dad fed up with bird :/

[Giantmoa]

my dad is getting more and more annoyed at rainbow. She's learned that screaming gets his attention (no matter how many times I tell him to ignore her when she's screeching for attention) so he'll "SHHHH" at her loudly or tell her to shut up whenever she gets too noisy. It's not like she was a very noisy bird either- a few contact calls and happy chatter plus enthusiastic greetings when we came home was about the extent of it but he got upset with even that and tried to get her to stop by shushing her, etc.. Now? You take a step away from the cage and she goes off, screeching, and guess who rewards it by getting angry? my dad. Not only that but he gets pissed everytime she poos on him (she rarely if ever poops on me but always does on him, not sure how to fix that) and my dad also likes to "tease" rainbow in such a way that she ends up biting him, resulting in more tension. He rarely if ever handles her now, complaining that rainbow simply does not like him. All I can think is I'm glad I don't have a larger, louder bird because I don't know if he could take that when even a gcc is driving him nuts. I'm trying to evaluate the situation to see if I'm encouraging "bad"/undesirable behaviour too and I'm working on getting rainbow to be more independent. Any advice on what I can do to help repare the relationship between the two? Or at least help reduce problem behaviours like screaming? He's not very receptive to the advice I give him but I can try

[GlassOnion]

Sorry.. but tell your dad to learn some common sense!
Geez, isn't it obvious that he's making it worse and worse? I think you should keep Rainbow away from your dad so that he can't continue to reinforce this behaviour. Can you maybe keep him in your room and try to not let your dad interact with him? If your dad gets angry with pooping on him, don't let the bird on his shoulder!

[Vicki5280]

Sorry.. but tell your dad to learn some common sense!
Geez, isn't it obvious that he's making it worse and worse? I think you should keep Rainbow away from your dad so that he can't continue to reinforce this behaviour. Can you maybe keep him in your room and try to not let your dad interact with him? If your dad gets angry with pooping on him, don't let the bird on his shoulder!

>>>nodding<<< Yep. I totally agree. It's not always easy to "tell" dad to have common sense though. Perhaps you could find something from one of the training blogs, or somewhere else online, where it is recommended that bad behavior be ignored. Then you could print it off and sometime when everyone is feeling friendly and calm, you could show him what "the professionals" recommend. Sometimes my husband will take that better than when I tell him what to do , maybe your dad will too? Good luck!

[Michael]

Sometimes people can be dumber than birds. Sorry, but I cannot give you advice about training them. Sounds like you know what to do in terms of the parrot though.

[patdbunny]

Can you move the bird into your room so your dad can't interact with it anymore? Get the bird foraging. Foraging and eating birds can't scream.

When can you move out?

Unfortunately, the parent has the unilateral power to get rid of the bird.

[GlassOnion]

Get the bird foraging. Foraging and eating birds can't scream.

[zazanomore]

I don't have that problem with my parents regarding my birds. HOWEVER, my dog will bark at my mom. She has a very short temper, so she'll start yelling at him to shut up. Of course this makes him more excited and he just barks more and more.

I tried telling her to ignore him, and he'll just shut up. Of course, her children are always wrong and she is always right, so on goes the yelling war between Stewie and my Mom.

[pchela]

Would your dad be willing to watch a training video? Sometimes seeing the training implemented is enough to make somebody realize that it does work and it's not difficult. Barbara Heidenreich has some good ones or you could show your dad some of Michaels videos.

[Giantmoa]

Okay, I've found an article to show to my dad. Does anyone know any good videos out there? I'm also going to see if he'll take me to a free bird care class in a month, hopefully that'll mention something (but should be interesting, anyways). plus we'll try having rainbow spend the daytime in my room till I get home from school in the afternoons (my dad works from home and complains about her). & I guess its time to amp up the difficulty of her foraging, she's getting too good at it! One more year of highschool then its college time, so I'm hoping I can get housing where rainbow can stay with me then.

[Saerphe]

*almost done with high school fist bump*

Good luck with your dad! I really hope he comes around. Thankfully my own budgies seem to be growing on my parents. With any luck they'll look after them until I finish university and I can take them when I have my own place. They aren't anything like a greencheek though.