Bonnie Munro Doane - The Pleasure of Their Company: An Owners Guide to Parrot Training

Howell Book House

A Simon & Schuster Macmillan Company

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New York, NY 10019

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Copyright 1998 by Bonnie Munro Doane

All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher.

MACMILLAN is a registered trademark of Macmillan, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Doane, Bonnie Munro.

The pleasure of their company: an owners guide to parrot training / Bonnie Munro

Doane; illustrations by Richard Cole.

p. cm.

ISBN 0-87605-594-3

1. ParrotsTraining. I. Title

SF473.P3D63 1998

636.686535 dc21 97-46150

CIP

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Book Design: A & D Howell Design

Cover Design: Kevin Hanek

In memory of our dearest Mac and for our wonderful J.B.

Bonnie Munro Doane, MSN, has worked with parrots for fifteen years. As both pet owner and breeder, she has wide experience in the areas of parrot behavior and behavioral problems, parrot husbandry, nutrition, and breeding. She is one of approximately 350 persons in the U.S. holding a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services permit to breed certain endangered parrot species. Ms. Doane is available for consultation on parrot behavior problems and questions relating to their care and breeding. She can be contacted on her Web site at http://members.aol.com/Psitt/index.html.

A bundle of feathered joy.

A bird has its weight, though a mere feather.

African proverb

Congratulations! Youve just brought home your new parrot.

The chances are its newly weaned, but perhaps youre still hand-feeding it. You know your little bundle of feathered joy is going to need some pretty consistent tender loving care. Being a good parrot parent, youre reading everything you can find to help you do your best. You deserve a big pat on the shoulder; indeed, your parrot youngster is a very lucky bird to have you!

This book was written in large part with you and your new friend in mind. You will find much here to help get you off to a good start. Its important for you to know that when you bring your little guy home, it knows how to do only two things: how to trust you, and how not to fear you. Period. Everything elsegood, bad, and indifferentwill be learned from you and the other members of your family. You have the sole responsibility for teaching your parrot what it must know to get along happily with its human companions. Without your constant gentle yet firm teaching and guidance, it will revert to the wild ways of its ancestors, and you will both be very unhappy with each other. Your job is that of a parent in many ways. This book is designed to help you parent your parrot in the very most effective way possible.

So read on. Determine to do it correctly from the very beginning, and youll never regret going the extra mile.

You already have a parrotand youre in trouble. So is your parrot. You are very disappointed. You need good, practical help, and you need it now. Or who knows how things might end up?

You probably paid a great deal of money for your feathered problem, although at the time you didnt expect any difficulties. Your spending didnt stop there, however. An attractive cage in which your new pet could reside comfortably, as well as its toys and treats, meant dropping yet another bundle to become a parrot owner.

You may have bought your parrot from a pet store. Unless you were very fortunate, the people at the pet store really didnt tell you very much about how to care for your expensive purchase. There is the good chance that whatever you were told was heavy on misinformation that was at best silly and at worst downright dangerous to the bird.

On the other hand, you may have bought your parrot from a breeder. In this case, the breeder probably gave you a good deal of sound advice about how to care for the bird. You were probably given recommendations for one or two good avian veterinarians and encouraged to get your new parrot a physical examination and routine lab work to ensure that it was healthy at the point of sale and would remain so.

However, you may not have taken all that good information very seriously. Perhaps you only half-listened. After all, how hard can it be to take care of a parrot, right? And you may not have sought a

new bird checkup, either. Veterinarians are costly, and you had already spent a young fortune on the bird. Besides, it looked and acted just fine when you got it. Right?

Feather pickers often resemble well-used dusters.

Now your bird picks its feathers. The gorgeous, exotic creature you brought home and so proudly showed off to family and friends now looks a like moth-eaten feather duster that has seen far better days. How much pleasure can you take in something so ugly? Its a downright shame, and youre feeling very angry with the bird. It picked a pretty poor way to repay you for all the care and money you lavished on it.

Or your parrot screams...

Or perhaps your bird bites. Hard. Every time you go near it. Now this is really upsetting, because your friend down the street has a Blue-fronted Amazon that simply adores her. It grieves when shes out of its sight, would rather sit on her shoulder than anywhere else in the world and would happily give up its favorite treats for life rather than even think of biting her. And into the bargain, her Blue-front talks up a storm. Theres simply no end to the clever things that parrot says, and often talks so appropriately it makes your hair stand on end. Why, that bird was one of the reasons you decided you hadsimply hadto have a parrot. And look at the miserable, nasty creature now! Its plain mean, and you just might have to have it put down. The only reason you havent is that you really hate to see all that money go down the drain. Perhaps selling it to someone else might be a good alternative?

Or maybe your parrot screams. Night and day. Loud enough to wake the dead. The more you tell it to shut up, the louder it screams. Your significant other has begun to issue ultimatumsme or the bird, one of us has to go. Your landlord is making ugly noises about either your getting rid of the bird or his getting rid of you. Living in a tent in your parents back yard has very little appeal. If only the bird would just shut up! Youre getting to the point where you hate the sight of it. Your life is well on the way to becoming a shambles because of the cursed bird. Brother, did you make a mistake on this one! If youd had any idea a parrot could be like this, you would have cut off your arm rather than buy one. Now youre stuck with it, unless you can unload it on some unsuspecting soul. Or maybe you could move it to the basement. No one goes down there much unless they must, and at least the birds shrieks will be muffled and more bearable that way.