New bird owner :)

[crousseau]

so what if your parrot is afraid of the target stick? My Senegal, Maggie, is anxious around anything new especially if I bring it up close to her.

[Michael]

Then you will have to use negative reinforcement, flooding, positive reinforcement, and systematic desensitization similar to how I trained the parrot to wear the harness. This technique works for pretty much anything new that you need to introduce to parrot that it is scared of.

[skeetersunconure]

what exactley is negative reinforcement and flooding? positive reinforcement is when you reward for good and reinforce the behavior with treats and praise or stuff like that and systematic desenstitation ( i know i didnt spell that right im lazy haha ) is like when you use training to overcome the fear? thanks! also congrats on your sennie!

[Brittanyv326]

I will gladly be the bad example lol, I know I could have used one. Looking back at training my dog, I definitely can see where the clicker would have been helpful with your explanation. Often, she knew she did something right, but didn't know exactly which behavior I was looking for the second time around.

I've been trying to increase distance on target training, it goes well for 1-3 trials before she decides something else is more important - like preening, climbing, beak wiping. I normally do it right before I feed her so she's hungry. That little tiny seed I give her takes her 5 minutes to eat and even then she drops half of it. Slowest eater I've ever seen. Except with pellets, this bird just LOVES pellets. I have to give her fresh food first so she'll at least pick at it a bit before I give pellets.

Last night she sat on the couch with my boyfriend and I for quite a while, it was pretty cool to bond with her. Something spooked her though and she jumped off my hand and I tried to catch her (she falls like a rock, I'll NEVER have her clipped this bad) but failed, and she was headed straight for my sleeping dog's back. My dog's a 65 pound sweetheart and I trust her with my life, but I wouldn't put another life in danger because of it. So I *thankfully* reacted quickly, hopped on my dogs paws, slid her away from where the bird was landing and she was just confused as hell, but no reaction to the bird. I doubt my dog would've done anything, but I'm not going to wait around and find out, y'know? I promptly treated my dog for that though, she's really been great about the bird. The only time she shows interest in the bird is when she's eating, waiting for the bird to drop some food outside of the cage, lol. I'm still working on a name, I love Aderyn, but my boyfriend doesn't really like it. We're looking at Juno and Sade (African rooted name meaning sweet singing)...

One more thing. I've browsed through the forum looking for ideal temperatures to keep your Sennie and found one that mostly discussed how cold is too cold. Well I live in Florida, and it's about 85-90 during the day, plus the humidity makes you feel like you're in a sauna. Is this too hot to put my bird on my screened in porch inside of her cage to enjoy the outdoors for an hour or two? I don't know what else we will do with her when we vacuum and clean the house. And they're from Africa, I can't imagine Florida is hotter than Africa. I gotta pick up a spray bottle to see how she likes that, I tried a bowl of shallow water for her to bathe in and she was interested, but didn't go past the lip of the bowl...

I just took a video of her and she was tasting the lens. I'll post it later. Here's a picture of Bonnie who has been great with our new addition to our family. It's too big so it's cut off but oh wells.

[lzver]

One more thing. I've browsed through the forum looking for ideal temperatures to keep your Sennie and found one that mostly discussed how cold is too cold. Well I live in Florida, and it's about 85-90 during the day, plus the humidity makes you feel like you're in a sauna. Is this too hot to put my bird on my screened in porch inside of her cage to enjoy the outdoors for an hour or two? I don't know what else we will do with her when we vacuum and clean the house. And they're from Africa, I can't imagine Florida is hotter than Africa. I gotta pick up a spray bottle to see how she likes that, I tried a bowl of shallow water for her to bathe in and she was interested, but didn't go past the lip of the bowl...

In the winter ... I never let our house go below 68. They are covered at night with a blanket to stop any chills.

As for heat ... I don't think it would be a problem to have her in the screened porch just make sure that water is always available and make sure there is shade. They can get overheated if left in the sun for too long. As you said, they are african birds.

I mist Lucy and Jessie with a spray bottle more often in the summer when it is warm ... usually daily when it is the hottest. Jessie loves being misted ... Lucy isn't too fond but tolerates it.

[Michael]

I would say 80-90 is ok as long as you provide protection from the sun. You don't wanna put your bird out to roast while stuck in a cage. In the wild they'd at least have the chance to fly off and find some cover. So make sure you provide shady spots and places to hide. A good thing to do if the cage is big enough is to put it right on the border between sun/shade (but just keep an eye on which way the sun is traveling or it could end up all sun pretty quickly). Or you put the cage in the sun but put an object or sheet to provide some shade. Let the bird choose if it wants sun or not. Also if it's closer to or over 90, you can spray your parrot down with a mist bottle. It will help keep it cool and give it something to work on while out there (drying, preening, etc). When I take Kili out on a hot day, I'll often spray her down before putting her in direct sun to dry. I think she prefers the quick wet/quick dry of being outside rather than be showered inside and take an hour to dry.

As for the slowness of eating seeds, it is quite likely that the parrot is still inexperienced with eating these kinds of foods so it takes much longer. Kili has gotten much better over time and can handle a seed with agility. They do have to learn how to eat them. Try using treats that are quicker to eat. A tiny piece of peanut, crumb of bread, apple piece... Make the piece small enough that it can be swallowed whole and the parrot won't have to sit around chewing it. But motivation is key for trick training so learn to manage it to your advantage.

As for landing by the dog, it's good that you held the dog down. You must realize that even if the dog doesn't want to attack the bird, the flapping bird on the floor could trigger a reflex attack response that cannot be helped. Fast retreating objects trigger a predatory reflex.

what exactley is negative reinforcement and flooding? positive reinforcement is when you reward for good and reinforce the behavior with treats and praise or stuff like that and systematic desenstitation ( i know i didnt spell that right im lazy haha ) is like when you use training to overcome the fear? thanks! also congrats on your sennie!

This should help explain the psychology terms and check out entranced response with specific definitions.

[Brittanyv326]

I know a LOT about dogs and even more about my dog, I am very aware of the danger (hence the reason I didn't let the bird land on my sleeping dog). She's 4 years old and very calm, obedient, trained, and trusting of me. In those four years, we've definitely run into a couple of emergency situations and if she didn't respond as well as she does, one or both of us could be dead. Even when adrenaline's pumping and threat is looming, she will do as I say. If that was not the case, I would never have gotten a bird.

I did some more training today and got my birdy to use the ladder she's kind of been avoiding by targeting her onto it. I know this isn't a huge amount of distance, but she has to climb a ladder she's unsure of to get to it. This isn't the first try of me doing it, but it's within 5 of my first try with the ladder. And sorry it's so dark, when I put the camera there it looked like it was a great shot, but everything is back lit in the video. I think Bonnie thought we were going outside since I went up to the door, then she wanted the bird's treat. Like I said, only interested when food is in the picture!


In this video is her travel cage, not her home cage.

By the way, I'm glad to hear she's not the only one who eats slow, I saw that Kili is so quick now! Can't wait for her to warm up and get that quick at eating seeds. I have yet to give her bread crumbs, I will try that next. Thanks for the tips, hope I'm doing better in this video! Decided not to post the other video, it was really boring when I looked back at it, lol.

Add:
I like how at the end of my video, a bunch of your videos pop up, Michael. Kili is famous and rightly so!

[MandyG]

Welcome! Congrats on your new Sennie! It's adorable. Good luck with your training, looks like you're making a lot of progress!

Looking back at training my dog, I definitely can see where the clicker would have been helpful with your explanation. Often, she knew she did something right, but didn't know exactly which behavior I was looking for the second time around.

Clicker training works amazingly well with dogs! I discovered the clicker while I was training my horse and then I decided to try it out on my dog. It definitely made it easier to communicate what exactly it was she was getting praised for during training. She's almost 6 now and she still gets excited whenever she hears me pick up her clicker (it has a wrist strap on it that makes a noise when I pick it up). I actually had to get my parrot a different clicker without the wrist strap so she understood it wasn't training time for her whenever I want to train the bird!

PS - Your dog is beautiful. Looks just like the 10 week old shepard X puppy I'm fostering right now!