Possible to train alternative to highly emotional behavior?

[entrancedbymyGCC]

This is about Scooter and his post-travel anger issues. I say anger, but it could be some form of over-excitement, I suppose. Maybe I'll try to get some video, but he comes forward to the front of the cage, feathers standing on end, striking at toys to either side of his perch location, mouths beak open and shut, vocalizes in a way that sounds a lot like swearing although it is only rarely human words, and if offered my hand will strike without hesitation and bite hard. Not what I would think of as a receptive mental state for any kind of training.

To date my M.O. has been to wait until his in-cage posturing has become less dramatic and at the point I think he's about "over it" I let him let himself out of the cage (normally he steps up to come out quite cheerfully and reliably, but not when in this state) and when he's hung out for a little while on his play top, he will usually step up and let me pet him and things rapidly go back to normal from there, typically within hours if not minutes. If I let him out and he is NOT ready, we are back to badger-locked-on-finger, so there is definitely an attitude change involved, it isn't just about location..

The question is -- should I try to work with this behavior when he is so clearly over-wrought? Would he be able to learn in that highly agitated state? Could I teach him some kind of alternative way of expressing it? Can I get him to respond to commands given when he so wound up? Or am I doing the right thing by waiting a day or two or three and just letting him normalize? I'm a little afraid getting this upset this often is going to turn him into a psycho-bird permanently!

Scotty, on the other hand, seems simply delighted to have us back. Sigh.

[sidech]

I'm no expert, but it sounds like over-excitement to me.

I would just let him cool off for a day or two. I don't think it can do any harm.

[patdbunny]

Yes, you can teach them to control themselves and snap out of pit viper mode. Would be best for you to practice with him when he's calmer first and then progress to when he's in pit viper mode.

It's about snapping him out of pit viper mode. You can try a sharp hand clap or a hiss. Again, not to terrify, but to catch his attention and take it away from being a pit viper. When his attention's switched, immediately and with decisiveness push on his abdomen and get him on your finger. If he tries to bite you, hiss at him again and stern low growly "noooo".

Also read this: http://www.africangreys.com/articles/be ... biting.htm
Especially the part: "As to Freddie the posturing Grey, I have learned how to deal with this not-so-subtle power play. "Up, Freddie," I say, pushing firmly at his lower abdomen with the side of my right hand and simultaneously using my left hand distraction technique. This is a highly technical maneuver which entails suddenly waving my left hand in the air at the same split second that I push with my right. The parrot is generally so distracted by the silliness with my left hand that it forgets what it is trying to accomplish and steps right onto my hand.

Then I, always the graceful winner, lavishly praise the bird for its good manners. In this way, I have circumvented the standoff without anything happening that would necessitate my reprimand. The confrontation has been resolved without violence, and I have won the round."

I've done that distraction technique and had success.

With practice and teaching him we are not allowed to bite, he'll snap out of these emotional states more easily. My daughter's sun conure gets crazy displaying and attacking some of his toys, but I can always put my hand in his cage and get him after I give him verbal notice that I'm going to.

[entrancedbymyGCC]

Well, I guess I'm reluctant to go to punishment in this situation because it isn't a normal behavior, it is one that only occurs when both my husband and I have been away from home for several days. I was thinking more in terms of attempting some target training or something like that, and my main concern was that because this is an abnormally heightened state of -- I'm not even sure I would call it aggessiveness, although it does result in biting, but it is a general state of agitation and apparent unhappiness -- that disappears completely for indefinite periods, months, between trips -- that he may actually be too beside himself to think. If it were a regularly occurring behavior that was just part of his normal range of behavior I'd handle it differently, I think. Here I have no sense at all that he's being naughty, more that he just can't cope somehow.

[patdbunny]

I guess I don't see where hissing, clapping, distracting are punishments. Growly "no" to me is just communicating my displeasure to the bird and not to me a punishment.

I see it as teaching my child that hitting (biting) is not an appropriate way to communicate unless they are being hurt.

When my birds interact with each other they don't put up with another biting them. I see the victim punking the biter right back. I just saw that this morning and almost thought I had to break up a real fight. That's a lot harsher than trying to distract them out of their emotional state.

We need to ask Capt why Jake doesn't bite him when Jake's obviously in a heightened emotional state over Yellow Bird.

[entrancedbymyGCC]

Technically anything you do that has the effect of diminishing the frequency of a behavior is punishment by definition, so those things would be punishment although I agree they are not harsh physical punishment. Any attempt to teach a person or an animal to NOT do something by definition involves punishment.

I'm not trying to teach him not to bite, though, that's not the issue. Perhaps I'm not being clear enough. The scenario is that when I travel for 2-3 nights or more and the sitter is taking care of the critters, when I come back, he is very upset and agitated typically for about 3 days. Yes, if I'm not paying enough attention to what I'm doing during that time he will bite, but the thing I am concerned with is the degree of upsetness NOT the biting that might or might not occur. The upsetness is not episodic during that time period, it is every waking moment that I'm in the same space with him for 48-72 hours. (I haven't tried setting up a camera when I'm not around). Once this has passed he will be his normal self with his normal range of behaviors (including some I am working with) indefinitely until I travel again. It's a very situation specific thing. I fully believe if I stopped taking trips (not practical) there would be no problem.

Although it is anthropomorphic to say so, as best I can understand, he is actually expressing anger at me for having left him. My gut feeling is that getting after him for that isn't likely to make him less angry. If he tended to get aggressive at the drop of the hat and bit me whenever I did anything he didn't like, it would be different, but when he's not angry like this, in this one specific but recurring situation, he's a totally different bird. My hope is that if I can introduce something that is a reassuring pattern of behavior which I can do at any time, which I can work from a safe distance, that will provide some kind of positive association to defuse the emotional state by patterning a familiar interaction. However, in past training attempts he has been best motivated by positive attention and scritches, so I'm not sure how well it will work, even if I can get his brain engaged when he's being "angry bird". He's certainly not open to being fawned over at that time. He's not typically all that food motivated for training, I've experimented a bit with that and had at best lukewarm success. But the bottom line is that what I'm really concerned about is that he's so agitated and stressed and I worry that he will someday just snap because he's been too upset too often. That's the problem I'd like to find a way to address, the emotional state itself, not the behaviors used to express it.

[patdbunny]

wow. That completely stumps me. I've never had a parrot pissed off from us being away before. About a month ago my daughter went visiting her cousins for a week so we decided to purposefully lock Ducky away in his cage for the entire week with just me going in to feed him twice a day. He's never been locked away in his cage longer than for a day or two. We did this just to see if we could get him angry or change his behavior. Other than being a little hyper from not being out of his cage all that time, he was pretty much himself.

Are you acting different in some way right when you guys get home from your trips? Like extra, "Poor baby! Did you miss us? I know - you're angry!" Maybe you're giving off some sort of weird vibes to him?

Maybe you can stick train him and immediately take him out of the cage with the stick when you get home from trips and do some trick training exercises or something. Or maybe it might help to move his cage to another location right when you get back from trips. Anything to get him out of that emotional state/recondition him out of that emotional state. Like a race horse has to bolt when it hears the bell, teach relaxation exercises and then progress to performing the relaxation exercised coupled with the bell so eventually the horse will not associate the bell with bolting out of the gate.

The only birds I have that can't be "snapped out" of their wound up, highly emotional states are the breeders when they're in breeding mode. Even with them, when they're not actually ready to lay eggs, on eggs, or have babies they're not very wound up. The tame conures can be handled easily again when they're done with their breeding cycle.

I just really believe he can be taught to calm down. They are smart enough and can learn emotional control.

[entrancedbymyGCC]

Yeah, I've posted this to a number of forums and have not found any other person to ever have a bird behave this way. It's very Jekell and Hyde. Maybe they can suffer from multiple personality disorder? Just kidding, but it feels almost as if.

The first two trips after we got him, he was fine when we got back. Same sitter, same everything, except that at the third trip we had Scotty. Who just seems glad to see us when we get back. I'm pretty sure behavior from me did not initiate this, because I was totally shocked and confused the first time, and the second time I had forgotten about the first and assumed it was a weird fluke. It's now happened 3 or 4 times more and it's gotten down to something like a routine. I expect I do anticipate the behavior now, but his body language totally telegraphs it. When he's finally gone back to normal I can tell just by looking at him. Then he just wants to cuddle for a couple of days. Very wierd.

I think stick/target training has merit. I want to start it when he is not in "angry bird" mode and then see if I can bridge it over to when he is upset. I just hope I can get him really motivated with a food treat because I won't be able to use what I have been normally for training when he's "angry".

[kaylayuh]

Is he a bird that was rehomed? If he was, he could have associated that the caregiver being gone for an extended period of time means that he's being abandoned and he reacts negatively to that.

When I was younger, my aunt's husband had a bird that would react similarly. When her husband needed to go away for a period of time, and because my aunt wasn't comfortable handling him, he was highly aggitated when he got back and would attack her husband. After he realized that he wasn't being abandoned and my aunt was taught to handle him without showing signs of fear, he returned to normal and stopped displaying signs of the psycho-bird.

Maybe he's responding to something the sitter does that he doesn't like? If he's not being handled normally by the caregiver while you're away and is on a different schedule, he may have some resentment toward you for that.

[entrancedbymyGCC]

He's not a rehome, but he languished at PetSmart until he was 11 months old. He was good the first couple of trips we made, but began to display this behavior this past summer (he's now just 2 years old FWIW).

We are tempted to put a camera up next time we go away. The sitter SAYS he is fine, comes out, plays on his playtop... then he's a demon when we get home. The sitter is an experienced professional pet sitter who has been taking care of our cats for years. She's a bit of an odd duck, like most animal people, but very competent. She is not very experienced with birds, however.

It's a mystery. I just hope he doesn't get "stuck" in that mode one day! Three days at a time is enough to bring me to the verge of despair.