Need advice, help with hollering U2

[donnakris]

I adopted Morgan, my U2 in January. When she came here I couldn't even touch her. We worked through all that and now she loves to be with me. She'll sit with me in the chair and even take little naps. She's a wonderful, loving, velcro U2.
The problem is she has started to holler whenever I leave the room. I've tried not going back into the room or saying anything when she yells and telling her what a good girl she is when she stops. Doesn't seem to help at all. She's my first cockatoo and I could really use some advice on this problem.
If I'm in the living room she's fine on or in her cage. She is out of her cage most of the day and evening. She will call me when she wants to come sit with me and I usually get her. The calling "mama" is fine but the yelling is definately getting out of control.

[Eriisu-chan]

My Tango started doing the same thing... frustrating, isn't it?

He does it when he wants out of the cage... so I've started offering different means of getting my attention. I'll go up to the cage and whistle softly, if he screams I leave, I'll come back 5 minutes later and do it again, if he screams, I leave... if he whistles back, I open the door.

He understands it for the "door opening" part of it... but not so much for me leaving the room... If he screams I just "Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" until he calms down, I'll whistle, then the same thing, I come back when he whistles...

It's just.... annoying.

Something just dawned on me... :doh:

He's probably trying to "initiate" the "shhhhhh" training by screaming... ugh.

I guess I'm back to the same issue... :doh:

[Shirley]

Hi Donna (is that your name?)
I understand your frustration...

I'm currently at AAV (Assoc. Avian Veterinarians) and with little computer time... Yesterday's Behavior sessions were excellent, the two talks given by Dr. Susan Friedman were phenomenal.

First of all - you don't want your U2 (or any parrot) to be a "velcro bird". That will do you and the bird a disservice and bring on a load of problems. You want an independant parrot who can communicate with you in an acceptable voice (you teach her a flock call, such as clucking or a whistle or a spoken word as you enter and leave the room) and you want the parrot to be able to entertain herself with toys, foraging for food, etc. Head scritches and neck scritches are acceptable, but petting the bird's back, under the wings, cuddling, snuggling, that is all sending a load of hormonal mate-related mixed message to the bird, and developing a needy screaming parrot. Behavior has function, and the behavior of holding, cuddling, rubbing, caressing the parrot brings on the function of needing you to be its mate, screaming for you to come, etc.

so... how to change that screaming behavior is another set of avian behavior lessons, and will take some time.

Meanwhile, go to the sticky on this forum and read the links there, study them, and discuss them. You want to REINFORCE the desired behavior. So, you need to find something that is very reinforcing to your bird - something that has value. It could be a treat, a spoken word, a head scritch. Catch him doing a desired behavior and reinforce that every time you can.

More later... and others here will also have excellent help for you.

Read this:
http://thebirdforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8309

[Jessi]

Isn't Dr. Susan Friedman amazing! Did she tell you the story about the green wing macaw (I think it was a GW macaw...) that she got to step up in like a week! And it hadn't been handled in forever. All by using positive reinforcement...I wish we were all so talented at reading behavior and reinforcing at the perfect time.

About Morgan, she sounds very needy like most U2s. I like the idea of teaching her a contact call. That sounds like what she's trying to do when she screams when you're not in the room. You just need to teach her an appropriate call that. Keep responding to the momma and ignore the scream. Also make sure she's getting enough enrichment that she can be comfortable being independent and entertain herself.

A roommate of mine had a moluccan cockatoo that would scream for 30 minutes straight. It turned out the dog was reinforcing it by whining when it would scream causing the bird to scream longer and longer because it was being reinforced by the dog. Make sure no one in the house is reinforcing her screaming.

Good luck :)

[Shirley]

Isn't Dr. Susan Friedman amazing! Did she tell you the story about the green wing macaw (I think it was a GW macaw...) that she got to step up in like a week! And it hadn't been handled in forever. All by using positive reinforcement...I wish we were all so talented at reading behavior and reinforcing at the perfect time....

Yes, she certainly is! And through study and learning about the science of behavior, and how to apply that, so can everyone be successful teaching their birds, other pets, and so on.

Dr. Ellen Cook (avian vet) has a DVD available now that teaches you how to teach your brid, beginning with targeting. It is linked in my sigline below. There's a trailer on the site and list of chapters explaining the topics it covers. :) Ellen has taken Dr. Friedman's "Living and Learning with Parrots" online class, and consulted with her before finalizing the production of this DVD.

[donnakris]

Thank you for the advice. I am trying to teach Morgan to just call me when I leave the room. I always tell her I'll be back in a minute, but, so far, that hasn't worked. She's only been with me 6 months and has come so far. I'll keep working on it and I really appreciate any advice or suggestions.

I do try to teach her to play on her own but she doesn't seem to have much use for toys. She has tons of toys, hanging ones, chewing ones, foot toys, ropes, everything I could think of but she doesn't really seem to play. I've tried teaching her to play but she really isn't interested. I'm not sure if her previous owner(s) gave her toys but it's like she has no idea what to do with them. I have gotten her to play with a wiffle golf ball now and then. She loves to throw it and watch me fetch. :rolleyes:

[Shirley]

Give her fewer toys, and model playing with them for her. And play with her outside the cage - roll the ball for her, put toys on the coffee table and watch her toss them all off... start target training her - she'll ove that kind of attention far better in the long run. (fewer toys so she isn't overwhelmed, and so she has room in her cage to flap her wings and such)

[CocosMomma]

I have gotten her to play with a wiffle golf ball now and then. She loves to throw it and watch me fetch. :rolleyes:

That has to be both cute and interesting!:thumbup: Can you build on that at all - - take advantage of her interest - thinking out loud.... can the whiffle ball be hung on a string? Filled with treats? Wrapped with sisal rope?

Has Morgan expressed an interest in other foraging type toys/activities (whether actual foraging toys such as a treasure chest that treats can be hidden in, a nut wrapped up like a piece of candy in a newspaper, etc.?) Foraging 'games' could serve multiple purposes of treats, toys and foraging activities... enrichment... independent activities.

You may have already seen it - but in case not - here's a link to an ongoing thread about natural interactive play - you might find something within this thread that catches your interest to try for Morgan (and you of course)!

http://thebirdforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8249

One other thing that came to my mind - during this process of working with Morgan through positive reinforcement on a reduction of her repetitive loud vocalizations... showers. Showers, she says? Yep - showers!:D Both fun, and healthy - and usually a bird busy zipping, straightening and coiffing feathers is ... well, busy... engaged... being independent and doing what birdie's do... coiffing!:thumbup: Naturally, it has all sorts of benefits. You may find that she enjoys chewing on a wood block during her coiffing time, a piece of rope... or just coiffing... depends on Morgan of course. So I thought I'd throw that out in case it was something that might help.

[donnakris]

That has to be both cute and interesting!:thumbup: Can you build on that at all - - take advantage of her interest - thinking out loud.... can the whiffle ball be hung on a string? Filled with treats? Wrapped with sisal rope?
I have tied a leather piece to the ball and hung it on the top of her playgym. She will play with it for a few minutes that way then loses interest.

Has Morgan expressed an interest in other foraging type toys/activities (whether actual foraging toys such as a treasure chest that treats can be hidden in, a nut wrapped up like a piece of candy in a newspaper, etc.?) Foraging 'games' could serve multiple purposes of treats, toys and foraging activities... enrichment... independent activities.
I have tried to encourage foraging for her but she just ignores it. She loves to shred paper so she has a roll of adding machine tape and I frequently give her envelopes from junk mail. She has a great time doing that. She loves almonds so I have tried hiding them in various toys and in her toybox, making sure she sees me do it, but she doesn't even bother.


One other thing that came to my mind - during this process of working with Morgan through positive reinforcement on a reduction of her repetitive loud vocalizations... showers. Showers, she says? Yep - showers!:D Both fun, and healthy - and usually a bird busy zipping, straightening and coiffing feathers is ... well, busy... engaged... being independent and doing what birdie's do... coiffing!:thumbup: Naturally, it has all sorts of benefits. You may find that she enjoys chewing on a wood block during her coiffing time, a piece of rope... or just coiffing... depends on Morgan of course. So I thought I'd throw that out in case it was something that might help.
Shower--I wish. When I adopted Morgan I was told she hated the shower and loved being sprayed. Well--let me say she absolutely hates being sprayed. I've tried taking her in the bathroom and letting her sit on her stand in front of the shower with the shower curtain partially open so she can see me. Standing in the shower like a lunatic, singing, flapping my arms. I try to reach out and get her to step up on my arm to come into the shower with me but nope, not her. I tried this everyday for a week and now she freaks out if I start walking toward the bathroom. I've tried pans with water--nope. To get her to take a bath I have to wrap her in a towel, which she thankfully loves, take her to the bathtub and just put her in towel and all. She screams like I've just put her in acid. I've tried cool water and warm water. She hates it all.

I do believe I have a very ummmm, unique Cockatoo. But, I'll keep trying cause I adore her. :shrug2:

[Jessi]

Hmmm.... I like the idea of a shower to stimulate natural independent behavior. My U2, Coconut, doesn't like showers, or being sprayed by a bottle. He does tolerate being misted by a continuous mister. I think this is less intimidating to him than the shower and it doesn't surprise him with blasts of water from a squirt bottle. What if you wet down the towel and then put it on him? Or wring a wet towel out over him while petting him? Coconut was okay with this option as well.

Have you tried giving Morgan a cardboard box she can climb inside? Coconut didn't show interest in any toys until I tried this. Now he crawls inside all the time and chews it apart from the inside out :) And expects to find a few almonds inside as well ;)

Keep trying new things and you'll find something she likes.

[CocosMomma]

Naturally, we do not know if Morgan had some previous bad experiences with showering, mister bottles, etc. and unfortunately, Morgan isn't sayin'!:roflmao2:

If I had a bird that was going to be traumatized by the idea of going into the bathroom or a shower, etc., and had a bad reaction to mister bottles, the first thing I would do would be see if there was a way to arrange (a travel cage, old cage, etc.) placing the bird in the cage for hangin' outside during a nice, warm calm rain shower... this might get some of those instinctual behaviors juiced back up again!:agree::thumbup: In any event, a nice, easy rain shower in an old cage might just be something Morgan could get into! I don't know if you could set up something like this given where you live, cage set ups, etc., but I thought I would throw it out. Nothing like a little natural... singin' in the rain stuff! Morgan might love it! (And the fresh air/sunshine would be an extra bonus!):thumbup: If you have the ability to set something like this up, it might be a bridge to different types of bathing (showers, mister bottles, etc.) in the future. Until then, a nice warm rain when there was no thunder or lightning... just one of those slow rain type things... now, don't tell me you're in a drought and haven't had rain for months, cos I'm out-a ideas then!:doh::rofl:

[Sue]

A roommate of mine had a moluccan cockatoo that would scream for 30 minutes straight.

Good luck :)

Wow she's lucky:funny: Toto can go on for hours.
Seriously we have done all the things mentioned, he knows his contact call and does it a lot. There are just some times he needs to scream and all the ignoring in the world won't make it go away. It's not constant, he seems to go through phases, some days he's as quiet as a mouse just doing all his cute little "i know" and squeaky noises. We have reinforced this behavoiur but we still get the screams, guess they just have to be Toos sometimes.

I agree with Shirley, you don't want a velcro bird, try and get a balance and don't give more time now than you can realistically give in the future.
Good luck!!