by Laurie Feldman » Fri Sep 06, 2019 4:27 am
Hi everybody, I THINK I'm in the right thread. I have read a LOT of pros and mostly cons about this topic, so be gentle. Our 13 year old senegal was 11 months, basically a rescue; we'd watched him sitting alone in a cage with no toys, nothing, no people, for months and months and couldn't take it anymore, and brought him home. He pretty much trained HIMSELF about pooping in or on his cage, or on his play area. We really did nothing to encourage him one way or another. The only thing I did was to encourage him to poop in his cage before being let out, and he learned the words (we are italian) "Fai la cacca poi esci" (do your poop then come out), and very quickly learned to poop first thing, then come out. He flies into the bedroom at 12:30 or 1PM, to the curtain rod, and sleeps about an hour, then calls to be taken down (he doesn't fly OUT of the bedroom, only IN). Then he poops on top of his cage. I've taken the curtains down once a year for many years and only found maybe 2 poops there. When he is with us, he flies back to the cage to poop. We did nothing to encourage this, he just learned it.
I understand the foolishness of forcing them to go in a particular place, or on command (what if we die and they are re-homed, by example?). Now we have a 4.5 month old baby girl. I'm only wanting her, for now, to poop before I let her out of the cage. So far, no success; in fact she'll hold it for almost an hour while fussing to come out, then the first thing she does is poop on the table where I put her morning vegetables for her to forage. I don't want to force ANYTHING with her and maybe she is too young to learn this. The big boy couldn't possibly hold it for an hour in the morning, he does it within 5 minutes of waking up.
Thanks for any guidance, Laurie