressure. This is negative reinforcement.

I can think of several situations where negative reinforcement is helpful in parrot training. The first is "leaving the parrot alone" when it hates people or a certain person. This is a technique used to get closer to the parrot, wait for it to calm down and stop being aggressive, and then negatively reinforce the calm behavior by leaving it be. This is helpful when people cannot get close enough to the parrot to use any form of positive reinforcement.

Another time negative reinforcement is helpful is when reducing fear of new objects. It's similar to the above scenario but with an object. This borders on flooding (and is really just a milder form). I used this to get Kili to accept wearing the harness. When she would calm down and/or wear the harness for a short time, I would reward her by taking it off. This is once again negative reinforcement.

Finally I can use negative reinforcement to reward flight recall. This would involve putting the parrot down on a less than favorite person or perch and then recalling the bird. The reinforcement for flying to me would be negative as the slightly awkward situation is removed.

Yeah, that...And It is negative reinforcement... When there is à 1kg beast biteing you, you have to take drastic techniques.. You want to remove the biteing because it hurts, not because of the action.. You cannot UN-teach à bird to bite.. He Will always do, but if it is for his protection you have to change that, and fast.. Maybe you havent been bit by à large bird? The moluccan cocatoo has around 600KG pressure, which easily chops your fingers, but hell what am i talking about, why not cuddle with it and Bond..

No, shaking your hand with the purpose of discouraging biting is positive punishment. You're trying to reduce behavior by adding an aversive (shaking). You're not taking something undesirable in order to increase behavior. Using hand shaking as a negative reinforcement would mean ALWAYS shaking your parrot and only stopping shaking when it does something that you want it to do. Clearly that is not the case here.

My parrot can crack almonds and walnuts open with his beak... His beak is more than twice as big as a Yellow Naped's. Would I rather have a positive relationship with this parrot or make him scared of me so that he'd try to fly away from me or bite in self defense? Should I make him friend or foe?

[pchela]

Yeah, that...And It is negative reinforcement... When there is à 1kg beast biteing you, you have to take drastic techniques.. You want to remove the biteing because it hurts, not because of the action.. You cannot UN-teach à bird to bite.. He Will always do, but if it is for his protection you have to change that, and fast.. Maybe you havent been bit by à large bird? The moluccan cocatoo has around 600KG pressure, which easily chops your fingers, but hell what am i talking about, why not cuddle with it and Bond..

Yes the larger birds can really do some damage when they give a mean bite. Yes if a Macaw is biting hard enough to break bones you have to do something drastic to stop it. What we are saying is if you take the time to train your bird using positive reinforcement, your bird should never get to the point of aggression where he wants to bite your finger off. I have been bit by Cockatoos and Macaws and Amazons and yes, they hurt. Sometimes you just have to suck it up and take it. If a person is going to throw or drop their bird to the ground every time they get bit, they should seriously reconsider parrot ownership.