SERIOUSLY grumpy feather-butt

[notscaredtodance]

This past sunday, so 4 days ago, I took home a sick ferret from work, and am fostering it back to health. (Basically no one at work is accountable to be giving him his meds, or feeding him apropriately, so they've assigned me to do it).

My bird. Has been SO jealous. At first it was just towards the ferret, but now her jealousy in swinging towards me, and it's not fun to deal with. Now I'm rethinking even adding another bird.

[entrancedbymyGCC]

Yahooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!! He let me handle him like normal this evening! He had let himself out and I picked him up from the cagetop, but no demon-eyed fluffy dervish. I'm SO happy. He is totally full of pinfeathers on his head again. I may take him to the vet for a workup, he never seems to stop molting ever.

[entrancedbymyGCC]

So now that he's back to being Scooter rather than Deranged Vampire Bird -- would anyone like to hazard a guess as to why he got so discombobulated this time? We have been away before and we've been away for considerably longer. The only real difference is that this time was the first time Scotty was here, too. I would have thought that would have made it better, not worse. Am I missing something from the bird's point of view? I have to travel again in November, and I'd hate to think this will happen every time!

[ptuga72]

I really think that it's the perfect storm.
1.) Scooter's at that age of terrible two's (Jake is in it right now)
2.) He's molting
3.) The weather was less than ideal for him
4.) This is the first time being left alone with Scotty who got attention from the sitter who was previously his alone
5.) He's a green-cheek. I've never seen one that hasn't gone through those demon phases (many call them "nippy phases" but that is such an understatement lol)

Hopefully in November Scooter will have a better handle on being left alone with Scotty.

[entrancedbymyGCC]

It happened again on this trip. We will mostly be home through the holidays, but may travel at the end of December and will definitely be away in early January for a week. I'm worried if he's going to go nonlinear every time we leave.

How likely is it that something about the way the petsitter is handling him is causing this?

This time, he seems to be less "angry' at Bill, who was home for a longer period of time, than with me, who was gone 5 nights. The situation may have been exacerbated by the fact that I brought some kind of stomach bug back with me from Boston and was horizontal for the better part of Friday and Saturday, except for minimal necessities. I've been sitting in the room with him a lot yesterday evening and today, but he's basically in his cage, in his tent or at the back of the cage, cussing me out. More normal behavior would be for him to be on his rope perch near the door begging to come out.

I can't really stop traveling, it is part of my job... and he was absolutely fine for the first several trips. The sitters didn't get him out much those first trips, though. So that is a possible correlation. I hate to ask them to just leave him in his cage, but maybe it would be worth a try on the next go. Or take him with us.... that's possible for the end-December trip, not so likely for the meeting in January.

Ever take your bird on a business trip? Most hotels don't want you leaving the bird in the room alone and I worry about the room being serviced with a bird in there alone. I can't really see sitting in a talk with a bird that goes "Pretty Scoo-scoo!" every so often... nor sitting at the booth in the poster/exhibit hall. Although it might get people to stop! "Here, let me have my parrot demo the new Keck Observatory Archive interface!" Yeah. right.

Anyway, I'd like to try to find a way to avoid triggering this behavior. It bums me out, and I suspect it stresses him out, too. This isn't just mild "nippiness", this is a really aggressive bird that isn't normally aggressive at all. Feathers totally fluffed, chin tucked, beak "mouthing" at me... maybe some component of it is territorial, since he seems a little better once he's out of the cage... I wonder if changing things around in there would make it better or worse?

I'm also torn on leaving him in there until he's willing to come out nicely for me, or letting him out on his own and hoping he'll be more amenable once out?

Sigh. He's supposed to be the easy bird of the two... Scotty's just a rock in comparison.

[Shani]

How likely is it that something about the way the petsitter is handling him is causing this?

It's possible I suppose. Have you changed your petsitter for the last couple of trips?

I suspect Ptuga's probably right in her list, but one way you could go about working out exactly what's happened is to try and isolate what exactly is different about the last two trips, compared to the previous ones. Maybe write a list or something. If a few differences stand out to you, then try and eliminate as many of the differences as you can before the next trip. If Scooter gets all aggressive when you get back from the next trip, then it's probably a reasonable conclusion to assume that one of the few things you couldn't eliminate is causing the problem.

Of course, it could be a variety of things but imo the best way to find out exactly what's made him behave this way is to try and isolate the possible causes /shrug.

Good luck, it must be horrible having your baby turn on you like that

[ptuga72]

Do you know how the petsitter is handling him? Like, does she take him out for a lot of time, or only a little? Does she take Scooter out before or after Scotty? Does she do things exactly like you? Does she look like you at all? It make seem nit-picky but answering these kinds of questions may give you some insight into why he is acting like this. I know that it is hard to keep him in his cage, but if it is obvious that he doesn't want to come out I wouldn't force it.

[entrancedbymyGCC]

Yay! He loves me again! More later...

[entrancedbymyGCC]

I am just finding this whole dynamic so mysterious. I made up with him this time, as I think was much the case last time, by letting him come out of the cage on his own, repeatedly approaching him while he was on the playtop until he was comfortable with having his head scritched, and then it was like a light switch went off and he was totally back to his sweet lovable self. I was lucky that I was still sick (if you can call that lucky) and was at home yesterday and could devote most of the day to interacting with him.

Do you know how the petsitter is handling him? Like, does she take him out for a lot of time, or only a little?

She is a professional service (actually there are two of them) and the periods out would be relatively short. I believe she typically would let them out first thing on a morning visit before doing the other "chores", would interact with the kitties a little bit, interact with the birds a little bit, and then put them away and go. Same routine at the afternoon visit. So probably only a half hour or so at each visit. But there are occasional days he only does a little better with us!

Does she take Scooter out before or after Scotty?

On this trip, I gather Scotty declined to emerge, but Scooter was willing to step up and be handled. She was only taking care of them from Tues Pm to Thurs AM, my hubby was in charge prior to that.

Does she do things exactly like you? Does she look like you at all?

I'm sure she DOESN'T do things exactly like me. The routine is different when we are gone, but the basic needs are met. Her hair color is not dissimilar, but other than that I don't think we have anything in common. When her partner is involved, she has my body type, but not my hair color or other features.

I know that it is hard to keep him in his cage, but if it is obvious that he doesn't want to come out I wouldn't force it.

It wasn't even an option for a while there. It's not like I'd open the door and he'd retreat, it was like I'd open the door and he'd come running to attack. I'm sure if he were doing that to the pet sitter, she would tell us. It isn't subtle. On a few occasions my hubby let him come out on his own, and was then able to pick him up. He handed him over to me several times, and he would come over, but then fluff up and attack. The lip wound came from such a hand over... I thought he had actually ceased being in attack mode, but he really wasn't. I actually yelled at hubby for this, finally! But that's another story.

I think the next trip, I may ask her deliberately NOT to handle him at all and see what happens. There are too many variables to debug the whole thing.

This does seem to have some degree of territorial component, in the sense that while he was in "angry" mode, he appeared to be defending his tent and the cage as a whole against me. Any approach would lead to fluffing and angry muttering and he spent a higher than normal fraction of time in the tent. So I did, that last day, take out the old tent and replace it with a new, different one (GCCs are full-time cavity dwellers, so I don't want to leave him with no option to sleep in an enclosed space). From the cage top, he watched me do this. Our reconciliation was subsequent to that. However, he seemed unwilling to go inside the new one at bedtime, so I swapped it back out again for the old familiar configuration , and that in no way diminished his renewed affection. I have no way of knowing if the temporary rearrangement had any effect or not. On the prior occasion the overall scenario was very similar, but I didn't do a tent swap.

One thing that puzzles me -- maybe those of you who have had birds for a long time can help me understand this better -- is the suddenness of the shift when it happened. For three days he was a ball of beak and fury, taking no prisoners, relenting not an iota from morning to night. All of a sudden, when the guard came down, it was obvious that he'd snapped back to normal. Not a gradual process at all, but a state transition, steam to ice. Like BING! the penny dropped. Or someone flipped a switch. It was almost as if I suddenly metamorphosed from the big bad wolf into little red riding hood... is it possible he only recognizes me in a certain context, and somehow that context needs to be recreated before he knows me again? I'd sung him to sleep two of the previous three nights... it wasn't as if all normal patterns were absent.

Or maybe I should be having him evaluated for a brain tumor?

At any rate, he's back to being his sweet self, and that sweet self is very sweet indeed. When he snuggled on his back in my hand and almost went to sleep, I almost cried.

s. Can't live with them, can't live without them?

[ptuga72]

I am glad Scooter is back to his old sweet self. Jake has had his moments too, though not as involved as your Scooter. The reasons I ask all those questions is because I know that with my flock:
1. If I get my sister that is familiar to them and looks similar to me that they do better at transitioning when I get back (vs someone else)
2. I have noticed that parrots are a lot like children in that they do not like changes in their routines, and some have a harder time than others adjusting to this. And, like autistic children, will act out behaviorally with the person they trust the most to express this anxiety and anger (I have bite marks from both kids and birds to prove it!). Maybe the light switch flipped back on once Scooter finally had the "right" number of normal days to make him feel comfortable again.
3. If our sitter does everything EXACTLY like me, that Jake actually behaves worse when I get back. It's like he knows that there is a way she does it and then there is mommy's way. But it seems so much more baffling than just a routine change-up causing this.

I think that maybe it is a good idea to not have the sitter take him out while you're gone, and while he's acting all . Our Scarlet doesn't get out time when I'm away, but that's a whole other issue. I wouldn't even let hubby take him out. I might even try putting him in a different cage (if you have an extra laying around) while you're gone. This may act like a support to help him visually see the transition from "mom is gone and will be back" to "mom is back and everything is the way it should be". Or it could totally blow up in your face and make everything worse, I'm no expert and probably just blowing smoke

anyways, if you figure out what is going on, I would be very interested in knowing what you find out.