Joey, in three months time

Nearly three months ago I agreed to take in five birds from a friend who had to rehome her animals due to a tragic, life changing event.  Her flock included a 5 year old White Capped Pionus, a 4 year old Canary Winged Parakeet, an 8 year old Green Cheek Conure and two budgies.  Two of the five have moved on from my home, but Joey, the Pionus and Easter and Peep, the two budgies will remain with me.

I have spent a great deal of time over the past three months working with Joey.  When he first arrived here he was very defensive of his cage and would lunge and bang into the sides with his beak every time I came near.  When my friends family brought the birds they told me that he was very aggressive.  I was not able to communicate with the friend who had the birds before me.  Just going by what I saw it was clear he would be hands off for a while.

Joey's cage was set up in a way that you could only change his food and water by opening the large front door opening and putting your hands into the inside of the cage!  This is challenging when you have a bird who is rushing to get to your hands aggressively when you open the door.  I have had this issue with several birds and always deal with it the same way which is to teach them to go to a certain perch in their cage and remain there while I do what I need to do.  That is what I did with Joey.  I tested foods and found his favorite to be grapes.  Grapes are not particularly nutritious to birds, but I offer them because they like them and they are not harmful.  I have used grapes with a few of my birds as I worked through finding other things they like.  Every time I would go to feed or water Joey, I would lure him up to a certain perch and fed him grape pieces while I changed his food and water.  I would continue to offer pieces or give him big pieces that lasted awhile.  It wasn't a day or two later that the moment I came into the room he would rush up to that perch.

As time went on, he began to look pretty excited when I came in and went up to that perch every time I would enter.  I did not let Joey out of his cage right away for a couple of reasons.  First, I did not want him to come out and then me have to force him to go back in.  Our relationship was moving forward in a way that I was really happy with and I didn't want to damage that.  So, we did quite a bit of training with him in his cage and me sitting with him, talking to him, listening to music with him and training him.

Finally, about 3 weeks after he arrived, I decided to open his cage and let him come out.  He crawled right out and went to the top of his cage.  He seemed happy to be out.  I offered my hand and he lunged to bite it.  I did not offer my hand again for more than a month but I did begin to let him out regularly because I learned that he would go back in eventually, so I just had to time it when I had plenty of time.  Here is the first time I let him out of his cage.

Sometimes when I had Joey out of his cage he would do the infamous "Pionus strut" where he would drop his wings and march back and forth on the top of his cage.  He has not done this in a long time, but did do it when a new person came by to meet one of the birds to adopt.  That strut clearly indicated he was feeling defensive and probably a bit territorial and that it is best not to touch him!  Here is a short video of Joey "strutting" https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10203723388301927&set=vb.1134617830&type=3&theater

I decided to move Joey to another cage.  I had a trip planned and my friend was going to be staying with my animals and I didn't want her to have to rely on Joey staying on his perch while she fed him, which by the way, he did, but I didn't know it that would be an issue.  Also, I wanted him to have a larger, heavier cage and I happened to have my Amazon's old cage, so I decided to see if Joey would mind moving to that one.  I also hoped that a new cage would lesson the territorial behavior around his cage.  I left the open cage next to his cage for days and let him explore and check it out at his pace and then finally moved him in.

I began stick training him and the stick training came along really well.  He learned to step onto a dowel fairly quickly which allowed him to choose to get close to me.  He began to want to be close very quickly and would come as close to my hand as possible.  Initially, I would put my hand inside my sweatshirt so that he couldn't see it since it seemed to upset him so much in the beginning.  He always seemed to be asking for me to get the stick so he could come and be close.

We continued with the stick training and he would always rush onto the stick and as close to me without getting onto my hand.  A couple of times he beaked my finger through my shirt.  Only one time with pressure and not very much, just exploring and checking it out.  One day I went into the kitchen just around the corner from where he was and he flew into the room after me.  I decided to put some trust into what I thought we were building and I offered my hand and he stepped up.  A lot of birds will step up from the ground, but I would never purposely put a bird in that position just to get him to step up.  When he stepped up that time I brought him back to his cage, but he wanted to stay on me and he hung out on my arm watching tv for a really long time.  He did make his way up to my shoulder and hang out there for a while to.  Clearly, he was ready for the next step in our relationship.

Joey now steps up and hangs out with me regularly.  He gently puts his beak on my fingers but never with any pressure.  He allows and asks for neck scritching.  I am impressed and amazed with how far he has come in such a short amount of time.  People sometimes think that 3 months is a long time, but it is actually an incredibly short period of time for a parrot.  I am excited to continue to grow with Joey.  

So, that is where we are at and I will surely keep you posted on our progress!

Five new birds, oh my!

So, due to an unfortunate tragedy a friend of mine is no longer able to care for her animals.  I offered to take the birds and today, five new birds were delivered to my house.  I had not met her birds before, so I just knew the little bits and pieces that I had heard about them and seen pictures of them.  Most of them are rehomes, with the exception of the two budgies that she got as babies.

Two of the birds Thistle, a Green Cheek Conure and Bamboo, a Canary Winged Parakeet are very handleable, but I wasn't sure about Joey, her White Capped Pionus.  Joey seems very excited and interested when I talk to him and when I am by the cage and some of the time he looked pretty defensive and upset. When I changed his water I saw that my perception was correct, he is not okay with me messing with his cage.  He came over and became really agitated and aggressive.  But, I needed to change his water and I needed to take out his fresh food bowl.  However, there was no way I could just stick my hand in there as every time I reached he rushed over aggressively.

I was already planning to work with him, but was going to give him a little time to settle in, but obviously something needs to be done so that I can change his food and water.  When I fed him earlier, I noticed he liked grapes which I had offered in his veggie and fruit mix earlier.  He has taken food from me, but I can tell when he is agitated he just grabs it and drops it.  When I offered him millet, he didn't want it.  When I gave him a piece of popcorn, he threw it down.

I cut the grapes up into spears, with each grape become four spears of grape.  I offered him one and he took it and loved it.  I asked him to come to the other side of the cage onto another perch and he did, so I marked it with "good!" and then gave him another grape slice.  While he was eating it, I replaced the water bowl. After he was done, I asked him to move to another perch, when he did, I marked it, "Good!" and gave him another grape spear and was able to easily remove his food dish.

Thistle and Bamboo also took a grape slice from me which is great as they had not wanted to take any food from me prior to that.

I will not longer be offering grapes in their food bowls, all grapes will come from me, from my hand and used for training.

I have been through this before with birds that are aggressive around their cages.  I simply have to teach them that I mean good things happen and that if they move where I ask them, I will reward them with something I like.

Welcome home little birds.

A New Way to Reinforce

Charlie is my 21 year old White Fronted Amazon.  I have written about Charlie before so you may remember that I adopted him last year from a parrot rescue.  I knew that Charlie "preferred" men, but since he didn't seem to hate women, I decided to adopt him.  Charlie had lived with a man for 15 years and was very attached, so it was not too much of a surprise when he saw Rick for the first time and immediately fell in love with him.  My husband is not very comfortable with birds but ended up developing a very close relationship with Charlie just because this bird is so in love with him.

We adopted Charlie one year ago and he has made great strides.  I stick trained him so I can now easily transport him around without any force or pressure.  In addition, Charlie has indicated several times that he would like to step up for me and he has.  However, I was wanting to do more with that and try to work on getting Charlie even more comfortable with stepping up for me and feeling comfortable with that.  I tried several different food reinforcers, even his favorites, but it just didn't seem to be reinforcing enough for him. After giving it some thought, I decided to use his most favorite and high value reinforcer.....Rick.

The plan was that I would give him access to Rick if he stepped up for me.  I brought Rick into the room, but had him stand by the door and ignore Charlie and I.  Charlie immediately started indicating that he wanted to go to Rick.  I asked him to step up, but he kept looking and leaning towards Rick, who was still across the room still ignoring Charlie.  I asked Charlie again and then, I asked Rick to ask Charlie to step up, from across the room.  Then, I asked Rick to continue to encourage Charlie.  Rick said, "It's okay Charlie, step up" and he did!  I immediately transported Charlie to Rick who asked him to step up off of me onto him, which of course he did readily.  We repeated this the next day.  On day three, Rick was in the other room and Charlie was on his stand next to me,  looking like he wanted some attention.  He looked like he wanted to be picked up, so I offered my hand and asked, "Do you want to step up?" and to my surprise and delight, he did!  I was so excited and called for Rick to come in so that I could reinforce it by handing him to Rick.

The day after that, I was sitting in my office at my desk and Charlie looked like he wanted attention, so I reached over and scritched his neck and head.  He still looked eager so I offered my hand and asked, "Do you want to step up?" and he did.  I kept my hand there, but he chose not to step back off of me.  I moved him towards me and away from his stand and he was content on my hand.  I offered him an almond and he chose to stay on me and eat it on my hand, rather than asking to go back to his cage or stand to eat it.  After that, he sat on my hand, just relaxing and looking around the room.  After a while I asked if he wanted to go back to his cage and I was surprised when he chose to hang out with me a little longer!  This is amazingly huge progress for Charlie and I am so happy and very proud of him.

This is an example of the Premack Principle in which one behavior can reinforce another behavior.  The low probability behavior (stepping up for me) is reinforced by a high probability behavior (stepping up for Rick).

I want to point out that while I am using access to Rick as a reinforcer for stepping up for me I am always carefully measuring Charlie's body language and making sure that he is not stressed.  I would not deprive him of access to Rick altogether or allow him to get distressed just so that I could hold him.  It took under a minute for him to choose to step up for me to get to Rick.  In addition to that, I have spent a year building a relationship and bond with Charlie based on trust, respect and cooperation.

Spring Changes

Charlie is our 21 year old White Fronted Amazon that we adopted last year.  He is the second WFA that we have had.  I adopted Merlin as a 34+ year old bird with health problems who passed away after two years.  I adopted Charlie knowing that he "prefers men".  He clearly prefers my husband Rick, and the two have formed a close relationship.

Almost exactly in tune with the Spring forward time change, Charlie began to change in some ways.  He seems restless, bored and frustrated some of the time.  He calls to us much more often.  He calls with a cute, "woo woo" whistle, and we respond with the same whistle.  I increased his foraging opportunities, changed his toys and am trying to make sure he gets plenty of sleep.

Today, I was hanging out in my bird room/office and working on the computer and he began to make a loud whistle sound.  Not a scream, but a loud whistle, that is not a sound I want to hear all the time!  He continued with it for a while and I ignored it.  After a little while, I left the room.  Partly because I needed to go into the other room, but partly because I wanted him to recognize that when I hear that, I go.  Once he was quiet and making quieter noises, I came back in.  He didn't make the noise anymore, but was still restless.  I realize that he is needing some more mental stimulation and possibly exercise.

After I came back in, I did a little training with him.  Nothing big, just a little work on stick training, to which he is was very into.  Then, I moved a bottlebrush stand, that I use for one of my other birds, over to him.  I moved it close enough so that he could reach into the food cup from his cage.  I put some treats in there. He did not get onto the stand (I don't think) but he did take the treats and step onto the seed cup a few times. After about 30 minutes of this, he quietly went back into his cage and is grooming and getting ready to nap.

I realize he needs something, he needs more to do and think about.  Here is my plan:

• Increase his training sessions
• Start teaching wing flapping for exercise
• More foraging opportunities 
• More toy changes/rotations
• More shower/misting training (he doesn't like it, but is getting more comfortable with it and I know he needs it)
• A new stand of his own to put near his cage for another play to forage and play
• As soon as the weather is good, I will be working on getting him out into the aviary for sunshine, fresh air and a little flying around

Changing Behavior Long Term

I have been wanting to write this blog post for a while, but have been struggling with how to put into words what I feel needs to be shared.  Sometimes when working with an animal with behavior issues, I find that the actual problem behaviors that are happening are simply a symptom of another issue altogether.  Sometimes the real problem or a part of the problem has a lot to do with the "background" or other things that are going on, or not going on, in an animals life. There are many times when a huge part of the behavior modification plan is not about what the animal is doing RIGHT NOW, but other things in his or her life that are contributing to these behavior issues.

When an animal is exhibiting some behavior problem, the owner wants to stop the behavior. I understand this, they are viewing the behavior has the problem and they want it to stop, but what if stopping the behavior in that moment does not change or modify the future of the behavior? Just stopping or suppressing behavior is not enough. It may be enough in some instances, but not all.  Let's look at that.

If your dog is going to pick up and presumably eat a rotten piece of chicken bone on the street than suppressing that behavior in the moment is necessary. Because you need to protect the dog, you must stop him from doing that behavior. Likewise, if my parrot Nemo finds his way to my other parrot Iris' cage, a fight will ensue. I will need to remove him from the cage to stop or suppress a bird fight from happening, but this is not likely to change his behavior the next time. I have not "taught" them not to fight, I have simply intervened and stopped the behavior in that moment.  This is not a problem as long as I understand that this behavior will not change just because I intervene.

Many behavior problems have several variables that are contributing to the issue. Many times things like lack of exercise, lack of mental stimulation, lack of enrichment, lack of out of cage time (for birds), lack of training, lack of sleep (for birds), constant or frequent stress or anxiety and many other things can help to fuel a behavior issue in an animal. I will frequently go to a clients house for a specific issue when there are so many other things that are contributing to the problem that it isn't possible to just "stop" the problem without changing many other things in the animal's life.

When looking at a behavior problem I generally do what is called a "functional behavior analysis", this means I identify the problem behavior, then I look at what happens just before the behavior which is called the antecedent and what happens just after the behavior which is called the consequence.  These two things the antecedent and consequence fuel the behavior, however, there are likely other things in the environment, background things that may be in play.

For instance, I may to go a clients home to help them with their young, adolescent dog who is "hyper" meaning that he jumps all over the family and guests, runs wildly around the house and furniture and counter surfs. The owners want to know why he does that and how to "make him stop". When I interview the client I learn that the dog gets almost no exercise (just having a yard is not adequate exercise), little or no training, gets no mental stimulation and his family is gone for a better part of the day. When I start to explain that those things, lack of exercise, lack of training, lack of mental stimulation are part of the problem, people frequently fail to see how the two could possibly be connected and they persist in wanting to know how they can just "make him stop" doing all of the things that are actually just symptoms of the real problem which is all the things the dog needs and is lacking.

Here is another example. A parrot is screaming and the owners can't figure out how to get the bird to stop. It may be as simple as looking at what is happening before and after the behavior to figure out what is supporting the screaming. But, many times I find that the bird is not getting nearly enough uninterrupted sleep, doesn't have enough enrichment or mental stimulation or he hasn't been trained to entertain himself.

Sometimes it is truly difficult for people to see how different variables can impact their animal's behavior, even if indirectly.  Many times it is very necessary to make changes in the animal's day to day life and management in order to see changes in their behavior because as I mentioned, many times just stopping the behavior in the moment will not get you the long term changes in behavior that you are hoping to see and accomplish.

We can't change behavior in an animal without making sure that their needs are met. If their needs are not met that animal is not in a position to learn or be able to change their behavior. What is hard for people to process and accept is that if we want to change an animal's behavior we must first change our own. If there is no change in what we do, how we set up the environment and how we manage things there is not likely going to be any change in the animal's behavior. If it were going to change on it's own, it already would have.

Stick Training Charlie

Charlie is my 20 year old White Fronted Amazon. When I adopted Charlie a few months ago, he was very fearful of the stick. He would sometimes step onto a stick for someone, but only after he felt he had no choice. This is using negative reinforcement, which means that something aversive goes away, in this case, the stick stops chasing you, when you do the behavior...stepping onto the stick. As you can imagine, it can be relationship damaging but it can also make the stick a scary thing. Also Charlie is more comfortable with men than women and part of what I am trying to do is make him more comfortable with me.  Doing something frightening, like chasing him with a stick, would not be helping to further our relationship and take it in the direction I want to go. I want Charlie to feel comfortable and safe around the stick and around me.

I set out to stick train Charlie using positive reinforcement and by shaping the behavior. Shaping means that you slowly build the behavior and reinforce all approximations towards the complete behavior.  Essentially, I started out by reinforcing Charlie for looking at the stick, then moving towards it, for staying near it, for putting a foot on it, then two feet one it, etc. 

The process can vary in how long it takes to get to the goal behavior. It depends on many things including the animals learning history, their individual personality and temperament, the skill level of the trainer, how often training is done, past life experiences for the animal and so much more. It probably took a couple of weeks of my working on this sporadically for us to get to where we are. Had I worked on it more often, we would have gotten to our end goal much faster.

The most important thing with this training is that you take your time and allow the animal to take their time. Do not push or force or pressure the animal. Instead, take what the animal can give you and reinforce that.

In this video I am usually using pieces of cashew, sometimes a safflower seed and on a few occasions a sunflower seed to reinforce Charlie's behavior.

We tried that and it didn't work...

I am writing this post because I come across this statement both on internet forums and in real life as a behavior consultant. 

Many times when people complain about problem behaviors in their animals (regardless of species) and are given advice they respond that "they have tried that and it didn't work". It is important to keep in mind that in order for our animals behavior to change we have to change our own behavior. As a species, we tend to blame the issues on someone else. The bird is being (insert any label here) hormonal, dominant, mean, jealous, stubborn, etc. when the fact is that the behavior has simply been reinforced (consequences) and the stage has been set for the bird to do it (antecedents). As owners we can control and change antecedents and consequences. In other words, the behavior is sandwiched between two things that change behavior, both of which we can control.

When people tell me that they tried something already and it "didn't work", I don't usually have to look far to see why it didn't work. While not every solution will work for every animal, learning theory doesn't change from individual to individual or even from species to species. Learning theory remains the same across the board. Functional analysis (antecedent-behavior-consequence) remains the same across the board. So, it isn't that it simply doesn't work for that animal, it usually means that there is a problem with how it's being executed.

How a behavior modification or training plan is executed is important. The skill of the trainer comes into play here. For some things, the timing is critical and if it's not right the bird will be confused and may be reinforced or punished for the wrong thing. For instance, let's say that a person asks their bird to step up and the bird bites the owner's hand, which causes the owner to pull their hand away. The bird was probably reinforced for biting. The owner is upset so then asks the bird to step up onto a stick which the bird does and then puts the bird in a time out to negatively punish the behavior. What message could the bird be getting? Probably that biting makes hands go away when he doesn't want to step up and that he got timed out in his cage for stepping up on the stick. It is important and critical even to look at what happens just before (antecedent) and just after (consequence) a behavior to determine if and how it can be modified.

Another problem with owner's execution is with extinction. We know that any behavior that is not reinforced will go away or go extinct. There are some exceptions like if the behavior is a response to stress. If a bird is screaming because he is not getting enough attention, exercise or enrichment then that screaming will not likely go away from ignoring the bird. In this case, the screaming is a symptom of being ignored and is a sign of stress. But, in cases where the bird's needs are met and the bird is screaming for attention ignoring the bird will cause the screaming to go extinct or go away. This is one where people constantly say "we tried ignoring him and it didn't work". The fact is, while they may have tried ignoring the bird, they simply didn't do it long enough. If the bird has learned that screaming brings the outcome of attention, any attention, the bird will keep screaming. Once the owner starts to ignore the screaming to extinguish the behavior, the bird will have an extinction burst which is when the behavior gets worse before it gets better. Many times it is during the extinction burst that the owner caves because the screaming gets worse and they can't cope with it which only cements the behavior even further. The bird has now been taught that if they just keep pushing and persisting, the desired outcome will eventually happen. 

When a behavior has a strong reinforcement history meaning that the animal has practiced doing something and then getting the desired outcome for a long time, the behavior will be more resistant to extinction. 

In the case of screaming, another thing that happens is that the owner "thinks" they are ignoring the behavior, but they aren't. Birds (and dogs) are very good at reading our body language and some of our body language can unintentionally reinforce behavior. I once had clients who had an American Bulldog who would bark at their back door and they said they couldn't get her to stop. She was a big, goofy funny dog and just looking at her made you smile. I asked them if they ever laughed while she did it, they said "yes, all the time". Bingo! When a bird is screaming for attention and the owner is attempting to ignore it, there are a million things the owner could do to reinforce it including, but certainly not limited to flinching, covering their ears, looking in the direction of the cage, turning up the TV, etc, etc. So, keep in mind that the animal, not us, get to decide what is reinforcing and you may have to look at other things going on.

The fact is, extinction can take some time. A bird who has been screaming for attention for 2 years is not going to miraculously stop after 10 minutes of being ignored because there is too much reinforcement history that has supported the behavior. The bottom line is, it takes time. I am not saying it's not frustrating, I wouldn't want to try and ignore a screaming bird for 2 hours, but I didn't make the rules, science did. It isn't always fun, but it IS the way it is.

So, keep in mind that if a behavior modification plan feels like it isn't working, you may need to adjust how you are doing things. You may need to wait longer. You may need to adjust how you are putting the plan into action. You may need modify the consequences or adjust the antecedent, but you will get there.

Changing problem behavior in birds

I wanted to write a post that could help people understand how you can go about changing or modifying problem behavior in their parrots. It is good for people to know this because once you get the concepts, you can apply it to anything. 

Behavior doesn't just "happen", it happens because of what happens before the behavior, or the set up, which is called the "antecedent" and by what happens just after the behavior, which is called the "consequence". The great thing is that, those are both (the antecedent and the consequence) things we can change which will change the animal's behavior. The other great thing is that, we KNOW this. It is scientific, it is proven and we know that it is how it is. It does not change between species, breeds or anything like that, we ALL learn this way. People will blame behavior on all sorts of different things, but the truth is that the behavior is only going to keep happening if it is effective. No animal, human or non-human, does things for no reason. The key really is figuring out what the reinforcement is for the animal as this is what drives the behavior. The reinforcers, of course, are what change from individual to individual. 

In general, I am talking about changing behavior that is considered problem behavior. I want to note that some behavior that people consider "problem" is actually natural, normal behavior for that species. You won't be successful at and shouldn't try completely getting rid of natural behaviors. Excessive screaming can be modified, but not ALL vocalizing. Destroying furniture can be modified, but not ALL chewing. Also, it is important to keep in mind that in order for our animals behavior to change, we have to be willing to change our own behavior first. If no change on our part was required, the problem would have resolved itself.

Finally, keep in mind that animals get better at whatever they practice, so don't let a behavior go on and on before putting together a training plan. If they are doing it over and over and it is being reinforced, it is getting stronger. It is best to figure out how to modify it as early on as you can.

Changing Antecedents 

When you want to change a problem behavior, the first thing to look at is whether not it is possible to simply change the antecedent so that the behavior can't happen. Remember, the antecedent sets the stage. Here are a couple of situations where I could simply change the antecedent:

A dog barks at the front window when the mailman comes to the porch. Here are some antecedents I could change:

1) Do not allow the dog access to the front window before the mailman has come. Simply keep the dog away from the window by keeping him in another part of the house. 

2) Move the mailbox off of the house and onto a stand at the end of the driveway.

3) Close the blinds

Any one of these could work, depending on the dog, the set up of the house, etc. If the dog can run upstairs and see the mailman from another window, then we may have to make sure he can't get to other front windows as well. If the dog is very sensitive to sound and barks even if he can't see the mailman, we may have to move him to a specific area of the house and add white noise. There are a ton of things we can do to change the set up. 

Another example:

A Meyer's Parrot (named Nemo), climbs onto and then guards the garbage can when sitting on the side of it. If you go to reach for him or ask him to step up, he will react by lunging with an open beak. Here are some antecedents I could change:

1) Move the garbage can to someplace in the room where it is more difficult for him to get to and less noticeable to him.

2) Take the garbage can out of the room when he is out of his cage.

3) Put something over the garbage can so that he can't see it and/or on it.

I usually do #1 which works well

It should be noted that for the lunging behavior the antecedent would be reaching for him. If I do not mess with him, he minds his own business, cheerfully playing in the garbage can. So, I can make the lunging not happen by just leaving him alone. I actually do this sometimes. When I know I have plenty of time, I let him hang out on the side of the garbage can, leave him alone and when he gets bored he climbs up on the playstand and steps up with no problem. 

Some other examples of changing antecedents are: 

-If you have two birds that fight, do not have them out at the same time. If they aren't out, they can't fight.
-If you have a bird who flies out of the room, shut the door or put up a net or curtain. If it isn't an option, they can't do it.
-If you have a bird who flies at guests who come over, don't have him out when people come over. If he isn't out, he can't fly to them. 
-If you have a bird who chews on the blinds, open the blinds when he is out or move the cage so he can't access the blinds. 

If, for whatever reason you can't change the antecedent or the set up, then you may have to come up with a training plan to modify the behavior.

Changing Behavior

The best training plan, in my opinion, for getting rid of a behavior you don't like is to train an alternative behavior or an incompatible behavior. Teaching an alternative behavior means that you teach the animal to do something else. Teaching an incompatible behavior means that you teach something to the animal that they cannot possibly do at the same time as the behavior you don't like. 

The point is that you teach the animal to do an acceptable behavior INSTEAD of the behavior you don't want him to do. This is what I do if I can't change the antecedent. Frequently, clients will tell me (about their dogs), "I don't want him to jump on people who want to greet him". So, I ask, "What would you like him to do?" Then they say, "I just don't want him to jump" at which point I really push and say, "What do you want him to do when he greets people? What would be acceptable? How about if he sits instead?" They say that would be so great, so we train that. The dog has to sit before greeting a person. It is MUCH easier to train what you want instead of trying to get rid of everything you don't want. You could spend an animals lifetime trying to get rid of all the behaviors you don't like, when simply training a few behaviors REALLY WELL, can give them the information and the tools to be able to do what you ask and get it right.

So, for my problem behaviors from above:

A dog barks at the front window when the mailman comes to the porch.

1) I could train the dog to go lie on his mat quietly when the mailman approaches. He cannot quietly lie on his mat (which is in another room away from the front window) and bark at the mailman at the window at the same time.

2) I could train the dog to come to the owner and sit down when the mailman comes on the porch. 

You can see here that there are a ton of behaviors I could teach the dog to do INSTEAD of barking at the mailman. Depending on the reinforcement history of this behavior, the temperament and learning style of the dog, the skill level of the owners, this could be really easy to do or really challenging. You can see that simply changing the antecedent is much simpler if it is possible.

A Meyer's Parrot (named Nemo), guards the garbage can when sitting on the side of it. If you go to reach for him or ask him to step up, he will react by lunging with an open beak. 

1) I could teach him to follow a target to move him away from the garbage can.

2) I could teach him to climb onto a certain perch on the playstand (near the can).

Some other examples of alternative behaviors are:

-Teaching a bird to talk quietly instead of screaming. 
-To teach a bird to step up with his head upright instead of biting. 
-Teach a bird to go station on a certain perch instead of trying to bite your hand when putting the food bowl in.
-To teach a bird to play on a play stand instead of walking around on the ground. 
-To teach a dog to sit instead of jumping up. 

Reinforcers

Like I mentioned before, when animals do a behavior, they are doing that behavior for an outcome or for the reinforcement that follows it. They get something out of it. If we want to build a behavior we have to find out what is reinforcing to the animal and add that immediately after a behavior happens. When we think of reinforcement, we think of food or something that we may be giving in order to strengthen behaviors that we want to teach the animal. Food, attention, play, are all things that we may use to intentionally reinforce an animal, however, the animal is the one who really decides what is reinforing. In other words, I don't get to say that because I like petting my dog a certain way that it is reinforcing, he may be more reinforced by food, or a ball toss, or whatever. The only way to determine whether or not something is reinforcing is to see what happens to the behavior that the intended reinforcement follows. If it happens more frequently or is maintained, it was reinforcing. If the behavior does not happen more often, or happens less, it was NOT reinforcing to the animal. Below is video I made for my clients to explain reinforcers and how they work. These are reinforcers for building behaviors, but remember that there is something that is reinforcing the behaviors that you want to modify also. You aren't giving a piece of food, but make no mistake that the animal is getting something out of it. If they weren't, they wouldn't keep doing it.

 

Finally, if a behavior is happening that you want to stop happening and you can't change the antecedent then you will need to find out what is reinforcing the behavior and change that. Remember that what reinforces the behavior is what happens right after the behavior happens. Let's figure out what is reinforcing for the animals in the examples above:

A dog barks at the front window when the mailman comes to the porch.

In this case, the dog is alert barking. Every single day the dog alert barks at the mailman and every single day he is reinforced by the mailman going away after dropping off the mail. The mailman did not intend to reinforce that behavior and he didn't leave because the dog barked, but because it happened directly after the dog barked, the barking is reinforced. In this case, it makes more sense to change the antecedent set up and/or teach an alternative behavior since I really can't control the mailman.

A Meyer's Parrot (named Nemo), guards the garbage can when sitting on the side of it. If you go to reach for him or ask him to step up, he will react by lunging with an open beak. 

In this case, the reinforcement for the bird is my backing off or removing my hand. He did not want to be removed from the garbage can to he lunges with an open beak which causes me to remove my hand and the behavior is reinforced. Now, he may also not want me to reach in the can but I am pretty sure it is because he doesn't want to be removed or asked to step up. I am not stupid enough to test out this theory and see what happens if I just reach in as I think I know what the outcome would be and frankly because I have worked around the situation by changing antecedents and/or simply not reaching for him, it doesn't matter. 

Some examples of things that can be reinforcing to birds. Keep in mind that this is by no means a complete list of things that can reinforce a bird, nor will all of these be reinforcing to every bird:

-Getting food
-Getting attention
-Getting scratched or pet
-Excitable tone of voice/excitement
-A reaction (for some birds, a reaction of any kind can reinforce a behavior, even a flinch or yelling at the bird)
-Increasing distance from someone (moving the person away)
-Chewing on wood or other things including, but not limited to pens, keyboards, furniture, paper, boxes, plastic, books, etc, etc, etc
-Foraging
-Shredding stuff
-Play
-Toys
-Exploring/investigating

In any situation that has problem behavior we have to look at what sets it up (antecedents) and what keeps it going (reinforcement). Change the antecedent and/or remove the reinforcement and the behavior will stop happening. This is easier said than done sometimes as it can take good observation skills as well as good mechanical skills sometimes to change behavior. As Bob Bailey says, "Training is simple, but not easy."

Negative Punishment

It is also sometimes possible to change behavior by removing something that the animal wants in order to make a behavior go away. For instance, if I am working on step up with a bird, using a tested reinforcer (like a seed) that I have determined the bird really likes as a lure and he tries to bite me, I can remove my hand AND the opportunity for reinforcement for just a few seconds, before giving the animal the opportunity to make the right choice for which he can be rewarded.

Some examples of negative reinforcement are:

A bird screams for attention and the owner leaves the room. You are removing what the bird wants, YOU, immediately after the behavior of screaming happened.

A dog jumps up on the owner and the person turns away. The owners attention is removed immediately following hte jumping. 

Remember if you use negative reinforcement to be sure to reinforce the animal when they make the right choice. In other words, any time the bird is quiet you need to reinforce that. At first, frequently and then you can build duration of quiet periods up from there. For the stepping up, you would reinforce with the seed EVERY time the bird does the behavior correctly. The other thing to keep in mind is that in order for negative punishment to be effective, it has to happen every time. If the animal is reinforced some of the time for the problem behavior that will still keep the behavior strong.

In general my go to is:

1) Change antecedent if possible

2) Train an alternative or an incompatible behavior

3) Possibly consider negative punishments, but I would try to change it with the first two options.

I hope that this helps some and that it gives people a better idea about how they can use these tools to change behavior in their birds.

Learning theory basics

I thought I would do a post about learning to help people understand how our birds learn.

Operant Conditioning

In operant conditioning an animals learns from consequences. There are four quandrants or possible consequences. Keep in mind that positive and negative refer to plus or minus, not good or bad. Punishment isn't always painful or scary and reinforcement isn't always fun and rewarding.

Positive Reinforcement (+R)
Positive reinforcement means that something pleasant happens to the animal after a behavior. For instance, if your bird steps up when asked and is then given a sunflower seed, this is positive reinforcement. It causes a behavior to happen again.

Negative Reinforcement (-R)
Negative reinforcement means that something unpleasant is taken away after a behavior to make the behavior happen again. For instance, a bird is growling at a person for being too close, the person stands there until the bird stops stops growling, and once the growling stops the person moves away. The bird was negatively reinforced. The problem with this quandrant is that in order to take the negative thing away it has to first be presented so it causes an aversive to the animal.

Positive Punishment (+P)
Positive punishment means that something aversive happens to the animal after a behavior. It may cause the animal to not do that behavior again. For instance, a bird screams and is then squirted with water, if the frequency of screaming goes down the bird has been positively punished for screaming. There are some issues with positive punishment. The first is that you can get fallout in which the animal begins to associate the punishment with the person doling it out which can cause some other issues. Also, if the behavior does not go down in frequency but only stops during the actual punishment, the behavior is just being surpressed not extinguished.

Negative Punishment (-P)
Negative punishment means that something pleasant is removed after a behavior to cause a behavior to go down in frequency. For instance, a bird screams for attention, the owner then leaves the room. If the behavior goes down in frequency the behavior has been negatively punishment. The owner took away it's attention which the bird wanted.

Punishment makes a behavior go down in frequency, reinforcement makes a behavior go up in frequency.

Many consequences can flow into each other and be more than one quadrant. Many trainers, myself included, recommended trying to use only positive reinforcement and sometimes negative punishment to train animals, rather than training with aversives.

An easy way to remember how operant conditioning works is to think of training as ABC. Antecedent = Behavior = Consequence. The antecedent is what causes the animal to do something, the behavior is what the animal does, the consequence is what happens after. Here is an example:

Antecedent - owner presents a stick for the bird to step up onto

Behavior - bird steps up onto stick

Consequence - the bird gets a sunflower seed.

Classical Conditioning

Where operant conditioning has to do with consequences, classical conditioning has to do with associations and emotions.

Classical conditioning is where an animal learns from associations and sometimes predictions. Classical conditioning has to do with emotions to certain things in that the animal doesn't think about it, it just feels it.

Here are some examples: 

Every morning you prepare your birds food and use the microwave to heat up their food. Your bird could start vocalizing, or getting very excited, or very happy when hearing the microwave because the microwave predicts to the animal that breakfast is coming. One of my dogs begins salivating as I begin to fill the bowls with food. Every night there is a small puddle of drool in front of him as he waits for his dinner. He isn't "doing" this, it just happens because he has learned that my putting food in bowls in that room means he will be eating soon.

Here is another dog example since I can't think of a bird one at the moment. My friend has a dog that potties in her backyard on the grass and has every day since she came home as a puppy. One day she is in the backyard playing on the grass and she gets stung repeatedly by wasps. She can no longer go in the backyard alone and cannot go potty in the yard. She has learned that the backyard is a scary place and doesn't want to go there. Incidentily, this is a case of "single event learning" where one single event can have a very strong and lasting impact on an individual.

If you have a nervous bird that gets fearful when you approach the cage and every day you walk by and drop a delicious treat into his bowl eventually, over time his emotional response to you approaching will be excitement instead of nervousness. The bird began to associate you with the yummy treat.

Things to do with a new bird

So many people come on here with new birds asking what they should and shouldn't do that I thought I would put a short list together of things that owners of new birds could do to build a good relationship with their bird. These things can be done with all new rehomes, rescues or baby birds.

1. Reward stepping up. Whether you have to teach the bird to step up or the bird already steps up, it is smart to reward each step up with a treat for quite a while. This will build a strong reinforcement history of stepping up for you with your new bird. Not only does it reinforce the actual behavior of stepping up, it also helps the bird to realize that YOU are reinforcing to be with and around. Sometimes people will just say "good bird" and this can be okay, but with a new bird you don't know how much you saying "good bird" actually matters to the bird. In an established relationship with a bird you know well, you may have learned that other things like verbal praise, petting, touching are reinforcing but with a new bird you don't know if the bird actually finds those things reinforcing which is why it is best to use food, a primary reinforcer in the beginning stages.

2. Reward vocalizations that you like. Many birds end up screaming because it gets them attention. A lot of birds who scream likely offered many other vocalizations such as whistling, talking, chattering, etc that went ignored. They did not get the attention they were seeking until they upped their vocalizations to screaming which caused their owner to scream along with them or engage in some other way. So, be sure to reinforce with food or attention any vocalizing that you like from your bird. You should also reinforce when your bird is quiet so that your bird learns that being quiet is reinforcing will earn him attention and treats. Playing quietly on their own should also be rewarded.

3. Encourage foraging and playing with toys. I have been able to get most of my birds to forage and play with toys, by continuing to try different toys and foraging ideas. If your bird "doesn't play with toys" keep trying different toys of different types of materials to see what your bird likes. It can take birds (especially ones that have never been given toys) a while to try them out, but even my 35 year old Amazon who wasn't given toys before coming here loves toys now. I just had to experiment with different ones. If you plastic toys don't work, try a shreddy toy, if shreddy doesn't work try wood, if wood doesn't work, try paper. There are so many toys out there and something is bound to click with your bird. I have found that baby birds are very receptive to toys and foraging so if you get a baby bird, definitely introduce these concepts early. Toys and foraging ideas don't have to be expensive, there are many things you can use around your house. I routinely give my Meyers a hunk of 2 x 4 wood or a cardboard box to chew on. He loves these more than any toy and they are just lying around my house. Check out Parrot Enrichment for foraging and homemade toy ideas.

4. Develop a routine but include some flexibility in the routine so that your bird can cope with slight changes in the routine. For example, all my birds eat fresh breakfast first thing in the morning. Throughout the day different birds are let out to play on play areas, trip around, etc. I switch around who comes out first and where they play, so there is always some flexibility there. Also, while most of them come out daily, there are some days when some birds don't come out at all. This is necessary because there are times (usually only once or twice a month) where my birds are not out of their cages. Most days I play music in the bird room, but some days I don't. I do not change the times of their meals, those always remain the same. It is very important that new birds are introduced to being alone, playing with toys and entertaining themselves early on so that they are able to cope with this on a regular basis. Even if you never have to leave your bird alone, you should still get them used to this because your life could change and it is important that your bird can deal with it. 

5. Start offering a variety of fresh foods right away. You can and should continue to feed your bird what he was eating prior to coming to you but you should also immediately start offering a variety of fresh foods to your bird. Vegetables, fruit, brown rice, pasta, bird breads are all things that you can begin to offer your bird. If you have a bird that is not used to eating fresh foods, don't give up and just keep doing it!! You can get creative and try hanging fresh greens or herbs in the cage. You can make bird bread or muffins and sneak veggies into those. Most birds can learn to enjoy a healthy varied diet it just may take some time for them to get brave enough to try it! If your new bird was not eating a healthy diet in their previous home, begin to offer the new, healthier foods right away so that you can transition the bird to a healthier way to eat.

6. Find out how your bird likes to bathe and offer bathing opportunities. I find that my new birds flourished when given bathing opportunities. Many of them enjoy simply being sprayed down with a water bottle set on mist. My conure doesn't like misting at all, but prefers to bath in her water dish. My amazon likes to bathe in the shower with me in there too! Figure out how your bird likes to bath and then offer this to them. Giving them something reinforcing to them like the opportunity to bathe only helps to strengthen the relationship you are developing with your bird. 

7. Learn to read your birds body language and respect what your bird is trying to communicate. A bird that bites has likely given much earlier warning signals that went ignored prior to deciding to bite. Take your time learning how to read your birds body language so that you will know when it's time to back off and when it's time to move forward.

8. When it comes to training the best thing to do is to use positive reinforcement to reward any behaviors that you like. Positive reinforcement means that you do something the bird likes such as offer a treat, give a scritch, give attention to or give access to something right after your bird does a behavior that you like. For instance, if you say "step up" and offer your hand and your bird steps up you immediately hand the bird a treat. Again, it is advised to use food in the beginning since with a new bird you may not know the bird well enough to know what things will be rewarding. Once you learn other rewards the bird likes you can use those as well as food. Using positive reinforcement to build behaviors you like will allow you to not only train your bird but also to help strengthen the relationship you have with your bird. Never use aversives like yelling at a bird, hitting a bird, throwing things at the bird or cage or squirting with water. This will only teach your bird that you are not trustworthy and will cause your bird to be fearful of you. Any and every time you use punishment with your bird you are breaking trust and damaging your relationship with that animal. Don't do it! For more information on training check out The Parrot Problem Solver and Good Bird by Barbara Heidenreich.

9. Most importantly, don't pressure, push or force your new bird at all. This is by far the biggest mistake people make. They want a relationship with a new bird so badly that they destroy any possibility of that happening by pushing the bird or trying to force the bird to be with them. If your bird is fearful of hands, don't attempt to hold it with your hand instead try training the bird to step onto a stick or cover your hand with a long sleeved shirt. If your bird doesn't want to come out of his cage, simply open the door and leave him alone. Whatever you do, do not set up situations where you feel you have no choice but to force the bird. Good, strong, healthy bird/human relationships are built on trust, communication and mutual respect, they are never built on fear, force or intimidation.