A friend of mine has a cockatoo that is suddenly behaving fearfully.  She consulted a parrot behaviorist in town who told her that forcing the bird out of its cage on her hand was contributing to the bird's fear.  This confused my friend because other parrot behaviorists write that parrots should be required to step up to come out of their cages.  What is the deal?

-- Mary P.

EXCELLENT question! There are many people out there who label themselves "behaviorists" but preach some scary advice. At one end of the spectrum are those who believe that you must force a bird to do what you want it to do so that it knows you are the "alpha" flock member. These people are often the ones who start training a new bird wearing thick leather gloves or wielding a stick to push the bird off balance, all the while sternly repeating "step up" until the bird, after having exhausted its options, finally relents and steps up.

At the other end are those who use boundless patience and teach the bird that stepping up is a good thing by rewarding it for doing so, as opposed to punishing it for not doing so. And in the middle are countless people who know that the first group is wrong but don't quite have the skill or knowledge to do much better. Any one of these behavior experts can help you turn out a bird that will step up onto your hand when you ask it to, but only those who train with positive reinforcement will be able to help you establish a positive relationship with your bird. The result is lots of confusion for parrot owners.

I do believe that your bird should step up when asked to. However, he should be doing it because you have taught him that good things come to him when he does, and not because he knows he has no other choice. When we train animals (including humans), we basically have two options: positive reinforcement or negative reinforcement. Positive reinforcement encourages the animal to work to gain something it wants. Negative reinforcement encourages it to avoid something it doesn't like. Giving a bird a sunflower seed (or a scratch on the head or some other pleasant thing) for stepping onto your hand is positive reinforcement. Repeatedly nudging your bird off balance with your finger until it finally steps onto your hand is negative. Both will accomplish the same goal, but the bird that is working for something it wants will step up much more readily and consistently than the bird that only steps up once it gets tired of being poked and pushed around.

The liability of a bird trained the latter way is that if something ever happens that requires you to pick him up fast, you can't do it. Say there's a fire, or you need to open the door to accept a package from the UPS man. In the first, extreme example, the few extra minutes it might take you to towel your bird could make the difference between life and death. In the latter, in exasperation you may give up trying to catch your flighted cockatiel and wind up accidentally allowing him to escape through the open door. There are lots of good reasons for training a bird to step onto your arm or finger immediately. However, I don't believe in forcing an animal to do something that it doesn't want to do. Especially an animal that may be timid to begin with.

So, what this all boils down to is: use positive reinforcement to teach your bird a "bomb proof" step-up and you won't have to worry about the negative ramifications, as your friend now must do.

ParrotChronicles.com

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