Feeling like a celebrity

[Michael]

Tonight I was at my cousin's rehearsal dinner for her wedding. I brought Kili along since it's good socialization for her and to make up for leaving her home alone for the rest of the weekend while I'm at the wedding (if Truman wasn't injured I would have still had someone check up on him, but Kili alone I'm not worried about). When I walked into the house with the bird carrier a couple of guests rushed at me and were checking the bird out excitedly. They asked if they could hold her and I said absolutely not. Their jagged/excited behavior at this moment was just ASKING for it. I used to focus on taming the bird to people but in the course of my socialization project I have learned that taming the people how to handle the bird and be calm is more productive.

I did let Kili out of the carrier immediately but kept her on me. There were at least 15 people there and a lot of noise. She was certainly alert but in no way panicked. I had every intention of keeping it that way and would let folks hold her when things settled down. What I've learned is that the bird will appreciate a good 15-30 minutes to quietly asses the new environment before having to interact with it. So I held her on me for a while but didn't let anyone handle her so she would feel safe. Luckily after the stuff I've put her through at the park, this was relatively easy.

So these two people the came up to me right away were telling me about how they like parrots and used to have a senegal but now have a meyers and pionus, etc. Upon recognizing that mine is a Senegal Parrot they started raving about this incredible video they had recently seen online and how incredible that parrot was and stuff. How it did 20 tricks and looks just like mine and stuff like that.

My brother started snickering and explaining that they're looking at it. They were in disbelief and asked me if I'm the guy in the video. I joked "I get that resemblance a lot." My brother kind of spoiled it because he kept assuring that it was me cause I wanted to keep messing with them while my parrot was doing all sorts of tricks all over me.

Mind you, I had never met these people before and there is little chance anyone mentioned more than that I have a parrot to them previously. They were thrilled to see my bird and eventually when things calmed down they got to hold Kili. They were impressed beyond belief and said it was the best part of the whole evening for them since they didn't know anyone there.

I'm kind of amazed how no one particularly appreciated my video/record when I made it nearly a year ago and yet now after it's gotten a million views, everyone is raving. Also Kili does far more impressive tricks (puzzle, 4 color ring on peg) but people don't seem to notice those much. Also people are amazed how tame my parrot is but fail to make the connection between working with your parrot (training) and good handling.

Also, at one point the groom's father saw me with the parrot and asked how I train it and whether I use positive reinforcement. I explained that I do to which he wondered if praise was sufficient reinforcement. I explained that for that reason I use a clicker as a conditioned secondary reinforcement and extensively use variable ratio reinforcement schedules. Later his wife stopped me and wanted to talk further about that because she was surprised to hear me say that. Turns out she is a professor of behavior management and is well familiar with Skinner based operant conditioning methods. I was telling her about my variable ratio reinforcement studies on Kili and she was quite impressed.

But overall the parrot got loads of attention today and was absolutely wonderful. She spent the entire 3+ hours we were there out and on me. It was an outdoor barbecue so I had her with the aviator harness on my shoulder. She didn't nip, bite, screech, or in any way cause any trouble. These social outings are fantastic ways to raise parrot awareness and more importantly socialize your parrot to change of environment and other people.

[Rue]

Excellent! And as soon as your first book comes out...can I have a first edition signed copy?

Please make it out to Ever, Pekoe, Nickel, Izzy and Raffi...and me of course!

[Kim S]

Excellent! And as soon as your first book comes out...can I have a first edition signed copy?

Please make it out to Ever, Pekoe, Nickel, Izzy and Raffi...and me of course!

I think you owe one of those to every member of this forum. We made you that big you know, we were there before you got that big head... ehm... big name

Just kidding.