Spiteful Green Cheek

[sfaber]

I’ve owned a Green Cheek Conure (Dokes) for about 5 years now, and I love her to death. I’m currently attending college so I’m unable to have my bird live with me. My dad’s been taking care of her for the last 3 years or so, but they don’t get along at all. The animosity between them goes way back. My father used to think it was hilarious to tease Dokes and get her all worked up. Dokes would then take any available opportunity to find my father, get ahold of an ear and give a good bite. This behavior has since been reinforced because a bite always gets a dramatic reaction out of my Dad. He gave up on forming a bond with Dokes long ago.
Now, I’d really like to fix this. I know that Dokes doesn’t get enough direct attention, and that’s no good for such a social animal. What can I do to help those two get along? What have you guys done to help your bird to act less aggressively towards a certain individual? I know that Dokes and my Dad need to spend some time together, but right now that only lasts a few minutes before my Dad’s bleeding, and off pouting somewhere.
Also, what’s the best way to correct for aggressive biting. I’ve always used a glare and stern “no” followed by calmly returning the bird to its cage (dramatic yells and movement just make it a game). Sound about right?

[entrancedbymyGCC]

There's a good article on working with "one-person-aggression" that's a sticky on the forum. That's a good place to start. But your Dad has to be willing to put the effort in to do the training, you can't teach your parrot to see him as a positive in her life if he's not also working with her.

Biting.... Michael, maybe we need a sticky on that, too... lots and lots of threads. The most often recommended approach is to avoid situations that provoke biting, ignore biting when it happens, and train behaviors that might otherwise result in biting using positive reinforcement. i.e., train the bird to step up for a reward rather than trying to get it to stop biting when asked to step up.. again, there are a lot of threads. There are also a ton of reasons for biting, and it is most effective to address the underlying cause, e.g., fear, territoriality, illness etc. The main problem with giving a time-out in the cage is, as Michael has pointed out, you don't want the cage to become an undesirable place to go. And you never want to put negative emotion into it. The bird won't automatically understand what "no" means, unless you have trained it to. Personally, I have found minor aversive to be effective for the kind of biting I've encountered with my green cheek, and I've deliberately taught "be gentle". But on the one occasion he went nonlinear (we had come home from a trip and he was to all intents and purposes mad at us) we simply had to wait a couple days until he calmed down, as he was biting too hard to ignore and he was already out of sorts with us, it was clear punishment would do no good. Not getting out and not getting petted was the only aversive involved.

How many more years of college do you have? Is there anyone else who might get on better with your bird, or do you think your father is ready to put some time in working with her? I'd suggest off campus housing, but unless you have excellent roommates, there is risk there.

[Michael]

Also, what’s the best way to correct for aggressive biting. I’ve always used a glare and stern “no” followed by calmly returning the bird to its cage (dramatic yells and movement just make it a game). Sound about right?

No. That sounds like the wrong thing to do. Definitely check out this article about why punishment is unlikely to be effective in parrot training. Instead of using punishment, you're going to want to look into positive reinforcement based training. Trick training really does help because it builds a desirable experience and a clear means of communication. See http://TrainedParrot.com/Taming for an article I wrote about basic taming and training techniques.

Also take a look at this, although the taming article mentioned above supersedes a lot of this:

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1528

[captwest]

Your father and your bird need to break the routine that they have . maybe something like micheal suggest will give them both something new instead of i'm going to bite you because you we always butt heads when together and that's the way it is.

[Alcatraz]

Also, what’s the best way to correct for aggressive biting. I’ve always used a glare and stern “no” followed by calmly returning the bird to its cage (dramatic yells and movement just make it a game). Sound about right?

No. That sounds like the wrong thing to do. Definitely check out this article about why punishment is unlikely to be effective in parrot training. Instead of using punishment, you're going to want to look into positive reinforcement based training. Trick training really does help because it builds a desirable experience and a clear means of communication. See http://TrainedParrot.com/Taming for an article I wrote about basic taming and training techniques.

Also take a look at this, although the taming article mentioned above supersedes a lot of this:

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1528

Its funny how the correct way to do things is always linked back to articles you wrote. Never from any real bird experts

[Michael]

If you want information from bird experts, then feel free to go ahead any pay to find out what they have to say. I link my own articles/posts because I end up repeating myself countless times answering similar questions. If you don't agree with or trust my articles, there's nothing stopping you from spending lots of money to find out the same stuff from expert sources.

[entrancedbymyGCC]

I couldn't really figure out what that poster was on about. Seemed like trolling for effect... it is a forum, caveat lector....