Janurary 7th, 2012
This is the first time I'm writing about Elliot, but not the first time I've thought about him. I want to start a log for personal use to document his behavior, and I want to share it to gain an outside perspective.
Elliot is a Citron Cockatoo
. Right now he's preening himself, while I listen to Andrew Bird. The lovebirds are chirping from the other room. I'm waiting for a call from my mother, with whom I plan to make a cage cover with later today. Let's talk about Elliot's history.
This is at least Elliot's third home. I actually moved in recently, with my girlfriend M. She's had Elliot since the summer. His previous home was full of birds of many shapes and sizes. I never saw it personally, but apparently he wasn't happy there, despite the owner's tenured experience with birds. He initially responded favorably to M. She brought him home, and things continues to be quite favorable, unit the cat spooked him. He then became more fearful of her.
I've read about constructs, so I'll list the behaviors that fit under the "fearful of" construct now, to clarify.
*Very cautious of proximity
*Tends to find a way to be furthest away from
*Shakes/shivers
*Doesn't speak, mutter, or whistle
When I first arrived he was fearful of me, but was also quite curious. One day, when I was cleaning the kitchen floor, he walked up to me. I put out my arm on the floor as a branch, and he climbed up to my shoulder. We became bros that day. After that, when I came up to the cage, I could put a finger in, and he would interact with his beak and tongue. A week later, we opened his cage, and I foolishly reached my hand out to him, in the cage. I spooked him, and he became fearful of me. About 6 months has passed since then, and I moved into the house about a week ago. I love M, and M loves Elliot, so I'm determined to spend some time with Elliot. I want to build a healthy relationship with him, and to improve his behaviors and living conditions.
Elliot has been living in a spare room in the house, but we've decided it may be a good idea to move him into the living room, so that we can spend more time with him. The spare room is carpeted, west facing, and is becoming my office space. It's also fairly separated from the rest of the house, aside from the kitchen.
Elliot has several unfavorable behaviors. First and worst of all, he doesn't eat in front of humans. This means that using treats as a primary reinforcement is very difficult. I suspect that eventually I'll use a video camera to discover which treats he likes best, and I'll try to implement them some how.
Second, he doesn't like to leave his cage very much, and will never do it if he's being watched. He may or may not do it with someone in the room who's occupied with something else. Since he doesn't like being closely approached, getting him back in his cage is also difficult. . This means that getting him out of his cage is something that may take a whole day. It also means that actions such as feeding, water changing, and general cleaning are somewhat traumatic, with unwanted arms entering his cage repeatedly.
Elliot shakes frequently. This seems to be fear related, almost shiver like. However, since it's winter, I may try using a space heater to make the room warmer.
Elliot screams. The normal scenario for this is he'll hear one of us in the other room, and he'll begin to make a noise akin to loud meowing, every five seconds or so. Sometimes he'll stop with that. Other times he upgrades to full on screaming. We have responded to this in a few ways. One is that we'll close the door to his room. We're pretty sure this is the wrong thing to do. Another is that we'll get nervous about annoying the neighbors, and come sit in the room with him. We know this is wrong. The third thing we'll do is leave the house. We're pretty sure this is the right thing to do, but we can't leave just any time. The final thing we do, which we started to do recently, is responding to his calls with calls that we would prefer, such as whistles and 'hello'. This method has delivered favorable results two out of fifteen times, and has only worked with the meowing, not the screaming.
Elliot is not okay with M and me having physical contact. At first he livens up, which seems like a positive behavior, but then he'll charge/beak, and generally demonstrate offensive behavior. I don't foresee modifying this behavior, but maybe we'll get around to it later. In the mean time, We're going to avoid extended contact in front of him,
Elliot seems to have a pretty big problem with arms. He seems less fearful when I hold my hands together behind my back. Perhaps this makes me appear more bird like?
The cat mostly leaves Elliot alone. Elliot mostly just watches the cat when he's around. The lovebird's chirping may be disturbing to him, but that's hard to tell for sure.
Elliot is pretty adverse to the spray bottle. I'm not really sure how to go about showering him. Will do more reading.
Despite all of the problems I've listed, Elliot has shown a lot of promise. He likes to have someone to murmur untranslatably to, and he'll say a few key phrases, often at appropriate times. He'll 'here kitty kitty' when the cat is around, he'll laugh when someone's told a joke (coincidentally?). He'll also say 'hello' almost any time, and will sometimes whistle. The dog next door has taught him how to bark, which he does at an acceptable volume. His feathers are in good shape, and his curiosity is healthy.
So, in improving Elliot's life, my initial plans are to
*Develop his diet a little more
*Make more toys, provide more things for him to chew
*Make his environment warmer and his sleep darker
I'm also going to work on responding appropriately and respectfully to his behavior.
Any advice is appreciated, especially regarding how to reincorporate food as a primary reinforcement technique.
-C
