The Alternative to Telling Your Parrot “No”

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I always told myself I would try never to tell my parrots “no” or yell at them… well, that was short lived because the second my galah, Bandit, ran over to my laptop the first thing out my mouth was a resounding and pitiful, “Noooooooo!” as I ran towards it in attempt to get there before him. Well, now he runs over to it and slowly steps closer and closer looking at me until he finally hollers, “Nooooooo!” and bobs his head and hops with both feet all around in pure joy. It’s now a game to him and he loves it. It’s the “laptop game” one of his many we play.

Blue throated macaw

Then there was the day I was taking pictures of Jinx after a bath (pictured above) and he went after the camera. “No” came out of my mouth that time, too.

So yeah, I failed at that. BUT, I have figured out an alternative to saying no to your bird or to say to it, “You just can’t do that” because your bird doesn’t always realize you’re saying that for its best interest.

Instead, try cuing a behavior or trick that your bird can’t possibly do while also doing what you don’t want him to do. Make sense?

So if your bird is chewing on something you don’t want ruined, simply cue the bird to talk. It’s an incompatible behavior, meaning that bird can’t possibly chew and talk at the same time. Often when my birds have something they are chewing on for fun I will offer their favorite treat in place of it. I will show them the treat and then they drop what they have, then I will cue a trick like wave or spin, and then give them the treat for a job well done. That way I’m not rewarding for the wrong thing.

Camelot Macaw, Blue Throated Macaw

You can also teach your bird to “station” which is a fancy word for “stay” and teach your bird to go to a specific place and wait. They often teach this behavior in theme park animals so that trainers can go in and put water and food in the cages without getting bombarded with hungry animals. Instead the animals know they don’t get what they want until they “station” and once released they get all the goodies. But if they never station, it just takes longer and longer for them to get what they want.