There's nothing more
annoying than a screaming
parrot -- nothing!
That mind numbing screeching, or squaking,and no
matter what you do,
never seems to stop. Annoying
screaming comes in as the second biggest reason
people get rid of their parrots... second only to
biting.
In my best selling DVD training course, I spend
a LOT of time talking about one of the greatest
ways to stop screaming, and it's helped hundreds
of my customers get their parrots to finally put
a cork in it.
But in this newsletter issue I want to tell you
about a
new technique that is working wonders on
how to get parrot to stop screaming.This method deals with NEGATIVE reinforcement:
Most people think negative reinforcement is
punishing a bird for his bad behavior, and they're
right. A perfect example of the WRONG way to use
negative reinforcement would be to spray your bird
with water, or throw a rolled up sock at his cage
if he starts to scream. And
here's why that's the
WRONG way to use negative reinforcement...
Because the bird sees you throw the object at him,
or sees you swat him, or sees you yell at him to
"SHUT UP!"
Thus
the bird DIRECTLY associates his punishment
with you, it's owner, and ends up becoming fearful
of you and less trusting.
So the trick is to use negative reinforcement in
a way that
DOESN'T leave your bird associating his
punishment with you, or other members of your
family.
In fact ideally, you want the bird to think he
caused himself to be punished.
A perfect example of this would be if a cat hopped
up on your counter and walked accross your hot
stove.
Upon touching the stove, the cat would be burned
badly enough so that he probably would never go
near that stove top again.
And if he burned
himself twice, my bet is he wouldn't come within
10 feet of that stove for the rest of his life.
Now you wouldn't do this on purpose, but it serves
as a perfect example of how a behavior was trained
using negative reinforcement without leaving the
animal with a personal grudge against it's
owner. The punishment was given, and the cat
doesn't have anyone to blame but himself, or the
stove. (which is a key point to remember)
So the goal is to
recreate that situation, in a
MUCH more mild form that doesn't harm your bird,
but scares, or startles him slightly when he's
in the act of screaming.
Just like the cat who's not very excited to singe
his little paws on that hot stove a second time,
you can get a parrot to realize that every time
he screams he causes a negative experience to
happen; an experience that happens whenvever
he screams with you in the vicinity. But to do this, it
needs to be done in a way that your bird doesn't
suspect you're the one giving him the negative
experience.
I first learned this technique when my father
got all pissy at our Golden Retriever puppy when
I was a child... threatening to give it up to
the pound if I didn't train him to behave better.
So I ordered some training guides from an
infomercial and put them to use.
These training guides used negative reinforcement
exclusively,
but in a way that didn't leave our
dog mad at us for distributing his punishement.
And while today I think there was a lot wrong
with that course I bought, I like to think you
can take something from it.
So I started brainstorming how to give parrots
a negative punishment discretly.
I thought the best way would be to use a loud
startling noise maker, that could be set off
the second a parrot screamed -- causing the
parrot to be startled, and stop screaming.
I'd been toying around with the idea and talking
about it with a few people, when one of my clients
actually put it to use and reported back on this
method's amazing success on his Umbrella Cockatoo.
Here's how he did it:
This client happened to keep his parrots in
an empty garage. It was a nice garage and had
been a nice bird room. And here's the key point
about this garage...
...
It still had working garage door openers, that
could automatically open his loud, grinding garage
doors, whenever he wished, with a button.
This noise always startled the bird, but not in
a way that would send him thrashing and lashing
in panic accross his cage. Instead he'd just
stiffen up and hold onto his cage bars tighter --
the perfect amount of negative reinforcement.
And here's the best part.
This owner's
cockatoo would constantly scream for
his owner's attention. And the neigbors were starting
to get a bit pissy about it!
So he decided to reward his cockatoo every time
he
screamed -- with a scary garage door. (but perfectly
harmless, and NOT associated with the owner)
Each time the cockatoo would scream, the owner
(who would carry the garage door opener on his belt
while in his house)
would simply tap the garage
door openerbutton, which opened the garage, startling
the parrot, who would then stop screaming!
And what happened over time, is that the owner trained
his parrot to think that every time his parrot screamed, the
garage door would open....training it in such a way that did not
leave the parrot resentful of its owner.
Because the parrot thought he caused the scary
thing to happen resulted in. . .
The parrot stopped screaming, because he didn't like
the scary garage to open anymore.
It's a beautful technique that I suggest you apply
to your parrot if he has a screaming problem.
But
PLEASE use some discretion.I don't want the thousands of people reading this
email to all go pluck their parrots from the
environment they're comfortable in, and stick them
in a garage.
Your garage might not be a SAFE place for your parrot.
There may be gas fumes, it may be too drafty, or too
cold etc.
Instead, take the principal and get creative.
And for Gosh sakes,
DO NOT go OVERBOARD on this.
I don't want to hear through the grapevine that a
bunch of peole are firing up chain saws next to
their birds cages, and doing stuff that terrifies
their parrots.
You only need to STARTLE your parrot... not scare
the wajeebeez out of him. So please be smart about
this, and if in doubt, don't do it.
I'd be curious to hear your thoughts, and certainly
any other success stories from you if you've already
put this method to use.
Just remember, the key to giving negative reinforcement
is that your parrot has to remain safe,
and that your parrot can have NO way to associate his
negative reinforcement with you -- he needs to think
he's bringing it all on himself.
It's the only way this type of training will work,
without ruining the relationship you've already
established with your bird.
Here's hoping this can help if you've got a screamer
living in your home -- and bugging you and the neighbors.
Happy Training!
Chet Womach
