Senegal with severe aggression issues? Help!

[stephaniew]

Hey! I'm new to the board. I have a 14 year old senegal parrot that I've had since she was approximately 6 months old. She was hand fed, and has never had any health issues, such as plucking etc. She is in an appropriate sized cage (approx. 3 1/2 feet by 3 ft. I've tried larger cages and she becomes fearful in them.) and is on a pelleted diet, with daily supplements of fresh fruits, nuts, and vegetables.

When she was young, she was very sweet and mild mannered until she was around 1 year. Then she became aggressive, and would dive bomb and viciously attack anyone who entered a room she was in. She's very protective of me and is nothing but sweet to me - shes never bitten me, and never tries to, but no one else can approach her or even be in the same room with her when shes out of her cage. She also will find ways out of our room to chase after people in order to attack them. She hides in curtains for hours in order to dive bomb people, she hides on the floors of closets to attack peoples feet, and when she attacks, she dosen't stop attacking until shes restrained by me. She is scared of pretty much nothing, and nothing that I seems to do rectifies her behavior. We've been to see our vet, an avian specialist, who said that there is nothing physically wrong with her, and that she is the most aggressive senegal that he's ever encountered. I've tried bigger cages, smaller cages, changing her diet, and high spectrum lighting, all to no effect. Has anyone else had this problem? Does anyone have any tips or advice? I've thought of getting another senegal to see if it would make her happier, but everyone advises me that that may not go well for the new bird. Any tips or advice is welcome, and needed, please. Thanks!

[Monica]

Have you considered positive training? Otherwise known as clicker training? Has she been clipped in the time that you've had her? I don't normally recommend clipping birds if you don't have to, but you can't have your senegal flying after people, so unless you can teach her to 'stay' then perhaps you should get her clipped while you retrain her behavior.

Training 101! For everyone's eyes Part 1
The Writings of Susan Friedman, Ph

Don't Shoot The Dog

And also check this out... from the book Don't Shoot The Dog
The Eight Ways of Changing Behavior

[Pepper's Pa]

One of the best lessons I ever learned about controlling a parrot’s behavior was to control the parrot’s environment (This came from Dr. Susan Friedman). If she’s aggressive to people who come into your home, then she should be placed into her cage before visitors arrive.

If she’s in her cage, she won’t get the reinforcement she is receiving from dive-bombing and attacking people. How much of it is aggressive behavior and how much of it is to control the people and get an animated and excited response from them?

When she was young did you attempt to socialize her with as many new and different people as possible? With 14 years of demonstrating her current behavior, it may be quite hard to get her to change her behavior.

I agree with Monica’s suggestion about trying clicker training. You may benefit from Barbara Heidenreich’s Parrot Behavior and Training #1 DVD. Click here for a sample of what is on the DVD.

Good luck in helping your girl be friendlier to visitors to your home.

[Tom Lawless]

I've heard people talk of complete attitude adjustments when their birds wings were clipped. They were generally talking about Amazons though. Not everyone is for it. I just thought I'd add to what Monica wrote.

Pepper's Pa gave great advice so I'll just second it.

It sounds like you have done quite a bit with her already. Good luck.

At least she's nice to you. There are a ton of parrot owners who would be grateful for that.

[pi77]

no offense but i find this funny as hell. thanks.

i am new to birds and i just rescued a 'love bird' and an amazon. both are in thier terrible two's.

while the m amazone gives me nips and is just learning to bond with me that is not the case with the love bird.

love bird my a$$. i was going to call her shark but ended up calling her lola. now that bird can bite. omg. she nips me way harder than the amazon does. i hope that this is because the amazon is holding back.

there was a point where i would try to change her food and water and she would nip my hand multiple times until one day i had enough. i was in the middle of putting her water bowl in the cage when she gave me a particularly bad nip so i dumped all the water over her head. talk about a shock to her psyche. it did not hurt her at all but she sure got the message that i did NOT like that behavior. she was totally drenched and retreated to a back corner of the cage. where misting her didnt work this did it seems. i left the bowl on the bottom of the cage an did not change her water of give her food for an hour.

she still bites but some of the time it seems like she nudges me with her beak rather than bites. she is a fast little devil so i have to assume she could bite me if she wanted to.

since that time i have been able to get her to perch on my finger outside of her cage without a bite. only 2-3 times though.

now i have also noticed that she seems to be offering me the back of her head as if she wants me to scratch it. she will be in her cage and she will have her back to me and push her head up against the bars as if she is learning to trust me a bit. i sure hope this is the case.

god how i love that little bird. she provides me with so much enjoyment. she has a macaroni box in her cage now that must weigh 5-10 times her weight and she moves it all over the place and hides inside. she is so strong i do believe she could pick it up off the floor.

anyhooo good luck with your bird i am sure you will find a solution. they had a show on animal planet a month or so ago where a very aggressive cockatoo was trained to allow others to handle her. this change took just 3 days.

one thing i have read is that some small birds need big bird training to get the desired results. by big bird they meant trimming her flight feathers as you would a large bird and actually training the bird as if it was a huge mccaw. i am going to try that with lola.

from what you describe it sounds like you almost encourage that behavior.

i suggest your local library for books. i currently have 5 i am reading.

keep your chin up.