wildmike556

Nychsa - I can just see your little conure doing that. Rascal just pretends nothing ever happened, so I have to make sure she doesn't go back and step in it.... silly bird. Anyway, just to be inconsistent, Rascal followed my requests perfectly all yesterday evening. Oh well. She may be confusing, but I sure love that little bugger. Thanks for the input, everyone! It looks like I have some things to try if any problems arise.

Well they certainly are all different. My Rascal can vary on either side of that. Sometimes she won't drop her first one for over an hour, or sometimes the little ones in the evening could be 10-15 minutes apart. Maybe I just have to get some better poop cleaner and get a stockpile of paper towels for cleanup.

One other thing is I really don't think our previous success is just luck. Usually if she's sitting with me wherever we happen to be (on the couch, on my shoulder, whatever) I pick her up periodically and move her over the paper towel, ask her to go, she does, and then I put her back. Given that she goes within 10 seconds of my request 90% of the time just can't be pure chance.

Thanks for the suggestions. I think I will try the playstand method for now and see if it helps. I might try a treat here and there as well, but I never used treats in the first place. I trained her to the point she is now by praising her every time she went anywhere, and gradually changed to only praising her when she went over the paper towel. I guess I can't expect her to hold it and wait for me to ask, but that's why I try to get her to go when I have the paper towel, so that she just won't have to go at times when I'm not ready for her. Dave - your last comment raises a question for me about how people who do let their birds out all day deal with the mess. I've tried letting her roam the house herself (with me keeping an eye on her to make sure she didn't find trouble) and she wound up going much more frequently than when she's sitting with me. Within a couple of hours I had almost 20 small spots to clean up on the couch, tables, and carpet, some of which I didn't even see on the carpet before I stepped in them. Do people really go around cleaning that much every day?

I've had to leave my CAG overnight a few times when going to visit some friends and she's been just fine. I make sure she has fresh food and water, some cardboard to chew on, and I set a timer on the TV to come on a few times for an hour or so. I leave the shades open so there's light during the day but leave the lights off so it gets dark at night. If you happen to have timers for your lights you could do that too. I've done this on a number of occasions, being gone for about a day and a half, with no evidence it upset her. She's happy to see me when I get back, and doesn't really react any differently than if I'd just been gone for work.

She normally loves to come out, but it's not just the cage. She'll go right after I stop asking if I put her on my shoulder or the couch, too. It's like she's trying to say "You're not the boss of me - I'll go when I want!" Well sorry bird, but I need to be the boss in this case or I'll be cleaning up 10 spots a day like before I got ya trained.

My 10 year old CAG Rascal seems to be trying to prove a point with me lately. I've pretty much trained her to poop on command when I have a paper towel handy, and while that doesn't stop her from going on her own if I forget to ask periodically, she is normally very good about following my command. More and more often when I ask her to go she just sits there and ignores me, even when I'm absolutely sure she has to go. For example this morning I took her out and sat there for 20 minutes repeatedly asking her like an idiot to "Go poop, Rascal!" in the nicest voice I could but she just wouldn't do it. As soon as I gave up and carried her across the room she dropped all that nastiness right on my carpet. Quite often if I give up asking her to go I'll just put her back in her cage only to hear a plop on the cage bottom not a minute later. There have been no changes around the house and we normally get along extremely well, except for when it comes to the whole poop thing. I'm at my wits end, and really don't want to get angry with her. What can I do?:huh:

My 10 year old grey Rascal has become more and more cuddly over the past couple of months. She almost always loves head & neck scratches, but sometimes snuggle up to my neck when she's on my shoulder. After I've given her some exercise by having her hold on to my finger and having her flap around the room she will often flip upside down on my finger so I can cradle her on her back, and she loves to have me scratch her neck. Sometimes she leans her head way back and closes her eyes, which makes me happy that she trusts me so much. I have however heard the risks of getting a bird sexually confused with cuddling, and I'm always worried that I'm going to cuddle her too much. There have been a couple occasions where she has definitely been excited and she drops her wings and makes funny noises - I always either distract her or put her back in the cage for a while. However she usually only does this when I allow her to nibble on my ear a little bit... no idea why she likes that. Normally when I cuddle her (and she doesn't object) she just acts very relaxed and content. Are there any signs other than what I described above that I should watch out for?

I have been putting a sheet over her cage for the past couple of nights and haven't seen any sign of Rascal having a problem with it. Of course now I can't see her and find out if she's sleeping or staring off into the darkness the whole time, but what are you doing to do... She at least seems happy to see me when I take the cover off in the morning. I'll see if this helps long term. Thanks for the advice everyone!

I have not been covering her, but as I said in my previous post (kind of buried in there) I'm considering trying it.

I haven't added anything new to the room,nor has there been any real change to routine/people/toys, etc. The things she seems to be reacting to (The computer and the lamp) are things that she's seen and been near ever since I got her a little over 6 months ago. I suppose it's possible that she's been afraid of these things for some time and I'm just now getting to know her well enough to pick up when she's afraid just by looking at her. Occasionally when I get up during the night I will intentionally leave the lights off and get out of bed very quietly to see if I can catch her sleeping, and she's always awake. On the other hand, she sometimes likes to tuck her head into her back feathers and have a nap when she's sitting on my shoulder with the TV and all the lights on and she sleeps right through it. If this continues I might try putting her in her travel cage to sleep and put a cover over it so she can't see anything. Right now I leave her in her large cage in the dining room where there's a nightlight so it's not totally dark. There should be no moving shadows though because I live alone and have no other pets, nor do car headlights shine on my apartment where it's located. If I do put her in the smaller cage, should I put it in my bedroom where she can be closer to me, or would she be better off on the other side of the apartment where she won't hear me at all?

Recently I've noticed that my 10 year old grey Rascal seems to be nervous about certain everyday objects, especially at night. Most of the time if I get up during the night I notice that she is just staring into the dark and not sleeping - even if I don't turn on the lights and hardly make any noise. The other night I got up and saw her sitting with her head down and wide eyed. I took her out and she was tense, and when I put my ear to her I could hear her heart was beating quite fast. So I talked to her and walked her around the room, and when we passed a piece of computer equipment with blinking lights she freaked out - flapping around in a fright. I turned on some lights in that room and tried to show her that there was nothing to be scared of, but whenever I took her near there she would still lean away from it and act very nervous. This morning I heard a noise that was probably her bumping into a toy and being startled. I got up to make sure she didn't fall down, and again she was sitting wide eyed, but not looking at any of the toys. I took her out again and this time found she was scared of the lamp I have attached to her cage - something that's been there for months with no problems. Rascal is usually a very calm bird, and generally shows a lot of trust and love to me. However, there are times when she shows totally irrational fear for household objects - and sometimes gets even more scared if I pick them up to try to show her they're harmless. She's totally scared of the lint filter from my clothes dryer, and she fluffs up and shows a defensive posture upon even seeing it from across the room. These are things she's never had an accident with, and I have not used them to tease her in any way. Has anyone had experience with their bird being afraid of odd things, and is there anything I can do about it? I can keep some things away from her, but that's obviously not practical for everything. Plus, I don't want to reinforce any phobic behavior. Thanks!

I was sure surprised when she did that, because I'd never seen her react to anything like that before. She was 10 years old when I got her this January, so maybe her previous owner used soda bottles as a toy. All I did was set it down on the counter a few feet from her. I have to be careful though. She gets so wound up going after that bottle that if my hand is nearby when she lunges for the bottle she's gotten me a few times. It's amazing just how far into your finger those little beaks can go.

Glad to know she's not scared of it. And I have definitely witnessed the flight behavior. One time I had her on the counter and brought my dryer lint filter past her to clean it. She flew away from it in a mad panic at the mere sight of it! I've tried a few times to show it to her again and reassure her that it's not a threat, but for some reason she is deathly afraid of the sight of that piece of plastic. Who knows what these goofy animals think. :blink:

This sounds a bit like what my CAG Rascal does with soda bottles. I set her down on the counter one day to pour a drink, and when I set the empty bottle down near her she went absolutely nuts on it. She doesn't scream at it, but she puffs up all her feathers, as shown in this picture. http://picasaweb.google.com/mjrizzo/Rascal/photo?authkey=qCnRi7d4hrw#5173711896921942946 She repeatedly will act this way around the soda bottles, and since I can't tell if it's excited play or if she's afraid of it and trying to fight it off, I just avoid putting bottles near her now.