Behavior Questions

[braveheartdogs]

Hi there,

 

Ivan, my TAG is a rehome that I adopted last September. So, he has been here exactly a year. He was 4 years old when I adopted him, so his now 5. He eats a good diet with lots of variety. He comes out daily and is in a room with 4 other parrots (not greys) and is offered enrichment and mental stimulation. Over the past year our relationship has really grown, I have become comfortable and relaxed with him, maybe too much so:(

 

Over the past month or so he has bitten me three times. The first time he was on my lap getting scratches in the morning. After a little while, I asked him to step up onto my arm and he bit me. It hurt but I didn't not react very much. After he let go, I stepped him off. It seemed clear to me that he was frustrated with having been stepped up. I made it a point to be even more thoughtful than I am about his body language. I went back to reinforcing every step up with a food reinforcer.

 

The second incident happened a couple of weeks ago. Ivan was out on his playstand for quite a while. I was working on my website and was quite stressed out. I went to step him up and he did and then like last time, he bit me. This time was worse, more bites, more painful. I kind of waited and then, I went to his cage and tried to sort of get him in there which he did, but it wasn't smooth or pretty. When I sat down to look at all the variables and what could have contributed to the bite I realized that I was very stressed and that it was about 1 1/2 hours past his bedtime. I would be lying if I said I didn't feel a little panic that now we had two bites and that it is becoming a habit.

 

Since that second bite much of my confidence is gone:( I do not trust Ivan and he doesn't trust me. I am unsteady and untrustworthy:( Someone suggest wearing a sweatshirt when I hold him, which I started doing and gave me a little more confidence, until today, when he bit me through the sweatshirt. I think I may have pressured him a little bit thinking that moving away made him feel less secure.

 

Just a little more background. He always steps up and then bites. I am a professional dog trainer and behavior consultant and am very into behavior modification and looking at things from that standpoint, in other words, what happened just before, what happened just after, what could have reinforced it, etc. I have tried to peel this apart to make sure that I do not create situations in which Ivan feels the need to bite.

 

I am very respectful, careful and thoughtful about his body language. I always ask "you wanna step up?" I don't force him. He is not stick trained, he is fearful of sticks, I have been working on it, but he is afraid. I am trying to come up with a perch that he will be comfortable with that he can step onto, like a rope perch.

 

I love Ivan very much. I do not resent him for the bites. That said, I am very sad about where things stand. I have a phone/online consult set up for this coming week with Lara Joseph in which I will get her help to develop a training/behavior mod plan. I am excited about that. I am also currently enrolled in Susan Friedman's LLA course which I am sure will give me even more insight.

 

I hope that some of you may have some insight. Thank you.

Edited September 16, 2012 by braveheartdogs

[Sarasota]

Congrats on your rehome! I have an older, wild caught TAG that I adore.

 

It's not always easy to see the antecedents before the bite. It sounds like Ivan has been somehow reinforced for the biting in the past and is now continuing the behavior because it, in itself, is reinforcing.

 

You may want to go hands off for now. I have trained Burt to enter and exit his cage on cue - that way 1. I don't get bit, and 2. I can avoid the stick (he is also afraid of sticks). Also, try alternating the reinforcements, and don't feel shy to pull out the big guns (Burt is happy to do a behavior for a sunflower seed...but goes ape for an almond so I hold them back for larger behaviors).

 

I think being stressed and keeping him up late probably added to the bite. I find that I miss the signals when I'm moving too fast (i.e. rushing to get ready for work).

 

If you don't already, keep a journal of the bites and what is going on in the environment (not that you want to get bit again, but even if it's just keeping track of the signals). By writing it down, you may see patterns you missed before. With one of my other birds I noticed that when he was on the arm, and I moved the alternate arm too quickly, he would start to pin his eyes and raise his nape feathers.

 

I hope some of this is helpful. I also took Susan's LLA course and the course at Natural Encounters. I've been on the waiting list for the parrot course for about 2 years. Hopefully, this will be my year.

 

Keep us posted on Ivan's progress!

[braveheartdogs]

Thank you so much for your thoughts. I adopted him from a rescue who took him from someone who was afraid of him because of him being aggressive in his cage. I am confident that he has a huge reinforcement history of biting. I have a perch on his door so I do not put my hand inside. I always ask him if he would like to come out and then he comes out onto the door perch which is where I step him up from. No bites have happened from there, although warnings have. I love the idea of teaching him to enter and exit his cage on cue. I have been working on target stick training him. He is doing well, but I went to working on it with him in his cage and sometimes he aggressively bites the target stick which I reinforce anyway (kind of like what Steve Martin did with the lion who would attack the target). To be honest, I hate to go hands off because there is so much more non biting than there is biting, but on the other hand, I do not want him to practice the biting. The bites have been off of my lap and then two off of the playstand. Yesterday, I started to ask him to come down to the lowest perch on the playstand before I would step him up to change the picture for him and get him thinking and training and responding before asking for hte step up.

 

I started a journal for other things about him but I can't find it!!! I am going to do that today and start a new one!

 

 

Congrats on your rehome! I have an older, wild caught TAG that I adore.

 

It's not always easy to see the antecedents before the bite. It sounds like Ivan has been somehow reinforced for the biting in the past and is now continuing the behavior because it, in itself, is reinforcing.

 

You may want to go hands off for now. I have trained Burt to enter and exit his cage on cue - that way 1. I don't get bit, and 2. I can avoid the stick (he is also afraid of sticks). Also, try alternating the reinforcements, and don't feel shy to pull out the big guns (Burt is happy to do a behavior for a sunflower seed...but goes ape for an almond so I hold them back for larger behaviors).

 

I think being stressed and keeping him up late probably added to the bite. I find that I miss the signals when I'm moving too fast (i.e. rushing to get ready for work).

 

If you don't already, keep a journal of the bites and what is going on in the environment (not that you want to get bit again, but even if it's just keeping track of the signals). By writing it down, you may see patterns you missed before. With one of my other birds I noticed that when he was on the arm, and I moved the alternate arm too quickly, he would start to pin his eyes and raise his nape feathers.

 

I hope some of this is helpful. I also took Susan's LLA course and the course at Natural Encounters. I've been on the waiting list for the parrot course for about 2 years. Hopefully, this will be my year.

 

Keep us posted on Ivan's progress!

[kins2321@yahoo.com]

It sounds as Ivan only understands biting. It made him the king in the past. I know most won't like it, but I suggest " timeout", for biting. Five minutes, in a timeout cage. ( not their home!) You understand reconditioning. Its the same with a bird. The behavior is NOT appreciated and is wrong. Let Ivan know that.He wants to please and trust you, but he knows what works for him. Nancy

[braveheartdogs]

Thank you for the suggestion Nancy. I am trying not to reinforce biting, but I am not willing to try to punish it out. I prefer to train an alternate behavior, so that is my plan. Even if I wanted to use negative punishment (time outs), it would be very difficult to effectively time that consequence for it to be meaningful to him. At this point, I can't afford anything that could be damaging to our relationship. I don't believe that Ivan only understands biting as he has bitten only 3 times in one year. In that time there has been 100s and 100s of successful steps ups, step downs and interactions with no biting, so he does know other things.

 

 

It sounds as Ivan only understands biting. It made him the king in the past. I know most won't like it, but I suggest " timeout", for biting. Five minutes, in a timeout cage. ( not their home!) You understand reconditioning. Its the same with a bird. The behavior is NOT appreciated and is wrong. Let Ivan know that.He wants to please and trust you, but he knows what works for him. Nancy

[Talon]

Braveheartdogs,

 

I agree completely with you!

[braveheartdogs]

Thank you Talon:)

 

Braveheartdogs,

 

I agree completely with you!

[Luvparrots]

Kudos to you Braveheartdogs. I have rehomed an amazon, Louie, who is always nibbling on me. I never punish him for a behavior he learned elsewhere. We are working together to find a way to learn from each other. I love Louie too pieces and he loves me. He goes in and out of his cage as I ask and follows me all through my home. His nibbles are a way to touch me I believe and although I can't touch him, he listens to me and always has his laughing eyes on me. We have been together for 2 years and I look forward to the day he finds another way to express his need for touching.

[braveheartdogs]

Thanks! That is my goal too, working together to find a way that we can both be happy. Like I said, our relationship is strained so the last thing I want to do is start punishing him. Each time Ivan bit, he stepped up first and then bit me. Twice I was sitting down. The bites really seemed to be that he was frustrated. I feel that if he had been on a perch he would have bitten the perch.

 

 

Kudos to you Braveheartdogs. I have rehomed an amazon, Louie, who is always nibbling on me. I never punish him for a behavior he learned elsewhere. We are working together to find a way to learn from each other. I love Louie too pieces and he loves me. He goes in and out of his cage as I ask and follows me all through my home. His nibbles are a way to touch me I believe and although I can't touch him, he listens to me and always has his laughing eyes on me. We have been together for 2 years and I look forward to the day he finds another way to express his need for touching.

[Sarasota]

The target training is a great step. It's the first step I took in training Burt and building a relationship.

 

One of the big things I got from the Natural Encounters workshop: When you approach an animal with a "scary thing" (i.e. a target stick, a dremel), always give the bird the power over the object. If they show distress, move the object back back just a tiny bit. Giving the animal power over its environment is huge. Also, make sure the reinforcements are present. I wish I had video of this...but an amazon was being trained to have its toes done with a dremel. After the first step described above, the dremel remained motionless. The bird was in the cage. In order to gain a sunflower seed, the bird had to approach, get the seed, and then hightail it out of there if it desired. Very powerful training. Sounds like you've got it down with the target stick!

 

Here is the method I used with a Kea (training a Kea is like training a raven on speed). I first trained her to target a metal clip. Once she was targeting, I moved the clip onto the cage. In very small steps, I moved the clip to inside the cage. If she stopped working, I moved the clip a step back. In order to get her inside the cage, I dropped a few pinenuts into a food bowl. She had an aversive experience with going inside just before we started working, so the training was slow going, but we got there.

 

With Burt, I was already using a sunflower seed lure to get him to go in his cage, so the phyisical act wasn't difficult for him. I used the same method of targeting a clip. It went so fast I had him on a verbal cue in under 5 minutes. Here's a link to a video. It's sloppy training (I was too eager to get it on tape) as I repeat the cue, but if gives you an idea of what it looks like (he does a couple other behaviors on hand cue before the cage behavior):

[Sarasota]

I never punish him for a behavior he learned elsewhere...We have been together for 2 years and I look forward to the day he finds another way to express his need for touching.

 

Wow....that sums it up perfectly. That is the relationship I have with my rehome. He's an older bird, lived in a terrible hoarding situation for years and is wild caught. That's a lot for the little guy to process. I'll never punish him for the behavior he's had to learn to adapt over the last 30 years.

[braveheartdogs]

Nice video! It inspired me to do more training with Ivan. I have already thought about teaching him to turn.

 

Thanks. Yes, I am very familiar with desensitization and counter conditioning and also shaping. I am also 100% committed to allowing the animal to have choice and be able to choose. I have not been to the Natural Encounters training but I have seen Steve Martin lecture a few times and he shared some very cool video.

 

The target stick training is going well. He seems to enjoy that training but I feel like he was just not getting comfortable with the perch stick, which is I why I made one that I think (hope) he will be more comfortable with.

 

 

The target training is a great step. It's the first step I took in training Burt and building a relationship.

 

One of the big things I got from the Natural Encounters workshop: When you approach an animal with a "scary thing" (i.e. a target stick, a dremel), always give the bird the power over the object. If they show distress, move the object back back just a tiny bit. Giving the animal power over its environment is huge. Also, make sure the reinforcements are present. I wish I had video of this...but an amazon was being trained to have its toes done with a dremel. After the first step described above, the dremel remained motionless. The bird was in the cage. In order to gain a sunflower seed, the bird had to approach, get the seed, and then hightail it out of there if it desired. Very powerful training. Sounds like you've got it down with the target stick!

 

Here is the method I used with a Kea (training a Kea is like training a raven on speed). I first trained her to target a metal clip. Once she was targeting, I moved the clip onto the cage. In very small steps, I moved the clip to inside the cage. If she stopped working, I moved the clip a step back. In order to get her inside the cage, I dropped a few pinenuts into a food bowl. She had an aversive experience with going inside just before we started working, so the training was slow going, but we got there.

 

With Burt, I was already using a sunflower seed lure to get him to go in his cage, so the phyisical act wasn't difficult for him. I used the same method of targeting a clip. It went so fast I had him on a verbal cue in under 5 minutes. Here's a link to a video. It's sloppy training (I was too eager to get it on tape) as I repeat the cue, but if gives you an idea of what it looks like (he does a couple other behaviors on hand cue before the cage behavior):

[Sarasota]

Thanks. Yes, I am very familiar with desensitization and counter conditioning and also shaping. I am also 100% committed to allowing the animal to have choice and be able to choose. I have not been to the Natural Encounters training but I have seen Steve Martin lecture a few times and he shared some very cool video.

 

I keep forgetting you are a dog trainer!!!

[kins2321@yahoo.com]

Kudos to what works for everyone. I knew, noone would like what we did for our birds, but when we had 24 hr coverage, it worked for us, Five minutes in timeout, when they bit, discussed it after, it took us less than six months for birds to understand biting, is NOT allowed! We were lucky, as a family, to have 24/7 coverage, to educate, and follow with a routine. Not everyone has the family members to commit, and be on the same page. It was such a long time ago!

Today, when I get home from work, no longer have kids to help me, I have three feet, lifted up, ready for me to pick them up. Sophie came first, Kiki flew into the same room, gave her attention. Sunny came last. I'm on my own past three weeks. They are working it out, and doing a great job. Nancy

[braveheartdogs]

Yikes! Six months is a long time for biting to be practiced! I don't want him to get good at that behavior! I am working hard to read Ivan's body language, avoiding doing anything that will trigger bites, reinforcing the behavior of stepping up with head up (he can't bite if is head is up). Thanks again for the feedback!

 

Kudos to what works for everyone. I knew, noone would like what we did for our birds, but when we had 24 hr coverage, it worked for us, Five minutes in timeout, when they bit, discussed it after, it took us less than six months for birds to understand biting, is NOT allowed! We were lucky, as a family, to have 24/7 coverage, to educate, and follow with a routine. Not everyone has the family members to commit, and be on the same page. It was such a long time ago!

Today, when I get home from work, no longer have kids to help me, I have three feet, lifted up, ready for me to pick them up. Sophie came first, Kiki flew into the same room, gave her attention. Sunny came last. I'm on my own past three weeks. They are working it out, and doing a great job. Nancy

[kins2321@yahoo.com]

LOL! Six months, for behavior modification, is quick! Many owners wait YEARS! Many disagree with me, but I have found African Greys, tend to follow the same time as children. IE: at the age of two... they say NO alot. At the age of four, they are interested in learning.

Many follow the " flock" idea. Wait for your bird. I see many waiting for a long time! Nancy

[braveheartdogs]

I didn't say six months was long for behavior modification, I said six months is a long time for a bird to be actively practicing biting. I do behavior modification and training for a living and really building behavior does not take long at all, that is why building alternate behaviors to the ones we don't like is the way I do it. I could spend months or years trying to make a behavior go away, when simply training something incompatible that can be immediately reinforced and supported can happen pretty quickly and it strengthens the relationship while you do it. Whatever an animal does is what they get good at, so I don't want them to practice behavior that I don't like. Frankly, I am okay waiting months or even years if it means that my animals don't feel so defensive that they need to bite me. It's just a difference of opinion, my method of choice is to avoid doing things that trigger bites or unwanted behavior while I train other incompatible behaviors. By the way, I think it is great that what you have done worked for you and your family, that is awesome. I'm just offering another way of doing things that is working for me! Great discussion!

 

LOL! Six months, for behavior modification, is quick! Many owners wait YEARS! Many disagree with me, but I have found African Greys, tend to follow the same time as children. IE: at the age of two... they say NO alot. At the age of four, they are interested in learning.

Many follow the " flock" idea. Wait for your bird. I see many waiting for a long time! Nancy

Edited September 19, 2012 by braveheartdogs

[Sarasota]

Frankly, I am okay waiting months or even years if it means that my animals don't feel so defensive that they need to bite me.

 

Amen to that. My TAG has 30+ of behavioral baggage. I'm perfectly fine working on his timeline.

 

My CAG has an annoying "gnawing" behavior. It's not true biting (in fact, he does the same behavior with my TAG when he tries to mate with him), but it's not acceptable. I've tried various forms of differential reinforcement with no luck. Finally, I realized that the antecedent was simply, "Get on hand, chew on finger." So, now I am going to get him off the hand and on to perch and then teach the DRI. Sondhi is an awesome bird and picks up new behavior in a snap, so I hope this training plan works. Right now his big behavior is trying to run up my arm and mate with my head. Needless to say, you can see how annoying this can be!

[kins2321@yahoo.com]

braveheartdogs I appreciate your insight. I think you have valuable info to offer this site.I'm excited you are here!I think you have experience that can help us, as we have experience that can help you. I look forward to many future interactions. Nancy

[braveheartdogs]

Amen to that. My TAG has 30+ of behavioral baggage. I'm perfectly fine working on his timeline.

 

My CAG has an annoying "gnawing" behavior. It's not true biting (in fact, he does the same behavior with my TAG when he tries to mate with him), but it's not acceptable. I've tried various forms of differential reinforcement with no luck. Finally, I realized that the antecedent was simply, "Get on hand, chew on finger." So, now I am going to get him off the hand and on to perch and then teach the DRI. Sondhi is an awesome bird and picks up new behavior in a snap, so I hope this training plan works. Right now his big behavior is trying to run up my arm and mate with my head. Needless to say, you can see how annoying this can be!

 

I am guessing that mating with your head wasn't the incompatible behavior you were hoping for! LOL! Does he only bite fingers?

 

braveheartdogs I appreciate your insight. I think you have valuable info to offer this site.I'm excited you are here!I think you have experience that can help us, as we have experience that can help you. I look forward to many future interactions. Nancy

 

Thanks! Me too!