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.

My CAG Rascal went nuts at about the same time, and boy was she scared! Some of my coworkers said they felt it themselves - I didn't because I woke up to her thrashing and was too busy getting over to the cage to calm her down. Fortunately she stopped thrashing as soon as I turned on the lights and I was able to take her out. She didn't object to me handling her, but that poor bird was scared out of her mind. It took me almost an hour of petting her and talking softly to get that terrified look out of her eyes. Why do so many birds freak out over earthquakes? I can't imagine them being particularly dangerous where these birds natively live.

My grey Rascal does the same thing quite often, and of course hardly gets wet at all. Then I try to give her something of suitable size and she won't play in it at all. And then of course she abhors the mister bottle, no matter how excited and upbeat I try to make shower time. People whose birds like water make me jealous... bathtime is not something either of us look forward to. Oh well, better to bear it a couple times a week than have a dirty bird.

I can certainly see how the end of the "honeymoon" could change things. She hasn't had any problems with plucking, at least not of her large feathers. She does wind up losing quite a few down feathers when she preens, but I imagine that's normal. She's only dropped two large feathers from her wings and one tail feather since I've had her. I just hope she doesn't lose too much interest in me. She doesn't like to be constantly petted, but often she's content just to sit on my leg or shoulder. Thanks for your insights!

I have been letting her out a bit longer during the evenings now that she's not quite as bent on destroying my furniture (although she still tries to nip it sometimes when she thinks I'm not looking... silly bird). It'd be nice if she's playing with them while I'm gone, but the toys for chewing never show any signs of being worked on. At first when I'd hang a peice of cardboard in the morning it'd be a pile of little pieces on the bottom of the cage by the time I got home. Now I've had the same peices in there for 2 weeks and hardly a nibble. I can try reducing the number and see if that makes a difference. I did add several at once, so maybe it was a bit much.

I got my grey Rascal, who is 10 years old, a little over 2 months ago, and her behavior seems to have been changing continuously ever since. She seems to trust me pretty well now and will sit with me, play with me, and even cuddle from time to time. However, she seems to be taking less interest in playing on her own than she has previously. I added several hanging toys for her to chew on or swing around, but she seems to be completely ignoring them. I've had the toys in a few different arrangements, and they've been in there for about a month now, so it's not just that they're new. She also used to climb all over the cage, hang upside down, chew cardboard that I hung from the bars, but now she pretty much just sits there in the same spot unless she's eating. She doesn't seem unhappy at all, and seems to have plenty of energy when I have her out and about. I just want to make sure she's not sitting in there bored, especially when I'm gone at work all day, because I have a feeling that if she is it will cause problems eventually. Any ideas for things I should try, or should I not worry about it as long as things are available for her?

I've heard a number of people mention birds no pooping unless told once they're trained, but I'm sure hoping for some kind of happy medium. Even just this evening Rascal was sitting on my knee for a head scratch, so her head was down and her tail was in the air. Next thing I knew there was a sloppy mess dripping down my leg Icky.... One thing though - everyone I've seen mention this 'over-training' thing has only ever heard of it, never witnessed it first hand. Not to doubt anyone's sources, but I was curious if anyone had witnessed this first hand. Thanks for the articles, Tari!

Good afternoon all, I've been reading over some of the previous threads on potty training a Grey, and some of the techniques seem to have been partially sucessful with my grey Rascal. I have found some times when she is likely to poop, such as first coming out of the cage, after a good preening session, and what not. I hold her over a piece of paper towel and tell her to "go poop" and she usually does. However, after about a month and a half of this, she has not ever shown me that she will hold it in between times I ask her, even if I ask every 20 minutes or so. She just seems to take smaller, more frequent poops. Rascal is 10 years old and I just got her that month and a half ago. The breeder said that he did not believe the previous owners had potty trained her at all. I've tried the method of interrupting her when she shows signs, but as soon as she squats down, it's too late. When she wants to poop, she's going to poop, even if I'm picking her up and moving her to the paper. There's literally only about one second between the first sign and the splat. She has totally no regard for where she is, either. She can be sitting on my leg or on the back of my chair. Sure is nasty when she poops between me and the chair and I squish it when I lean back to try to move her. Does anyone have tips for a re-homed and/or older bird?

I was just in this situation myself, as I bought a 10 year old CAG about a month ago. We are still getting to know eachother better, but my bird Rascal talks to me quite a bit now and is learning new words and sounds from me. Based on how far I've been able to come with a 10 year old bird in such a short time I imagine you could do as well or better. Good luck!<br><br>Post edited by: wildmike556, at: 2008/02/15 21:14

Sort of sounds like this could just be play behavior. What had really made me wonder though was the way she fluffed out her feathers every time she did it. Maybe it's because it's a different texture than anything else around her, although she doesn't get excited by the textured fabric on my couch. I guess I'll just try limiting how long she can play with the paper towel for now and sww what happens. Thanks for the advice, everyone!

Moving the toys inside the cage has helped there, but now when she's outside the cage she tries to find things to snuggle with. I've been reading about sexual behavior of companion birds and I'm having a hard time telling if any of her behaviors are some sort of sexual display or if she's just having fun and playing around. Hopefully with time I'll be able to identify her behaviors better.