Hello!

[Mollie]

My bird's name is Mollie. I just got her a few weeks ago, and she so far knows how to 1. Poop on command 2. Put doll items into a mini shopping cart 3. Piggy Bank 4. Flip cards 5. Shake her head on command 6. Fetch things and put it into a basket 7. Target a chopstick 8. Play basketball 9. Step up 10. Step down 11. Give kissies. I taught her all of the following tricks except step up, step down, poop, and give kissies. She is 5 months old, and I've only had her for 2 weeks. Is it normal that she know all of these tricks so fast?

[Wolf]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

Wow that is a lot for such a young bird to learn in just two weeks. I know how smart and intelligent these birds are, but I am concerned that you might be over doing the training a bit when you really should be focused on her trust and building a bond. And if I were you I would do everything that I could to untrain this pooping training.

Now you have all of the worst things that I have to say all right out in the open. So if you don't mind too awful much please allow me to explain myself.

Since I think that stopping the poop on command thing is the worst of things and could be the hardest to correct allow me to say that a bird is not designed physically to hold its poop in and this could cause an intestinal blockage that will kill them very painfully , if they do not have the extremely expensive surgery to remove the blockage. I am aware that you did not train the bird to do this but you have the bird now and I am very sure that you would not want this type of problem to develop, Still pooping in a certain spot or time or on command is very easy to get them to do so that it is almost harder to not train them to do these things than it is to train them to do almost anything else. I have to be very careful with my birds so that I do not make a big deal out of them pooping either good or bad or they may decide that I want them to poop at a certain time or in a certain place or when I say poop. I really don't know why this is so easy to train into them but it probably is due to them actually being a very clean creature although they are messy. I know that if you watch them that you will see that when they are ready to poop that they try to position themselves so that the poop falls to the ground although this is difficult for them to do if they are on your shoulder as they can't always get their bum to stick out far enough. If you watch them they will eventually start pooping in only one or two places in their cage but sometimes that does not develop until they are adults.

As for the training, I would slow it down a little bit and focus more on developing your relationship because without the birds trust you will end up with nothing that you really want. Parrots are very smart and you can teach them a lot of tricks very fast in the first few weeks but this is not due to the bird trusting you this is because the bird is aware of the fact that it needs you and that it is afraid. It is afraid of being a lone bird in a new place and you are a predator and it does not want you to eat it so it does whatever you want form it right at first. But in time it begins to see that you have not eaten it and it gets accustomed to its new home and becomes less afraid and it is then that the problems start to become apparent.

Training is a great tool and it can be used to enhance a birds trust in you, it can help to deepen the bond that develops once trust has been established, but it can not create either the trust or the bonding these both have to be given by the bird. This is why I suggest that you ease off of the training a bit and focus more on winning the birds trust, showing it that you can be trusted and want to be its friend, that it is great for it to come out and just relax with and on you, To share food that is safe for your bird at mealtimes or even just the occasional treat when you are snacking as long as the snack is bird safe. These are the things that are the most important to your bird at this early stage of your relationship.

[Pajarita]

Welcome to the forum, Mollie and human! WOW, two weeks only and she is already doing all these tricks...

I hope you don't take this the wrong way because I really don't want to alienate you or make you feel bad in any way but I have to agree with Wolf that it's a bit too much, too soon.

Parrots are highly intelligent animals and they can learn to do wonderful things but this is not the most important thing about them, it's the wonderful bond of love and trust that can be created between a human and them. Training can deepen the bond (if done correctly which means very short sessions and never pushing the bird) but the bond needs to be created first so, please, take a step back on the training and concentrate on just plain loving her (are you sure Mollie is a girl and not a boy?) Spend quality time with her just doing nothing but cuddling her, scratching her head, giving her treats and simply just chilling out together. This time is crucial for the relationship and you need to cement the feelings of love and trust. You have years and years and years in front of you to do any training... besides, over training them can backfire if the bond is not already there (and no, you do NOT form a strong bond in just two weeks) because, when the bird grows up and becomes a sexually mature, self-assured adult, if you did not create the bond, it will resent the training and turn on you. Don't forget that you are dealing with a baby and babies don't really go to school. And don't forget that parrots are not mentally programmed by nature to obey orders. If they do is because they love us and want to please us (and that's why the bond is so important) or because they are hungry and the only way they get food is as a reward for training (but you can't do this with a young bird that is still weaning as yours is, it needs to have an abundance of food always available or they grow up with eating disorders).

I would ask that you think about these issues and try to understand where we are coming from.

[Mollie]

Thank you for the feedback! I''ll lay off the training for a while. I was just so excited that my bird was so smart that I wanted to train her right away! I do not starve her, the breeder said DNA testing was a girl, and I do in fact bond with her a lot. I don't think she trusts me fully, but she does try to follow me around the house, so I don't think she is scared of me. For training, I only train her a couple minutes a day. Sometimes she gets it on her first try! It's almost as if she knows what I want her to do. HMMMMM... Maybe she is a psychic bird. I also see her pondering about life sometimes. She is probably coming up with the theory of how the universe was made. Also, for the poop thing, I thought it was perfectly fine since she poops when she wants to unless I ask her to, and also, I thought it was cool because Kili is also potty trained. Is Kili potty trained a certain way so that she won't get constipated?

[seagoatdeb]

i would not lay off the training since she is a "natural". I see training as interaction if it is done positively, so it is a getting to know each other, and if she responds so well, she loves doing the tricks, so why take something the parrot loves so much away. When it is too much the parrot simply stops participating. Of course you should also provide lots of other kinds of quality time too.

I would discontinue the poop on command it can cause a lot of problems, like has already been said, but you could find out if Michaels methods are better, i have never done a poop on comand, so there may be a way that works fine.

I did try my Red Belly on the Clicker, but she is not the right temperament for doing a lot of tricks. She will participate, untill she gets bored and then she will look at where you are getting the treat from and look back at you.....and then try to get to where the treat is.....lol.....the only tricks she likes is really fast and exciting ones like doing sumersaualts and flips on me. then her interest is there for a long time and she doesnt even want a reward. I do use clicker training to have her make friends with others though since she will participate for a while, and finds it fun for a short time it helps her to develop a friendship with people.

[Chantilly]

I thought it was perfectly fine since she poops when she wants to unless I ask her to, and also, I thought it was cool because Kili is also potty trained. Is Kili potty trained a certain way so that she won't get constipated?

I am almost 100% certain Kili is not trained any different, she could well become constipated and that would become a very very costly vet trip. The problem is that eventually the bird begins to think 'Oh, I get rewards if I poo when I am told' and so they will sometimes hold it in for so long just so as when you say 'Do a poo' they can do it for the reward (whether it be out of cage, a scratch or food)

Now dint let any of this offend you, my family and I originally trained our Green cheek to do this thinking 'ooh, thats convenient!' soon we found out what problems it can cause (and we live like 6h away from an avian vet so not only is it a huge huge drive, who knows whether we would be able to get her treated in time.) and so we went 'nope!' and have tried to 'untrain that behaviour by not rewarding any pooping.
Welcome to the forum

[Wolf]

Michael spends more time with his birds every day than most people can spend with them in a week, that is because he depends on them to perform at a much higher standard than our birds must, they are part of his income. Also, Kili will poop if she needs to even if it is not the best time so he also encourages that as well, with him there is a certain balance that he has attained. Kookooloo, my CAG, is potty trained, not that I did it, she did it and so she will still go if she needs to, but if she is out of the cage and on me she will hold it until she is placed where she can go without pooping on me.

Listening to your more complete description of how you are working with your bird, I am not seeing that you are doing anything wrong in your training as it does not appear to me that you are neglecting the bonding activities in favor of the training as I have seen so many people do, for that reason I would suggest that you continue the way that you are.

Mostly I try to ask for more information about the bird before making any suggestions at all as the more that we know about the bird and its environment the better and more accurate our responses can be. These birds are all very unique individuals and what works for one may not work with another bird. Some respond better to a little more training and others need extra bonding time, everything depends on the individual bird and its relationship with its human.

[Pajarita]

After reading your new posting, I am of two minds about the training. On the one hand, if the bird willingly cooperates and you are managing all these tricks in 2 minute sessions then I would say that there is no harm BUT, on the other hand, babies are always cooperative just for the simple reason that they ARE babies so not been there and able to observe the complete daily interaction, it makes it very hard to give you a definite opinion. I also don't know what you are feeding on a daily basis and that is always directly related to training - can you, please, tell us what her daily diet and routine is? Like what do you feed her for breakfast and dinner and at what times? What do you use as a reward for a trick well done? Do you train her before you feed her, after or in-between meals?

[liz]

Mollie you have to watch out for the smart ones. They premeditate what and how they are going to get into something.

I have been grateful that Myrtle does not poop while she flies. Now I am working on "don't poop on me".

My pedestrian, Rambo, leaves poop trails for me to follow him with a tissue.
I got rid of the carpet and have all laminate floors.