Hello from St. Paul, Minnesota

[tpkatsa]

Hi, I'm new to the board, we just got our cockatoo (name: Professor, the "Prof") a couple of days ago. Things are going pretty well (I guess?) so far. He is very quiet, but he does say hello and he gets along with my wife.

In all respects the Prof is a good bird. He's 10 years old. The problem is, things were going fine between me and the Prof until yesterday. I was going to try to do some stick training, so I bought a dowel and cut it into several pieces to use as a perch. I tried to introduce him to the perch and he freaked out. I later recalled that the previous owner - who only had him for a week - used a broomstick to chase him about when he was out of the cage. Maybe the bird is associating the dowel with the broomstick and me with the old owner?

The other thing is that the Prof is somewhat of a ladies' man. He gets along great with my wife. But I can't believe he would be "bonded" after just a couple days?! I don't know what is going on with the dynamic though. This morning, when I tried to approach his cage earlier today (we leave the door open), he panicked and fled the cage. Eventually he climbed back in the cage, but not without my chasing him a little. I don't like to chase him because that just reinforces a bad situation, but otherwise there is no way to get him back in the cage.

So right now when he's in the cage and I extend my hand, he withdraws. Prior to my botched attempt at stick training he let me pet him and so on. But if I offer food he sometimes takes it. I realize we've only had him for a couple of days, but I feel that I've made a big mistake trying to introduce the dowel perch to him. I thought that the purpose of the stick training was to get the bird to "step up," but after watching the video it now it seems that whatever damage has been done is irreversible. Any thoughts on how I might gain the bird's confidence again (seems a very silly thing to say but I guess it is the truth).

[LindiS]

Hey there, I have no advice to offer as I am a new bird owner myself... Only a wish of "all the best" ! Seems this lovely bird was treated badly and it will take a lot of patience and TLC from you for him to learn to trust you. Hope all works out well!

[Wolf]

Hi and welcome to the forum, I hope that you enjoy your stay and return often to share with the rest of us. It doesn't always take much time for the bird to choose who they want to bond with especially with him being 10 yr. old.
Stick training is such a poor choice of terms and has a tendency to give the wrong idea about what it is and what its purpose is. More on that later, maybe.
So far your biggest mistake, at least in my opinion was in chasing your bird. Never chase him, he is a prey animal and you kick that into high gear when you chase him. You are a predator and so chasing your prey comes as a natural thing for you to do when something runs. For a prey animal, being chased by a predator causes instant terror and panic and they know that if they are caught that they are dead.
OK ! So mistakes have been made, but it is all right as you can get through and fix this. There is very little that is irreversible if approached with patience. I am thinking that a little information on parrots might serve to help you with your point of view about them and how to get along with them. Dogs and humans have a very similar social structure or hierarchy and this defines you and your place in your family and in society as well. Because of this and the fact that we are both predators, we think very much alike and this enables us to get along and understand each other to a large degree.
Birds live in a social structure in which every one is equal and there is not a top bird in charge and telling the other birds what to do. Each bird does what it chooses to do and when to do it. This is hardwired in their brains and it would be easier to change their feathers to scales than to change this.
So let's get on with trying to help you with your situation.
First you need to spend the time to get to know each other and there is no better way of doing this then to talk to each other. I would set aside at least 15 min. two or three times a day for this. Begin when you enter the room with the bird in it and approach slowly watching to see how it reacts, if he starts to withdraw from you, stop and do not approach any closer during this session. Talk to your bird in a calm voice as the purpose of this is to show your bird that you mean him no harm and to earn his trust. He has already had bad experiences with humans and most recently a misunderstanding with you and he needs to know that it was just a misunderstanding. If you do this, then in a few days you will be right up to the cage. Now you can talk to him and offer treats, too. Just a couple of treats are plenty, and if he accepts them you can continue to the next step, which is showing him the treat and offering it to him in such a way that he must touch or step on your hand to get the treat.
I hope that this will help you and your bird get on good ground with each other.

[tpkatsa]

Thanks Guys - that sounds reasonable but just one question - how do I get the Prof back into the cage without chasing him? For example if I have to leave the house at a certain time...I can't have the bird out of the cage when no one is home (if the family is home well that's different).

Also we have been leaving the cage door open all the time whenever we are home. Is that a good idea?

The last couple of days have been slightly better. I can tell he's still nervous when I approach, but he doesn't seem to panic anymore. I do all the maintenance (take his cover off in the morning, put him to bed at night, change the food, water, clean cage, etc.) so I'm hoping he'll figure out that I do no harm.

Now he will eat out of my hand. Should I give him a treat for "being nice?" I.e. essentially doing nothing but at least not panicking? Do I give him a treat when he goes back into his cage?

The wife is doing better so far. She can get him to step up occasionally but he is still pretty independent. I can understand why he doesn't trust people, the other guy was a nice man but the broomstick was a bad choice and the Prof was only in that house a week. I don't really know where he was before that.

[Wolf]

Well to start with I think that I would only allow him out when the wife is home as she should be able to put him back in cage and give him a treat. Otherwise wait until you know that you will not have to leave or in the late afternoon about an hour or two before dusk as you can then take advantage of the roosting behavior. This is just until you can get him to step up for you.
Having his cage open all of the time when you are home is a great thing and I do it at home too, but it only works well if you have a way to get them back in their cages. You could perhaps try letting him out and wait for him to go where ever it is that he is going and slowly approach until he shows signs of wanting to move and just sit their talking to him with treat in hand and let him come to you and step up. When he does take him for a walk about the room and put him down anywhere but in his cage. Walk away and wait a few minutes and do this again. Do it about three times before putting him in his cage and give a treat. I always like offering a treat for going in their cage as they will nearly always cooperate about going to their cage if you do.
If you are doing a of the bird keeping tasks, that is a good time to talk to him as I mentioned previously. And you see how easily I modified it to work with him being out of cage wandering about. Although I do give a treat once in a while as a just because type thing, don't bother getting in the habit of doing it as it won't help you with the birds behavior. Also I don't like to give treats all that much, with the exception on going into the cage. Once the bird learns to do as you are asking it to do switch it from treats to head scritches and words of praise. The bird will normally do just as much for that as it will for treats and do it just as happily, too.

[Pajarita]

Wolf's advice is all good and I'll just elaborate and add a bit to it but, before I start, I want to comment on just three things:

1. You said the guy who had him before (the one with the genius idea of using a broom) only had him for a week and that you know nothing about his previous life - two comments on this: A) can you ask the broom guy what he knows of his previous life? Because it's very important (name, diet, schedules, household type, etc) B) and this one is VERY important! This bird has been highly traumatized and you need to keep this in mind in all your dealings with him. Parrots never leave their families. Never. They are born into them and live their entire lives surrounded by their relatives until the day they die. They don't 'move away', they don't 'start a new family, they don't have anything to do with 'strangers' so, for them, to go from one hand to another is a very traumatic thing even when the homes are good. But to spend only one single week with an idiot man who scared him and to then be moved to another home must have him so very confused and scared that, most likely, what you are seeing now is not even close to what will be. The reason I mention this is not only to make you realize that he is like an abandoned and abused child but that what you do now, at the beginning of your relationship with him, is what is going to set the pace and build the foundation of it so you will need to be very careful and very slow about things.

2. I would not put a whole lot of emphasis on the fact that he seems to prefer your wife. They usually tend to trust the person who reminds them more of somebody they used to know that was kind to them so this could mean that his breeder was a woman or that his first owner was one. It doesn't mean he won't get to trust you just as much if you play your cards right - and that means your approach in terms of interaction and relationship and not the fact that you are the one that feeds and waters him and cleans his cage. Again, parrots are not like dogs (predators hunt -'work'- for their food, parrots forage -they just eat what's out there), providing them with food has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on his feelings. Food is something that, as far as they are concerned, should be there for them and not something they need to be grateful about.

3. You started training too soon. All birds need, at the very least, a couple of weeks (and aggressive ones can take years) but usually about a month to begin to feel comfortable with the new humans. You are a stranger and he doesn't know you from Adam. He finds your wife familiar and seems to trust her more but I warn you that this doesn't mean he will put up with anything from her, either, so she needs to be careful around him and both of you need to observe him super carefully to learn his body language, his likes, his dislikes, his phobias, etc.

So, please, take your time to comfort and reassure him of your commitment by allowing him to set the pace and by setting up a few routines and schedules. Animals in captivity are greatly reassured by firm, unchangeable schedules (meaning, no weekends, no sick days, no nothing but the same identical thing day after day after day -as time goes by and he settles down and bonds with you, you can start slightly relaxing this but you can't at the beginning) and this works even more for parrots because they are not only highly intelligent and with excellent reasoning capabilities (they actually put 2 and 2 together and reach conclusions), they also have a sense of time (past and future) and, as they don't belong to hierarchical societies, captivity and the lack of control over their own lives is terribly stressful to them and, what a schedule and a routine does is allow them to predict what will happen and when which gives them a sense of control over their own lives and their environment thereby reducing stress.

I don't know what kind of diet you are giving him but my toos are excellent eaters (and I do mean EXCELLENT!) and hate dry things so start him off on a good fresh food diet. Mine LOVE greens and fruits and often go for them before they go for the gloop (dish of cooked whole grains, pulses and veggies). They also hate dry stuff. I don't feed pellets because I am convinced they are not the best dietary option but, once a week, I give them birdy bread for breakfast instead of gloop and although it's quite moist, they still dunk in their water bowls before they eat it.

Another thing you need to be careful about are hormones (toos are consider high hormone birds) and the only way to control this in captivity is keeping them at a solar schedule with full exposure to dawn and dusk.

Aside from that, if you don't free-feed protein (pellets, seeds, nuts, nutriberries, etc) and you can identify the nut he likes best, you can always put a couple of them in his cage so he will go back in it on his own. You start by giving him the nut at the time you would want him to go back in it (like, for example, right before bed time -you need to turn off the artificial lights when the sun is halfway down to setting) while he is in the cage and say a phrase (like "Wanna a nut? - Look, Prof, mmmmm, yummy, yummy nut!") as you walk towards his cage (you would be giving him his dinner at this time also and that should be enough if you feed protein food at this time but it's always good to get him to go there with a single nut so you can do the same thing at any other time of the day). Once you see he recognizes the phrase and gets excited waiting for his treat (he'll look at you and the nut intently and might even erect his crest), you can start letting him out, say, an hour or two prior his dinner time (start on a weekend so you don't have to rush through the whole thing because it will take him a while at the beginning) and, regardless of where he is at the time, walk toward his cage saying the phrase (a few times, not just once) and put the nut in it making sure he is looking at you and just walk away. Try not to look at him directly, do it out of the corner of your eye, and see if he moves toward the cage. If he doesn't, sit down at a goodly distance, turn your face away and wait. If he still doesn't, leave the room and come back when it's dark.

[tpkatsa]

Thanks for all that advice. I'll take it under advisement. Now do you recommend not leaving any food except at scheduled meal times, or should I leave food available all the time?

[Wolf]

Except for scheduled meals leave him some fresh greens and/ or a few pieces of fruit. Make sure that there are no seeds in the fruit as the seeds contain chemicals that are toxic to them.

[Pajarita]

I always give them a bit more produce and gloop than what I know for a fact they will eat for breakfast so they have something to munch on during the day. Parrots that are kept at a solar schedule will revert to eating with the seasons so they will always eat a bit more when the days are getting shorter (to bulk up for the winter when food is not supposed to be so readily available in large amounts) and when they are getting longer (when spring is coming to bulk up for breeding season) so I leave some healthy food out for them to 'adjust' their intake as they feel they might need.