Acappella

Will you lot please speak Canadian.!?! Having grown up on Brit Coms I understand you most of the time, but this one went right over my little Canadian head

Just stick with the ones that are made from essential oils. They are soooo popular now that, just like perfumes, cheaper chemical-based ones are coming out. Not only do the cheap ones gives peoplelike me who are sensitive to fumes headaches, they can't be good for our birdies.

Bummer, video won't play in Canada

He'll get used to being in his cage for periods of time. Like others have said, tell him what's going on. Dorian knows the difference between me going for a couple of minutes, a couple of hours, or the whole day. If I'm just going upstairs I tell him 'going upstairs, be right back', going for a couple of hours is 'gotta go to the store, be back soon', working outside is 'I'm going outside now', and all day is 'I'll see you tonight, be a good boy'. One of his favourite phrases now is 'gotta get a glass of water, be right back' Do you have a bell in Murphy's cage? Most greys seem to love bells, and when it's clear I'm leaving him for a few hours and Dorian's mad about it, he loves to take his aggresion out his bell. Get a heavy duty one. I think they're called indestruti-bells on some web sites. If you want me to post a picture of mine just ask. He may not be a happy birdie when he's in his cage, but he is a safe birdie. Keep providing him with toys, and show him how to play with them, until you find one he's happy to play with when he's in his cage. You're doing great extinguishing the screaming. He may always pull it out as a last resort when he's feeling really annoyed or neglected but you can get rid of 95% of it:)

Just wondering, how goes the training???

You're on the right track, only answering the contact noise you like. That's just what I did with Dorian and I hardly ever hear the super-obnoxious noise I used to hear all the time. Kate is doing great using her hand to deflect him from landing. He'll learn soon enough that he's not going to be able to land. It would be great if you could show guests how to do it as well, so Murphy gets a consistent message from everyone. Don't be surprised, though, if you extinguish this behaviour and then a year from now, he pulls it out again. Like kids, they just want to see if the rules are still the same:) Murphy is showing you how smart he is, focusing not on behaving, but on not getting caught mis-behaving. You're right to discourage him perching on the tops of doors, but since it's a high point and wide enough to sit on comfortably, they're understandably drawn to doors, so you might want to take an extra precaution like using door stops to keep doors open when he's out of his cage. I've heard of at least one bird losing talons when a door they were perched on closed (don't remember if it was someone here) With the rest, I'm afraid you're dealing with EBE =Excess Baby Energy!!!!!! Dorian was 4 when I found him so I never had to deal with this particular problem. May the force be with you:)

Well, there'e a reason two of the most frequently used words here are patience and consistency:) Sounds like you have a very strong willed little boy on your hands! Just keep telling yourself the time you put in now to establish good habits will make him a great companion for your life. It does sound like Mr. Murphy has decided that Kate is "his" human. Taking him off her 20 times is, unfortunately, nothing. You may have to do it 1000 times. So, now it's time to get creative. Try to make Kate an undesirable landing zone. Often greys are afraid of particular colours, so try to find one Murphy stays clear of. Maybe wearing a hoodie with the hood up will be enough to keep him away. If she hears his wings coming towards her, she can discourage landing by moving erratically. Maybe she'll have to wear something that will make her feel silly in the house, like Mickey Mouse ears, but as long as you promise her you won't take video and post it on YouTube, it's worth a try. Give him an alternate 'approved' landing zone, like a T stand or you arm. Then, when you have the time for a training session, let him land, then remove him and put him on his stand, saying something like "stay here Murphy" every time. Repeat ad nauseam until exhausted. If he stays on his perch for any length of time at all, then praise him and give him a treat. Make sure you're rewarding him for staying on his perch, not when you put him on his perch, or you end up rewarding him for trying to land on Kate. You don't want to make his cage a place of punishment, or he's going to protest even more when he's in it. Do some searching around here on time-out cages. Also look around for info on teaching your grey to play. Mr. Bossy needs to learn to entertain himself sometimes:) You're doing well, even though you're frustrated. You want to end up with a bird who you can have out when you have company. Bless you for being persistant even when your mom was over. It's hard for people who don't know much about birds in general and greys in particular to understand why we don't just cage them, but if you want to teach Murphy manners, caging him won't do the trick. Maybe you should just warn company that they may become part of parrot training sessions!

I actually made my 81 year-old father come down to the basement just to show him this clip. It's my favourite ever, short, sweet and hilarious!

See, Dave got here before I did. Yay for Dr. Flock!

I don't have any experience with nesting behaviour, but that's what it sounds like. From what I've read, if she is hormonal, she may be harder to handle until it passes. Hopefully another member with experience will recognize the behaviour you describe. Stephen's advice about the carpet is golden. Find something she's terrified of, and put it in the forbidden zone. May reek havoc with your interior design sense lol, but it will save the carpet!

Well, speaking as a person who once had a rabbit named Bird (after Charlie Parker), I think Chicken is a lovely name. Welcome!

OK, triage first. Are there things that Murphy likes to do that he can't do if he is shrieking? For example, Dorian loves ripping paper to shreds, he simply can't resist it, so if he's 'stuck' on an obnoxious sound I can often snap him out of it by offering him some choice object to destroy. He also tends to clam up if the tv is on. Pictures on = bird off:) Also, he can't shriek if he's eating:) Think about Murphy and if there are some similar strategies you can use to at least quiet him short-term when the baby's delicate ears are near. When you have to have Ella Rose in the same room with Murphy employ any strategy you can come up with that will keep his beak busy, as her ears must be protected at all costs. Ear plugs are a blessing. Get the little foam ones that roll up and go right in your ear. (If Murphy gets frightened by new things, try to find neutral coloured ones that won't show up too much when he sees them). You can still hear everything, but they take the nerve shattering edge off. Maybe an MP3 player with some soothing music, or comedy that makes you laugh, that you can focus on instead of his noise. That will do wonders for your stress level. Next, you have to try to figure out why he's doing this. He's had alot of changes lately. Not only is he still a baby and fairly new to your family, but you've brought your baby girl into the home, your wife has gone back to work, you're a little stressed being left to hold down the home front on your own . . . Birds will pick up on your stress level and are very sensitive to change. Are you his 'favourite' or is your wife? If it's your wife, Murphy could be missing her while she's at work. If it's you, he could be jealous of the attention you focus on the baby. Now add to that the fact that your stress level if going up when you deal with Murphy. It's understandable. No one likes to live with that kind of noise, but if it's causing you to tense up when you approach him, he reads that stress and ramps up his own response, which is the shrieking, which in turn ramps your stress up . . . Get the idea? So, as hard as it is, you have to stay calm and positive when you are around him. An animal behaviourist told me something when I was having trouble with Dorian, and I thought it was waaaay New Agey spaced out at the time, but I was desperate and tried it and darned if it didn't work. She told me, when I interacted with Dorian to approach him with the attitude that he was already behaving like the bird I wanted him to be. By changing my emotional state when I approached him, my body language, even my tone of voice, changed and calmed, and he in turn responded more calmly to me. Next, remember that birds are flock animals and you are their flock. What they want most is to be with you, getting your attention. I dont know what size home you have or what room Murphys cage is in, but you must ignore the shrieking with 100% consistency, and so must every other member of his flock. If you can't always leave the room when he begins, you have to keep your back turned to him and make no response to the sound, not even body language, like tensing up your shoulders. They are very adept at reading us. If you were to turn to him and say "no Murphy" after he's been at it for ten minutes, what you have just taught him is that he has to scream for 10 minutes to get your attention. Not the direction you want to go! When he gets quiet, respond immediately with attention, Happy Voice, a treat (if you can get it to him fast enough before he begins again). If you are having a positive interaction with him and he starts, just give him a quiet "No, Murphy", or whatever phrase you want, and turn your back on him. WARNING, the behaviour may get worse before it gets better. First he'll probably try getting louder, or screaming longer, to see if that gets your attention. WHEN that doesn't work, he'll begin to notice that he only gets your attention, a treat, or let out of the cage, when he's quiet. Some members with similar problems have tried using a 'time-out' cage in another, quiet, room. I can't offer you much advice on that front because Dorian was totally cage-bound at the time I had this problem, but maybe someone else can expand on that. I know you love Murphy and I promise you that with a little work, love, and consistency, you will be able to extinguish this behaviour. Don't give up, and when you need to, you can always come here to vent and look for advice. You and Murphy can do this. You are, after all, Super DAD!!!!!!!

Well, I'm a day late and a dollar short, but hope you had a happy day Dayo.

OK, going totally off-topic, but as a professional organiser, here's my tip for keeping all those cables straight. When you open the box of a new toy, take each peripheral and label it immediately. I use a label maker, but a piece of tape you can write on that will stay stuck works as well. Then keep all cords and cables in one box. This seriously cuts down on frustration when you need to put your hands on a particular item quickly:)

She is certainly one active and happy little girl. Is the toy she is playing with made of coloured rawhide? It looks like something Dorian would like, although I'd have to make a smaller version first, he'd be scared of a toy that big! Very enjoyable video:)

Keep in mind that I once described my sweet boy Dorian as 'more Dense-a than Mensa'. Given that fact that I buy him tons of toys and make even more, clean his cage more than I do my house, feed him a better diet than I eat, carry him around the house letting him make swiss-cheese of my hand and arm in the process, build my schedule around him so that he doesn't get lonely, and do probably a hundred other things to make his life as good as possible, I think the most intelligent thing he has ever said is - "I Love You"

I don't go into pet stores that have live animals because it's too hard on the heart. Birds, cats, dogs, bunnies, hamsters, all of them call to me. Even fish, if I walk into an aquarium store, that little voice starts in. Parrotdise Perch here in Ontario is safe for me to go into because they don't allow live animals in the store. Beyond that, on-line shopping is really my best friend.

I'll relate the circumstances around the bite I received. Dorian and I have a sweet bedtime routine. I tell him it's time for 'nite-nites', and he climbs to a perch near his door and puts his head down for scratches. Like a little kid asking for 'one more story', he seems to know I can't resist that little grey head:). I scratch for a few seconds, then he pulls away, shakes his tail, preens for a few secs, then puts his head back down for the next round. One night I was soooo tired and dead on my feet, and while he preened I rested my head against the bar across the top of his doorway and closed my eyes. One minute he was preening away, and the next he lunged out and bit me on the lip. All I can think of as a reason is maybe he didn't like my head so close to him (since, knowing how skittish he is, I always keep him away from my face). Needless to say, no more closing my eyes around him. The bite was so deep it actually changed my lip line a little.

Brittany, in solidarity, here's a picture of a bite Dorian gave me a few months ago. I didn't share it at the time, but wanted to let you know you're not alone:unsure: Post edited by: Acappella, at: 2010/04/08 06:45<br><br>Post edited by: Acappella, at: 2010/04/08 06:49

Even when Dorian is stuck on a 'bad' sound, it's still interupted by other noises, so I make sure I keep my back turned and don't respond to the sound I want to get rid of, and then when he makes a different noise, right away I turn around with a big smile and a "good boy", or if there's no time to do that, just echo the nice sound back to him. I'm also lucky that I can do something guarateed to stop all noise. Dorian never makes a sound if the tv is on, so if it's really bad I can turn on the tv for a bit. Is there anything that consistently quiets Ash, other than eating or darkness that wouldn't been seen as either a reward or a punishment, just a neutral disraction? Oh, and in the short term for the sake of your nerves and your hearing, those little foam earplugs work wonders. You can still hear, but they take the edge off harsh sounds. Good luck. He will get tired of this new noise. 'Course, who knows what will replace it:blink: ?

RudysMom, sorry I can't add anything to the advice of other more experienced forum members when it comes to adding another bird to your flock. I think anyone that has more than one bird, at least more than one that's as large as a grey, is very brave, as the thought of another bird like Dorian, with the attendant cage, toys, and demands, causes me to break into a cold sweat:blink: As for the hijacking of your thread by the silliest element of our community, all I can say is Dave can't help himself. If it's true that you have to be a little bit crazy to share your life with a parrot, and if it's also true that Dave has so many birds, for so many years, that he is considered an expert on the subject, than it must follow that he is . . . well, you can fill in the descriptive of your choice{Feel-good-0002006B}

I predict a Darwin Award might be in their future!

It seems to me that your stongest legal argument is not that the picture is private, but that it is being used to sell a product, so they are potentially making money off your image. Of course, I don't know the law, and things get dicey when it comes to internet stuff, but that issue feeels like a big one to me.

Jay, I can't remember if your vet had explored the possibility of food allergys with Spock. With your description of how he's scratching against the cage it made me think of dogs and cats we have at the store who develop skin and nutrition problems because they're intolerant of commonly used ingredients like gluton. Even animals (and people) who don't have full-blown allergies can be negatively effected by some ingredients. Just a thought. Feel better little bird.

I'm a Macaw as well:)