My African grey bangs his beak on the cage or food bowls whenever we eat or when he just wants attention. How can I break him of this very loud habit?

-- Janey, Baltimore, Md.

AN OLD ROOMMATE of mine had a grey who did something similar to get attention - he "twanged" his door. He usually did it to get food, but also used it in other circumstances if nothing else worked. Behaviors like these always begin very innocently. You're eating dinner and pass ol' Paco a taste of what you have on your plate. He thinks, "Wow, that was great! Keep it coming!" After he's finished, food smeared all over his face, he wipes his beak on his bowl to clean it and inadvertently knocks it. The sound gets your attention, you realize that he ate all of the goodies, and give him some more. The next time he hits the bowl you repeat the process. All cute at first, but before you know what's happened, Paco has learned a new and annoying way to get your attention. How do you stop it? You have a couple of options.

First option: ignore it. The training theory that this embraces is that a behavior that goes un-reinforced will eventually extinguish itself. If you choose this route you must neveracknowledge your bird when he begins banging. Don't look at him, don't feed him, don't yell at him, don't do anything except maybe leave the room until he stops. There are two potential problems with going this route. One is that you will have to endure what is called an "extinction burst" in which the behavior becomes worse before it begins to go away. If you intentionally or unintentionally reinforce him during this burst you have just made the behavior worse and it will take longer to stop it. Second, if the behavior is self-reinforcing - in other words, he does it simply because he likes it, not to get your attention - it's impossible to extinguish it.

Second option: train an incompatible behavior. He can't bang on his bowl if he is sitting quietly or doing something else you prefer. And you will train him to do something else by using positive reinforcement. First, give him his favorite treat whenever you catch him sitting calmly on his perch. If he sees the food and starts banging, walk away with it. Eventually he'll learn that he has to be sitting quietly for you to bring him that goodie and that banging on his bowl makes the goodies go away. The same goes for any other reason he's banging to get your attention, such as asking to be let out of his cage.

In my experience, training incompatible behaviors is really the route to go for most people. Most of us don't have what it takes to ignore annoying behaviors for long. However, being aware of what you do in response to his banging will go a long way toward eliminating this noisy problem. Just remember, we get what we reinforce. (That applies to spouses and kids, too!) So make sure that you are only reinforcing the behaviors that you want.

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