Anyone who has read a few of my posts have probably gathered that I have long been against the gist of these type of articles about bluffing. I wrote to a couple prominent bird trainers about it and sent them a link to one of these bluffing articles.
Barbara Heidenreich has given me permission to quote her response:
"I would say pretty much every force free trainer would disagree with the notion that a parrot is bluffing when it lunges or otherwise shows displeasure with what is happening. Parrots are not bluffing. They are giving very clear communication that don’t like what is going on. Ignoring is not an appropriate response as there are reinforcers happening over which we have no control. The goal is to not put the bird in a situation in which it needs to use biting or any other pre-cursers to biting to get people to stop what they are doing. To me all that body language tells me the person is doing the wrong thing and needs to change their approach. Typically it is the result of coercion.
It is definitely not a stage that passes. And why a bird is more likely to not comply at a certain age is not a mystery as was suggested in the article. A young animal goes through a critical period of development in which they are more open and receptive to certain experiences. This allows them to learn to interact with the world. It is also when people get away with doing a lot of things to birds because they will tolerate it. We can use this to our advantage if we pair handling with good things in that period of development. But if people are just doing things because they can, eventually when the bird matures it will respond with aggressive behavior to get the coercion to stop.
I never use the word bluffing in any animal training. To me the animal is being as clear as it can be ….and we should respect that J Read more here
Barbara's Force Free Animal Training Talk: A Good Start to a Good Bird. Raising and Training a Great Companion Parrot
Barbara's Force Free Animal Training Talk: Help! My Parrot Wont Step Up! "
In light of this, and the fact that all articles on bluffing have no references, appear to be copies of this one and do not appear to come from a qualified source and has no scientific reasoning behind it, I believe that this post on bluffing should not be given the prominence of being a "sticky". If there is to be a sticky on Ringneck Biting it should be founded in good science and bird training practises.
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Birdiemarie @
CheekyBeaks @
Monica What do you guys think?
