lwis
Jogging around the block
You can try training her to poop in a designated area or when you say a cue...some people say that training them to poop on command may cause the bird to only go when you tell them, and that they could hold it too long, but I honestly don't think that would be a problem with most birds. Our bird is mostly trained to poop in a certain area or when we say "poop", but he is young and is still learning to "hold it". He rarely poops on us, and I would say, maybe %75 of the time he does it in a designated stand we when we say.
All we do is bring him to his "poop stand" and use a verbal cue about every ten minutes, until he learned that that is where he is suppose to poop. He can hold hold it for over half an hour now, Though we still bring him to his stand more frequently when we are just hanging out. He hasn't quite learned to go there on his own yet when he needs to go, but he has done this a few times, so we are hoping he catches on. He understands the verbal cue though; we have asked him to poop a couple of times when we thought he needed to go, and he squatted a few times and gave it a real good try before looking at us as if to say, I don't have to go!...it was quite funny. He still has accidents where we don't want him to, but it is not that frequent and the mess is not bad at all.
I would agree that flight is more important than clean furniture...I don't believe that we physically alter any other pet to save our furniture from poop. And there are definitely better ways to deal with it, it just takes a little effort in the beginning
Good luck with her!
Please read..
Can't find John's original thread but it's somewhere on this forum.Potty Training is dangerous
Okay, so I had written a long message in response to this, but I accidentally pressed a button that deleted it all and I do not feel like writing it all again.
Here is the gist of it:
"potty training" to me, is teaching both the bird and the owner. We learn to recognise the signs of when our bird has to go and place them somewhere appropriate, and our bird learns that there are certain places where we would like them to poop, and others where it might not be desireable.
Our potty training is not strict- only ask him to poop or put on stand when he is showing signs that he has to go. When he has to go, he has to go.
I am generalizing here, but I think there is more of a danger in some of the larger "smarter", more neurotic birds, than there is with, say, the smaller conures and such. Conures are also quite intelligent, but in my experience with them, these little guys will do what they want or need to do, when they want or need to do it no matter what training they have. There is obviously individual differences though.
All I am saying is that, I don't believe that absolutely all training, when it comes to going potty, has to be something dangerous that to be avoided entirely.
If that's what you feel as though you need to do to keep YOUR bird safe, then that is YOUR choice. 
