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Male Red Bellied Behavior

Laurul Feather Cat

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Npoe. She really went off the deep end there in the mid 90s after he business failed and she lost her building. I was one of the first people to use her web site when she initially went digital. We had quite a nice relationship over the internet. Then she began getting kind of defensive and cross, not producing her magazine when she promised the issues and finally I called her out about not being business like. I got banned from her site and was labeled a demon.
 

AMidnightSoul

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Do you know anything about his history before you got him besides the fact that you were told he was a biter? What was his human family like...kids, adults, etc? How did they interact with him? Just curious. I was attempting to play basketball with two of my r-b boys today and no lunging or running at me. I can easily pet them. I do have towels and dowels available just in case. They would throw the wiffle ball around a bit and one of them tried to move the hoop. Maybe he is just trying to show you he is boss or maybe that he doesn't want certain items around. It's not easy to get into their minds and figure out what is going on in there.
Unfortunately, I don't know much about Gizmo's previous home other than he was given up for being a biter and his wings were clipped heavily. From his behavior, I've made a couple of assumptions but I don't know how accurate they are. Since he used to be petrified for a long time after biting me, I figure he was not treated well after biting. New flight feathers grew in not long after I adopted him, but he only recently become a confident flyer/lander and it took him a few years after growing his flights in to be brave enough to fly as a regular means of transportation. In the beginning, his landings were more like a ball being thrown and rolling to a stop. It was tragic. He was slow to practice, but he finally got the hang of it and once he did, he calmed down a lot, so I assume he was continually clipped for the first 10 years of his life.

Until he was a confident flyer, I had to set his playstand next to his cage so he could hop on it because he wouldn't leave his cage area. He graduated to hopping onto the playstand and the couch. Once he became a confident flyer, he expanded a little more to include the kitchen table and kitchen bar. He still will not go far enough that he can't see his cage, but he does occasionally venture and land on new items now.

I suspect he was close with a man in his previous home. He likes all new people and will flirt like crazy with visitors, both male and female, but with men, he tries extra hard to get their attention and if a man gives him the slightest bit of attention, he'll usually regurgitate for them and is extra flirty. In comparison, he's only regurgitated for me twice, and both of those times were after something frightened him and he flew onto my lap for safety and I baby talked him.

I also suspect that he spent a lot of time in his cage with little to no interaction or toys, because of how phobic he was in the beginning, but it could've just been the trauma of moving again. He was scared of hands in the beginning. Once I got him home, he was scared of any new toys and he was scared of being away from his cage and of loud noises. He seemed phobic about anything new. That all eventually melted away but it took a good two years for him to be a confident bird. New toys usually took about a month long acclimation process for him to get used to and he didn't really start playing with toys until he'd been here for a few years. He would just test them a little with his beak. He also didn’t know how to forage and he sucks at giving himself a bath, only getting his belly by standing in a bath bowl, so I doubt he ever had the chance to bathe.

Now, not much seems to scare him. Every now and then a hawk will land in the backyard and he'll get scared and fly over to my lap, or leg if I am standing up, (the only time he is allowed on my person is when he is scared), but that doesn't happen very often.

I would love to be able to play with Gizmo like you’re describing with your RB’s and basketball, lol. It sounds like fun!
 
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AMidnightSoul

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My RedBellied, Oscar, is a wild and crazy guy. His former owner "petted" him by toweling him to remove him from his cage and then stroking him with an oven mitt! For two and a half years, he has ignored me or bitten me whenever I offer him food or pets. Suddenly, he has begun to come over and seek me out for interactions, usually talking to him, giving him treats he will not eat or singing to him. Just recently he has allowed me to scritch his neck/head gently for thirty/forty seconds before he whips his head around to bite/nip. Usually it is a nip, but now and then he does "latch on" and not let go like your Gizmo. Oscar wants one on one interaction, but I don't think he knows how to react to it. He assiduously has tried to talk my Senegal hen and every cockatiel hen into pairing off with him while being dominant and physically aggressive to the cockatiel cocks. He ignores the love birds and budgies, but they give him a wide area when they pass him or sit near him. His behavior is very like my Meyers Parrot, Hobbs, who was a bite to the bone jealous bird when I first got him, but over a three year period was able to change his behavior with a behavior mod program I got from Sally Blanchard when she still made sense about bird behavior.

Gizmo's reaction to things on his table, was very much like Hobbs' reaction to anything which took my attention away from HIM when he was out of his cage. He would literally attack the object (magazine, phone, TV remote, etc) forcing me to drop it and then punish me by latching onto my fingers and grinding his beak until he got down to the bone sheath. I have about eight nice white scars from areas where he did this feat. I had to carry a tea towel on my shoulder just in case he starting his grinding bite because the only way I could stop his grind was to drape a towel over him and gently squeeze his body until he realized he couldn't take a deep breath and would then stop his grinding and let go of my skin. It took six episodes of this stand-off to teach Hobbs to not bite me this way! He was stubborn. But toweling him, removing him from my presence and putting him in the time-out cage until he calmed down worked to eventually eliminate his jealous behavior and produce a loving bird who enjoyed scritches and could be trusted to sit on my shoulder and nap three years after behavior modification started. Gizmo is definitely defending his table territory, but in addition, he has taught you to treat it like a game and it is his way of interacting with you. My first suggestion is to stop interacting with him on the table and on the top of his cage and remove him to a "strange" room or area where he has no "territory" to defend. Bring toys into the situation, things like a ball you can gently roll toward him and allow him to "fight" with until he burns off his energy and becomes more easy to interact with. Then introduce other interactive toys, like stacking rings for him to remove from a tower, etc. Eventually your goal is to teach him to stack the rings on the tower, but it is easier to initially use his energy to remove the rings, so you start there. Gizmo has two problems: he is high energy and he is territorial. You have to defuse his behavior before you can teach him to interact socially. And I am sure he wants that social interaction with you, but has no idea how to go about interacting appropriately so the interaction lasts longer than the thirty seconds it takes for him to whip his head around and nail you while you try and scritch his head!

It is a long and bite-loaded process, fraught with two steps forward and three steps back episodes, but it can and does work and he can become a loving pet if only you can find a way to get past his problems. Good luck with Gizmo and I very much hope you can break through his current behavior and turn him into a loving pet. I am making show progress with Oscar but I know I can win him over; after all, I have until either he or I kicks the bucket!
I have tried in the past to take him into the office, a bedroom or bathroom to work with him, and in the beginning I could because he couldn’t fly, but he was always super nervous away from his cage. He used to get so scared of new rooms that he would breath heavily and leave his beak partially opened and his eyes would get huge. He was unable to concentrate on anything at that point and would just freeze. He’s no longer scared like that, but now that he’s not as nervous in new places, he can fly, so it’s challenging. The second we step around a corner where he can’t see his cage, he flies back to it. I’ve managed to get him into another room, but only for a few seconds before he flies back to his cage. I haven’t worked on it very hard or consistently though, so the lack of results is completely my fault, I will step it up and start doing it consistently so he gets used to working with me in a new space. Now is a good time, since he’s a newly confident bird and is no longer scared of everything new. I have some miniature, bird-sized bowling bowls and soccer balls we can work with.

I will definitely take the advice of stopping the table interaction. I think I might start removing him from the table altogether and move his breakfast back to his cage or play stand because it can be really hard to remember when he’s on the table. I dropped a bowl of food the other day because I forgot he was there and went to set the food on the table and there he was, out of nowhere, going for my hand. So I think it’s time to take my table back. He sat for many months at the table in the mornings with no issues as long as I didn’t sit anything too close to him (within a foot or so), but it’s clearly becoming an issue within the last few weeks because he didn’t used to charge from one side of the table to the other at offending objects.

And I definitely agree about him wanting social interaction. He lets me know in his Gimzo way that we’re a part of the same team, lol. Despite his biting, he really is a sweet, sensitive soul. I know that sounds weird, but I imagine other bird people can relate.

I actually have a few books from Sally Blanchard that the rescue gave me after adopting my first bird, Maggie the Brown Head (RIP). They’re pretty old books. The Companion Parrot Handbook and the Beak Book. I have read them but it’s been years. I should go back and re-read the Beak Book. I live in Colorado, near where she lives, and I’ve heard a lot of interesting things about her, but a lot of it is centered around how she deals with people that don’t necessarily agree with her and it doesn’t sound pleasant. I remember reading a negative review of one her books on amazon and her comment in response was pretty shocking, so I figured the things I’ve heard about her have some truth to them.
 

JLcribber

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Its also been my experience that as they rehabilitate and become comfortable with their environment they do start to become confident little critters and try to begin to manipulate their world the way they would like it.

The more competent bird owner you are, The more that bird thrives and the harder the bird is to look after.
 

iamwhoiam

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You have already made a lot of progress with Gizmo. He is less fearful of things and more willing to explore. I understand what you mean by him being sweet and sensitive even though he bites. You are truly trying to understand him as much as possible and create an environment where he will be comfortable and you will not get bitten (at least most of the time). With time and patience I think that you will get there.

My r-bs are goofballs. They make me laugh and smile and amaze me with some of the things that they do or say "out of the blue". They have very entertaining personalities and most of them demonstrate that around strangers. Three of my r-bs went through a very long phobic period (a few others very short phobic stage) but they have all come out of it. During that time they did not bite but they wouldn't come near me and wouldn't come out of their cages. Never gave up on them, though, and it was heartwarming when each of them wanted to interact with me again.

Sally Blanchard...don't know what it was about her but I was never one of her "fans".
 

Laurul Feather Cat

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Sally Blanchard deserves praise and credit for her early work and training techniques. She truly was a pioneer in how to deal with behavioral problems in pet parrots. She was one of the first people to recognize behavioral modification could be used to rehab pet birds so they could return to being a beloved pet and not an obligation which was kept locked in a cage and fed and watered daily. But when she ran into some serious financial problems, her personality seemed to change and she turned difficult and extreme. Her Beak Book and other behavioral technique books, although dated now, have good and valuable information and helpful techniques. The info she gave me about how to deal with Hobbs behavior were shot on and solved the problems. Her help with Hobbs saved him from being a cage bound pet. I cannot praise her help enough for returning my Hobbs to the loving and wonderful companion I fell in love with at the bird breeder.

I was very disappointed and regretful when she became a bitter and spiteful person.
 

jenwren59

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Sally Blanchard deserves praise and credit for her early work and training techniques. She truly was a pioneer in how to deal with behavioral problems in pet parrots. She was one of the first people to recognize behavioral modification could be used to rehab pet birds so they could return to being a beloved pet and not an obligation which was kept locked in a cage and fed and watered daily. But when she ran into some serious financial problems, her personality seemed to change and she turned difficult and extreme. Her Beak Book and other behavioral technique books, although dated now, have good and valuable information and helpful techniques. The info she gave me about how to deal with Hobbs behavior were shot on and solved the problems. Her help with Hobbs saved him from being a cage bound pet. I cannot praise her help enough for returning my Hobbs to the loving and wonderful companion I fell in love with at the bird breeder.

I was very disappointed and regretful when she became a bitter and spiteful person.
Agreed. We owe her a whole lot. However, some of her techniques were also dated and not based on positive reinforcement. One of her main things sounded sort of okay but in reality was forcing a condition known as learned helplessness. She did something like take parrots to a neutral room and wrap them in towels until they calmed down. She meant well and the way it was described seemed gentle enough at the time - but honestly, it was restraining the bird. This is just one thing I remember.

Anyway, I guess I still have her Parrot Guide to Behavior (or whatever it was called). I would highly recommend instead the techniques of Susan Friedman, Barbara Heidenreiche, etc. The animal trainers that use positive reinforcement only are really helping the parrot community these days.
 

Laurul Feather Cat

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Agreed about some of her techniques. She was trying to make sense out of what most people saw as a wild animal attacking a human for no reason; she showed the bird had a reason for their behavior and tried to find ways to communicate with the bird and modify human and bird behavior. Friedman, Heidenreiche, etc have built those positive reinforcement behaviors on top of Sally's brute force training, and it is these newer techniques which are the best for the bird.

When I first met Hobbs, he was a darling, flirting with me and literally courting me for four months at the bird store. When I won a sweepstakes at the shop, I could afford Hobbs, so I bought him and took him home. We had a wonderful 31 day honeymoon and then... All HE$$ broke loose and he began his tryany. I was heart broken. Sally gave me the modification techniques which returned my bird to being a companion animal and not a terror. The only time I ever toweled him and held him was when he was gnawing on my finger; it was the only way to get that little bull dog bird to let go! That was a tip from my CAV! If I had to consult a behaviorist again, it would be Heidenreich now.
 
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