Talking Vs Screaming

[zela]

I just adopted a 2 year old Gray, she's great. I want to make sure I do not encourage bad behaviours. Screaming in particular.

Although she is not very loud, but each time I leave the room she starts to call for me... I presume it is because her "flock" has left, should I talk to her then? She has a few very high pitched noises and whistles that she does at first and eventually she gets to talking. I end up waiting till she is quiet before reentering the room. This can take quite a bit of time... I am wondering if I can enter when she is talking, hoping to encourage her to talk instead. I guess what I want to know is would she understand that it is the talking that gets a positive response or would she think it is the calling in general that worked?

I don't want her to feel rejected or insecure. Please let me know how I should act.

Many thanks
Zela

[rc766]

Yep, she's looking for you... I think she would understand if you enter when talking and not when screaming. I've done this with my amazon and she does understand that screaming gets her nothing but a quick train to 'night-night, bye-bye' for a few minutes. What I do is when I leave the room and I will be coming back, I say, "be right back", then purposely just come back in just a few minutes, then I say, "see, here I am! I'm back!" It becomes almost like a peek-a-boo game. When I leave and will not be coming back shortly, I say 'bye,' and she says it to me. To my husband, she says bye the minute she sees him as a "hint" that she'd like him to leave the room! Alot of birds also respond to calling from a different room - call her name, say hello, any other words she knows - see if you can get into a pattern of the two of you repeating words together; you say the word, she repeats it. Actually, my zon likes to be the leader - she picks the word or phrase, and I repeate what she says She should then be more interested in the dueling talking rather than singular screaming. Good luck; sounds like you are off to a great start!