Help with aggressive senegal, please.

[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!

[NotEnoughTime]

Please have a read of:

How Not to be a Tease

and see if this will be of any help. Some people recommend clipping the wings to prevent "dive bombing" while retraining...

In behavioural modification you will need to move in approximations. First you need to find an appropriate reinforcing stimulus and a willing partner (someone who can initially help with the training). As a first step you need to get the bird accepting of the partner's presence (without agressive behaviours) and then, in approximations, move to the partner actually interacting with the bird.

Bring the partner into the room and observe the reaction. If there is no reaction then give a reinforcing stimulus.

The reinforcing stimulus for these behaviours can be a "treat" but that may not be enough. Your presence (or voice) may be needed to also get the bird to interact with other people. It may be a long, slow process... So you need a willing partner.

Once the partner can enter the room with the bird with no reaction then have the partner move closer to the bird. Again if there is no reaction then give the reinforcing stimulus. If there is a reaction then move to the previous step (or before if the behaviour does not improve).

Once your bird is accepting of the partner then you need to get someone else to participate. The second time should not be as time-consuming - but it will be work nonetheless.... You may need three or four other people involved before she generalizes the behaviour to *most* other people...

While engaging in the training make sure your bird is successful *most* of the time. If she fails then go back to the previous successful attempt and re-do it before attempting to move on.

Because it is hard to give the reinforcing stimulus at the appropriate time (it should follow the desired behaviour very quickly) you may want to start with "clicker training." Watch this video on clicker training to find out what it is... YouTube - Building Trust With Your Bird Then use the clicker to provide the reinforcing stimulus (if it is enough of a stimulus to overcome the aggressive behaviours).

With dedication to the training you can have a much better relationship with your friends and the bird!

[MandaJP2005]

I think that clipping her wings is a good idea. I know not everyone agrees, but I have seen first hand that it helps. Freckles did what she wanted and would barely listen to me. But when I clipped her wings she let me pet her (not even a minute after they were clipped) against my chest and her attitude took a 360. She is acting as 'flock leader', it seems, in your home when you are the flock leader. So in a way she needs to be put in her place and be shown that she can't act that way.

NotEnoughTime had tonnnnnnnnnnns of good advice and the web site was awesome. Check that out too.

[NotEnoughTime]

Originally Posted by MandaJP2005

She is acting as 'flock leader', it seems, in your home when you are the flock leader. So in a way she needs to be put in her place and be shown that she can't act that way.

Personally I don't believe in the concept of "flock leader" in flocking birds... There is no need to be a leader - we just need to live together without bloodshed... Or clawmarks...

[jenseits]

I agree with NotEnoughTime. I think the advice that a bird "needs to be put in her place" is potentially very harmful. That makes it sound like the way to create a good relationship with our birds is to bully them into submission. Think about the last time someone "put you in your place"... did that make you feel good about yourself? Did you want to cooperate and be friends with that person?

Birds are not like dogs. We don't need to create and enforce a hierarchy; we need to treat them as partners in our lives.

I'm a HUGE proponent of clicker training. But it also sounds like she needs to be socialized better. Maybe you can learn about clicker training with her and make sure she "gets" the concept, and then have people come over and do some target training with her, to show her that strangers are a good source of treats and fun. She should probably not be out of her cage when people are over, so people can interact with behind the safety of her cage, at least at the start.

I highly recommend the Bird-Click group. They'll have some excellent step-by-step instructions for how to start training an aggressive bird: Bird-Click : Bird-Click