I have tried the power pause method with a clicker, letting her bite the back of my hand and gently pushing into the bite and frankly I am tired of getting hurt. Now I mostly avoid contact between her and my hands.
"Power pause" - this instantly tells me that you are looking to the wrong "trainer" for advice. Bird Tricks are sales people. They started this business out selling a product. IMO, they are sales people first and foremost. They put on a big show for you, they make promises about instant results, and all these other things which are not good. They take training methods and phrases that are already established scientifically speaking, slap a new label on them, then sell it to you as a "new technique" or a technique that the experts have been "hiding" from the public. Although they have learned a lot and changed their methods, I still do not recommend them.
Actual trainers are not sales people. Sure, they may be able to provide a service and they may even have products to sell, but they are behaviorists or trainers first and foremost. They take tried and true methods and teach them to you. They don't fancy it up in any way, or change it. They work on the science of behavior. The type of training that's used is often called....
- Positive Reinforcement Training (PRT)
- Force Free Animal Training (FFAT)
- Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA)
- The ABC's of Behavior (Antecedent-Behavior-Consequence)
- Clicker Training (least formal....)
And seeing the replies in this thread makes me so happy about AA!!!!!! I am so glad to see how everyone here is learning the new techniques of training and not only applying it to their birds (even if we learned different training techniques in the beginning) and recommending it to others! But it's absolutely right! The only bite that can't be rewarded is the bite that never occurs! The more a bird practices biting, the more likely they are to bite. In other words, we need to learn what triggers a bird to bite and avoid those triggers, desensitize the bird to those triggers, redirect that behavior, and learn to read a bird's body language.
Unfortunately for you, Chloe may have learned to not give warnings before she bites because she has learned that giving a warning that she will bite is fruitless and go directly for the bite. The main reason birds learn to not give warnings is because people ignore the warning signals that a bird is uncomfortable or is going to bite, thus the bird ends up biting.
My question is: does anyone think it's silly or counterproductive to wear gloves and allow her to be as ruthless as she needs and work this out of her system? Or do you think that when I take the gloves off we will be back to square one?
As others have said... yup! I've heard of some birds who become comfortable with gloves and will happily sit on them without any issues! Take the gloves off? Birds freak out! Ignoring the bite in any manner (even if you put gloves on) is like constantly putting air into a tire when it's got a hole in it. Putting air into the tire may temporarily fix the flat, but it doesn't fix the hole.
I have tried to find a local trainer but to no avail, as they only cover what I have learned in books, dvd's and webinars.
You're in luck! I don't know how "local" this trainer is to you, but you are *SO* much closer to her than I am! And for that, I'm jealous! This trainer is Lara Joseph and we met years ago on another bird forum. I "met" her before she was an animal trainer! Lara walked into a pet store to buy a pooper scooper for her dog and walked out with a "white cockatiel". Well, that cockatiel was actually an umbrella cockatoo! She ended up quickly acquiring two new birds (a female eclectus and a male greenwing macaw), got them the best cages she could (stainless steel!) and started making toys for her birds! And she started learning about training. She has learned from Barbara Heidenreich (
Good Bird Inc), Starve Martin (
Natural Encounters), Chris Shank (
Cockatoo Downs), Susan Friedman (
Behavior Works), and I'm sure others as well!'
I officially met Lara in April of 2014 and it was an amazing experience! She was doing a workshop on animal training and two people brought in an animal. One being a chocolate lab, the other an umbrella cockatoo. It was a fun event! (the next weekend, I went and met Barbara Heidenreich at another workshop!
that was also a huge eye opener!)
Anyway, Lara is located in Ohio, and if you *ever* get the chance to make a trip out to her place, I highly recommend it! I've never been, and I'm green with envy over her setup! I would be more than happy to live in her aviary, I kid you not!
The Animal behavior Center is an Educational Center
Lara Joseph | An animal training, behavior, and enrichment specialist.
And since you mentioned about Chloe going to be euthanized.... I would like to point you to these specific blogs about Rocky, Lara's M2.
Tears from the Aviary | Lara Joseph
Behavior Trained Through Consistency…A Win/Win Outcome for All | Lara Joseph
She doesn't seem to display traditional discomfort body languages and I believe she operates against the usual grain. Her eyes are too dark to show pinning, she doesn't hiss, bow down, shake or rarely throws her crest.
Barbara Heidenreich's DVD on
Understanding Parrot Body Language may be beneficial to you here!
You may need to look for other warning signs, such as a wide stance, neck feathers ruffled, open beak, wings slightly away from the body or perhaps the tail feathers fanned out.
Sometimes she does exactly as before but I go for a pet and she lunges then will bite at my legs. When she instigated the contact and she is in my space.
If you know she may bite you when she's on you, keep her off you. Avoid the situation until you can train her more and trust her.
Now, as far as training goes.... you may need to start from inside the cage, door closed. See if you can find an object she is not terrified of (knitting needle, empty pen case, maybe a ball, or some other object). If she's a little afraid, that's ok, you can work with that! Well, you can work with something she's terrified of, but it's easier to work with something she is either not afraid of, or does not show extreme fear towards.
Start from a safe distance (whatever distance she doesn't react to seeing the object) and show her the object. Hide it behind your back (or at least our of her view), then click and give her a treat. Repeat this process multiple times until she "ignores" it while it's near the cage. Once you are at that stage, then click and treat when she looks at the object. Once you have that behavior, then click and treat only when she moves towards the object. Then click and treat when she reaches for the object. Since she has a biting and lunging issue, I do not recommend allowing her to touch the object, but reaching towards it is enough!
Once you have that behavior trained, you can then teach her to climb around her cage to receive a treat! This is target training!
You can then use that behavior that you just taught her to step up onto your hand or a hand held perch!
Well, you'd want to work on target training outside of the cage after she learns to target inside the cage before you move onto teaching her to step up onto something else! But you are setting the foundation of the training itself with that one simple behavior!
Instead of using a dowel or wood perch, try using a rope perch instead! Easiest to use a circular rope swing *or* a straight rope perch bent into a "U" shape, then holding the ends together in one hand. This *might* be less scary than a stick.
Next part.... lunging!!!!!!!! In what circumstances does she lunge? Did you move too fast? Maybe try moving slower? Did you startle her by walking around a corner where she couldn't see you? Try talking calmly before entering her line of sight. Did something in the room or even outside the window startle her? Try to reduce distractions by removing or covering whatever may be scaring her.
Lunging is just like biting... if you "allow" the behavior to occur, thus allowing her to practice that behavior, you are only reinforcing that behavior. Do what you can to try and prevent the behavior from occurring by changing your approach, your behavior or perhaps her environment.
