boyfriend of a 'parrot person'

[GlassOnion]

Birds (haha?!) don't have emotions? You're going by old school stories. Humans have been advancing in our intellect and in debunking myths. If mankind still lived by archaic tales and never thrived for new information, we'd all be doomed.

There is conclusive scientific evidence after a 30yr research that parrots have the intelligence of a 5 year old human child.
Do 5 year old human children have emotions, yes or no?

Alex the African Grey was the test subject.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_(parrot)

[Michael]

Birds (haha?!) don't have emotions? You're going by old school stories. Humans have been advancing in our intellect and in debunking myths. If mankind still lived by archaic tales and never thrived for new information, we'd all be doomed.

There is conclusive scientific evidence after a 30yr research that parrots have the intelligence of a 5 year old human child.
Do 5 year old human children have emotions, yes or no?

Sorry but this is completely wrong. What you presented is a logical fallacy. Just because the Alex studies found that Grey Parrots can demonstrate understanding concepts akin to a 5 year old human child, and that 5 year olds have emotions, does not in any way imply that parrots have to have emotion. Just because Alex was able to count, add, identify shapes, etc does not all prove any kind of emotion whatsoever.

There is no proof that parrots or any animals for that matter have emotions. Heck human emotions aren't well understood in the first place. Behavior can be observed, studied, reproduced, and understood. Emotions are highly subjective. Virtually all talk of animals + emotions are nothing more than projection and anthropomorphism. It gets us nowhere in terms of better understanding/interacting with our pets.

[dorp]

What a great explanation michael. Whenever I drop the word anthropomorphism it usually returns blank stares. That african grey bird alex gets smarter and smarter every time someone mentions it too, 5 being the highest so far. haha
From what I've researched about that grey, it was conditioned for 12 hours a day between multiple trainers its entire life. Conditioning doesn't really prove intelligence in the way that I understand it.

[Khaiqha]

To the OP, I'm not sure what you're looking for.

If you're looking for validation in your beliefs that parrots shouldn't be pets, I have no idea why you would come to a parrot forum.

If you want help with your situation, then plenty of advice has been giving. Basically, it comes down to this - do you like your gf enough to work through this, or do you not. If you don't, move on.

If you do, then direct her to this forum. We won't dance around the issue of her having a bird that attacks people. I read a story where a girl encouraged her amazon to antagonize her bf. One day when her bf went to hug her, the amazon ripped the girl's eye out. If your gf says that won't ever happen to her, then she's out of touch with reality and needs an intervention.

[derekismyname]

Sorry I didn't make this more clear. I wouldn't ever ask or allow her to separate herself from her parrots because of me, it's not an option.

Well not all that many options. Put simply these are the only possible choices:

A) Just accept the situation as it is and that it will remain as such
B) "Get rid" of the bird
C) "Get rid" of you
D) Train the parrot to behave in a more acceptable/tolerable way

Obviously (A) doesn't seem fine by you cause you came here and started this topic. (B) As everyone else said and you reiterated, this is not an option. The parrot will live for a long time and it is both unnecessary and inhumane to kill or rehome it over this. (C) is a very plausible option and if you keep pushing your girlfriend too much on this issue don't be surprised if that happens. Of course this doesn't seem ok by you because you're sticking around and seeking help. Clearly the only plausible solution is to compromise and teach the bird better behavior and teach you to get along with the bird.

First and foremost you gotta lose the attitude or I guarantee you you're gonna be out on your ass cause she'll dump you before the bird for being such a jerk. The parrot is not stupid, you are. The parrot is actually very smart. It is acting the way it does for self gain. It already outsmarted you to hysterical proportions. You are on a forum crying about being bullied by a little bird. Meanwhile the bird is enjoying sitting at home with your girlfriend getting love and attention. The parrot is an effective trainer. It taught you to stay away by biting you. That is smart. It is to the parrot's greatest self gain to torment you until you leave or your girlfriend dumps you so all attention can be back on the parrot.

If you want to get anywhere with this and win with your girlfriend, you're gonna have to win with the parrot. This means making your presence beneficial to the parrot so that it will let you share its owner. This isn't easy. Heck, I don't think you can handle it. But the information has been presented to you (for free I might add, loads of people pay good money for books, DVDs, and professional consultations to learn this stuff). It's entirely up to you to use it. What you have to do is take the time to read, analyze, and understand it. Then you need to come up with a strategy for implementing it and working that out with your girlfriend. Finally you're gonna have to have a lot of patience to win over the parrot through positive reinforcement training if you want to have any chance with the girlfriend. If you don't think it is worth it, then take the easy way out and find someone else.

a little longer winded as well, considerably more eloquent, but , pretty much what I and everyone else has said, you are giving him the benefit of the doubt, personally I don't believe he has it in him, but good luck to you just the same.

[liz]

Birds (haha?!) don't have emotions? You're going by old school stories. Humans have been advancing in our intellect and in debunking myths. If mankind still lived by archaic tales and never thrived for new information, we'd all be doomed.

There is conclusive scientific evidence after a 30yr research that parrots have the intelligence of a 5 year old human child.
Do 5 year old human children have emotions, yes or no?

Sorry but this is completely wrong. What you presented is a logical fallacy. Just because the Alex studies found that Grey Parrots can demonstrate understanding concepts akin to a 5 year old human child, and that 5 year olds have emotions, does not in any way imply that parrots have to have emotion. Just because Alex was able to count, add, identify shapes, etc does not all prove any kind of emotion whatsoever.

There is no proof that parrots or any animals for that matter have emotions. Heck human emotions aren't well understood in the first place. Behavior can be observed, studied, reproduced, and understood. Emotions are highly subjective. Virtually all talk of animals + emotions are nothing more than projection and anthropomorphism. It gets us nowhere in terms of better understanding/interacting with our pets.

They can feel fear. They can feel sorrow at a lose. They feel happiness when they play. I TRULY BELIEVE THAT THEY FEEL LOVE. If no one else believes this way then I have been dancing in the wrong ballroom.

[Michael]

From what I've researched about that grey, it was conditioned for 12 hours a day between multiple trainers its entire life. Conditioning doesn't really prove intelligence in the way that I understand it.

Clearly you haven't done much research beyond wikipedia or hearsay because the studies explain what kinds of intelligence they prove. I've read the books, papers, and met Dr. Pepperberg. The parrot was not merely conditioned. First of all, it wasn't even trained by operant conditioning but through model/rival. The parrot did most of its learning by watching others performing the behaviors rather than on its own trial and error.

The studies demonstrated that it could carry over concepts learned in training to completely new situations with high accuracy. Although this doesn't absolutely prove cognitive capability, it makes a very strong argument for it.

For example they taught the bird to identify shapes, colors, and quantities. A philistine would argue that the bird simply memorized the answer from doing it many times and therefore is not intelligent. However, the studies demonstrated (with specific data and validated recordings using very strict scientific methods) that the bird could be presented with a set of objects that it had never seen before that embodied qualities that it was familiar with and with greater than 80% accuracy could correctly answer a question like "How many blue" vs "How many triangle" (when presented with say 3 blue triangles, 2 blue squares, 4 yellow circles, 2 yellow triangles). I'm paraphrasing the kinds of dilemmas they demonstrated from the book without quoting an exact study, but they've done many like this and it does demonstrate an ability to apply learning in one situation to other similar but distinctly different situations.

And the way they compare this to 3, 4, 5 year olds etc is by coming up with studies where kids below that age are unable to get similar trials correct. Kili can match shapes and colors. That barely puts her over 2 year old category on that front.

They can feel fear. They can feel sorrow at a lose. They feel happiness when they play. I TRULY BELIEVE THAT THEY FEEL LOVE. If no one else believes this way then I have been dancing in the wrong ballroom.

How do you know they feel any of this? I'm not saying it's impossible that they do, but currently there is no way of definitely knowing this. However, we do know with reasonable certainty that they can taste a seed, can see colors, can feel scratches, etc.

My guess is if at least some animals feel emotion, that parrots are some of the most likely candidates. They have a high capacity for learning and very social. They behavioral demonstrate "mood swings" but it could just be related to the weather and conditions and does not necessarily prove emotion. However, there is something amazing about parrots besides just talking that makes us so happy to be around them. It doesn't really matter if they have emotions because we love em anyway.

[liz]

As far as I am concerned - dogs are the dumbest animals.

They can fear thunder, a bigger dog, an unknown noise and they fear punishment. When one is sick the others comfort him. I have seen this many times. When one dies the others morn him. When one goes to the groomer the others check him out when he gets home and are happy to have him back. They wash each others faces and preferr to sleep together. The protect each other. They will even protect their cats. If there is a disagreement between two dogs another will step in between them to prevent a problem.

All animals have fear built in including us. The rest of the emotions are there if you take time to see them.

If I go for the news paper my amazons will watch me out the window. If I pick up my purse Rambo will say bye but Myrtle will get upset that I am leaving. When I return she is happy to see me. Etc.

Why can't you see it?

[dorp]

Quantifying intelligence is a pretty moot point when you arbitrarily attribute so many animal behaviors as human emotions or intelligence. I use the words like dumb very liberally when it comes to parrots. My girlfriend told me that one of her birds would sit on a perch until it died unless someone came and got it instead of just flying down, what a dumb bird I said. Another bird she has will just bite your feet, it doesnt care what you are, if you have a feet it will flap its way after you and bite them. This bird has left faint scars on my foot, however, 'I ain't even mad though'. I'm not mad because this bird is smart. See how easy that was? I just called a bird smart, easy for me to be honest but then again my resentment may not be equal to most parrot owners unconditional affection. This bird is smart because it bites feet (usually not that hard) to step up for some attention and when you try and take it back to its little prison it won't step down because it doesnt want to go back in. Also, its their only bird that isn't completely indoctrinated, content to sit inside or on top of its cage all day and their only bird that will fly unprovoked. I genuinely feel bad the thing though because its locked in a cage all day and never gets outs because apparently it will chew things on the floor while all the other retarded birds just sit there and do nothing all day except make loud annoying sounds and defecate.
While all large parrots subconsciously creep me out and make me feel nauseous, some more than others, it comes down to if they're aggressive and mean for me to hate them.

[GlassOnion]

I think it's selfish and supercilious to say that humans are the only animals to have emotions. If going by that statement, the biggest thing that separates us from other animals is our heightened intelligence, yes?
So then why wouldn't an animal with a 5 year old human level intelligence feel any emotions? A brain that advanced isn't just full of numbers and shapes with 0 sense of emotion. I've seen Gorillas interact with each other both in person and in documentaries, and they clearly display emotions like we do. Parrots too. There's anthropomorphism and then there's seeing it for yourself with some common sense. Michael, do you really think that your Kili and Truman don't feel any emotion?

Dorp, where did you get the 12hr training bootcamp sessions for the Grey research? Don't spread stories that you haven't even bothered to confirm their validity. You can't make any logical argument regarding the Alex Project unless you've read Dr. Pepperberg's book and researched on the techniques used.

Back to the main topic.... Dorp, I think you've echoed yourself over and over. You hate parrots and you think you're filthy. That's okay, to each their own, right? But I'm confused as to why you're still repeatedly bitching about it on a forum that is passionate about parrots, and not taking in any constructive feedback that others have offered to make your situation better.

People have OFFERED CONSTRUCTIVE FEEDBACK yet you only respond to off-topic arguments. You really don't care enough to make this work, you just keep whining and bashing parrots, which aren't going to help with anything in real life. I think if you showed this thread to your girlfriend, she would have second thoughts about you. You're very immature.