I received an email from a professional colleague this morning that drove me right to the computer to write about it in my blog. Just recently many professional and personal issues have kept writing blog articles a little lower on the priority list than I would like; however this email was one that simply had to be addressed.
In the past I have written about information and misinformation on the Internet. I have done this in general terms and have not mentioned any names or web sites. My thinking there was that why add to the promotion of bad information and dubious marketing techniques by naming the culprits. Well this time I am going to name the web site because these folks are making a big push into the companion parrot world; plus if their marketing hype is to be believed they have duped at least one “professional” trainer into helping them. So the email I received pushed me over the edge.
I am speaking of the Bird Tricks web site. In particular an article and a story from someone they claim to be a customer. I say claim because the style of writing rings very close to the marketeers own style, plus if one studies the marketing techniques that their campaigns are based upon you will discover that recruiting writers to post to online groups and also to post recommendations is one of the “proven” techniques. Having said that, using such techniques (while ethically questionable) is not what this article is about.
The particular article concerns “taming” a Blue and Gold by using a technique called Flooding, basically exposing a bird to something it can not escape. In this case the bird appears to have a fear of hands and/or touching and bites when a hand is presented. The web site suggests that using a pair of sticks to touch the bird is the way to go. The theory being that no matter how much the bird bites the sticks it doesn’t hurt the owner so the sticks can stay there until accepted by the bird. The bird learns that any action it takes does not remove the sticks; it is helpless to make a change. This is called Learned Helplessness and can be a major factor in actually reducing the bird’s trust in the owner. It also does not teach the bird what to do, which should be the goal of our training.
Now the web site owners claim in some online posts that they have learned and changed the technique. Far from it since I read the article on their web site this morning.
Please be wary of this web site, the so-called trainers bring little to no actual training experience to the table. They have demonstrated over and over again their lack of understanding of the principles of Applied Behavior Analysis and Operant Conditioning by what they write and say. What they have demonstrated admirably is their true motivation in entering the companion parrot world, and that is to maximize sales of their training materials, material that is widely available for free or for little cost from true Professionals. They obfuscate well proven techniques by inventing new names for them, thereby appearing to have invented something novel when in fact what they are selling are well published scientific techniques.
If you are looking for solid advice then read the writings (for free) of Dr Susan Friedman, if you need help with bird behavior join the Yahoo group of Dr Friedman and get a mentor to help you (for free), or take Dr Friedman;s online LLP course for a modest donation to a worthy bird cause. If you would like to support a professional who truly cares and gives a huge amount to the community subscribe to Barbara Heidenreich’s Good Bird Magazine.
Sid.
The Real Secrets of Training Success and Where to Find Them
July 18th, 2011I need help with my phobic parrot!
July 18th, 2011You read it all the time in internet chat groups and even magazine articles, “I need urgent help with my phobic (insert parrots species).” It seems to me that the majority of people asking these questions and many of those answering them do not understand what phobia is.
Let’s start by going to Webster’s for a definition of phobia:
“Noun: an exaggerated usually inexplicable and illogical fear of a particular object, class of objects, or situation.”
I feel that it is highly unlikely that most so-called “phobic” birds have the above described type of fear. The key words here are “inexplicable” and “illogical.” The root cause of such behavior can usually be traced to the history of interactions with the owner or in the case of a rehomed bird, the previous owner(s). This is hardly “inexplicable” or “illogical”. A bird that displays aggressive behavior towards hands is probably a bird that has never been “listened to” when it clearly communicated that the hand approaching was not welcome. Through its body language a bird communicates it is either ready or not to accept an approaching hand. When the owner sees, understands, and respects this communication the bird gains a little more control over its environment and with control comes confidence.
In addition using “phobic” to describe the behavior of a bird is applying what is defined in psychology as a construct or label. Regardless of whether the condition is based upon an illogical or inexplicable fear the word “phobia” only attempts to ascribe a condition or state to the bird, it does nothing to describe what the bird actually does, or the conditions in which it does it. Remember, the smallest meaningful unit of analysis is behavior and conditions.
The first step in addressing behavioral problems is to accurately describe the behavior, what happens immediately before the behavior (the antecedent), and what immediately follows the behavior that is maintaining it (the consequence). This is what is called a functional analysis of the problem and I wrote about this process in an earlier article. That article and another describing the basic terms of the science of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) should help those looking to address fear issues.
It is also important to note that fear behaviors may “appear” to be irrational and therefore phobic because the fear-eliciting stimulus appears harmless to the trainer. However these fear behaviors are not irrational from the perspective of how they come about, which is the process of Respondent Conditioning (to be discussed in a future article).
One final point, when trying to address unwanted behavior it is important to focus on what we would like the bird to do instead. Training a bird “what to do” is easier and less intrusive than trying to train it “what not to do.” The latter on its own implies the use of punishment (the reduction of a behavior) and aversives (things a bird will work to avoid). Both of these are things we try to avoid in training plans whenever possible. Training a bird “what to do” involves reinforcing desired behavior, the technique upon which we try to focus. As we build the reinforcement history of the desired behavior and at the same time attempt to avoid reinforcing the unwanted behavior we will tip the balance towards the bird offering the wanted behavior.
Sid.
Food and Weight Management – follow up
July 15th, 2011My post about Food and Weight Management has drawn a few comments that I would like to address. Don’t forget that if you have any questions related to the articles posted here you are invited to use the email address (TrainingBlog
AvianAmbassadors
com) set up specifically to receive those questions. I can’t promise to address everything but I will read them all and do my very best to at least address the points you raise in a future article if at all possible.
One of the problems of blogging is that it is generally an unedited medium, by which I mean that most, if not all, of the posts people make to blogs are a stream of consciousness rather than a formal structured work that is ultimately edited by a third party. This means that sometimes a statement is made without the meaning or intent being completely clear to a reader. Great editors pick those mistakes up before they reach the reader. The Food/Weight Management article had a couple of those that a diligent reader picked up and rightly questioned. Also, I was asked “how do you decide if you need weight management rather than food management?” So, let’s get to it …
Let me address the last point first; how does a trainer make the decision to begin using Weight Management? The decision is really quite simple if one is always focused on behavior and that was one of the key points of the previous article. Let your observation of the behaviors you are training guide your training decisions. Also, don’t forget that adjusting diet is going to be the last tool you pull out of your toolbox. Be sure that you are setting up your bird for success by arranging the environment so that the bird is relaxed and comfortable. A critical aspect of starting out training is that the trainer and the bird have a history of positive interactions; don’t expect to bring home a new bird and start training a step up right away. It may take several days of walking by the cage and dropping treats into a bowl before one can even think about starting to train any specific behaviors. Always ask yourself “why should the bird interact with you?”, “what’s in it for the bird?” And remember that we want the bird to choose to be a partner in the training process.
So, back to the original question about when to use Weight Management; use it if the behavior you are training is just not shaping up the way you want, the response just isn’t there. However, only begin Weight Management after you have made sure that all of those things on the “will not perform” side of the motivational balance have been explored and if necessary corrected. Plus, be patient; do not withhold large amounts of food just to get the bird’s attention for training. I have heard of novices getting frustrated because their bird didn’t respond just the way they wanted so in their frustration they withhold a complete meal. This is just not necessary especially if the trainer is managing the food of the bird correctly. The need for gross changes in diet in my opinion are a reflection of the trainer’s lack of good diet management and rarely, if ever, justified or needed.
A phrase I used “relax the criteria” caused a little confusion. The context in which I used the phrase in the article was when a bird was in a new environment with lots of new potential distractions. Here I meant that I would relax my expectations of performance for the bird, e.g. if the behavior was a 20 foot flight to me I would start in this new environment just asking for a hop, then a flight of a few feet, gradually building the bird’s confidence in these new surroundings and for sure only raising my criteria as I observed good behaviorial responses. What I did not mean was that the trainer should continue to cue the behavior that was not working and accept the latency (delay to perform). Part of the process of generalization (performing behaviors regardless of environment) is to build the bird’s confidence not only in itself but also in the trainer. By setting the bird up to succeed (short hop and then short flights) the bird’s trust in the trainer is raised so that in the future in new environments this trust should increase the likelihood that the bird will perform the behaviors cued. Also, by relaxing the criteria and enabling the bird to perform a behavior we increase the number of times we are able to reward the bird, always a good thing! Repetition builds confidence – bird and trainer.
Another question related to how to remove some of the “will not perform” items from the motivational balance. As an example how do you train the bird to fly down from heights at a steep angle? Remember that we can always lower the weight of the bird and increase motivation to overcome the bird’s apprehension in making a steep downward flight. However, just because that works doesn’t make it the right choice for me. Reducing the weight again should be the last thing we think about doing. I will repeat a phrase here that should be one of the trainers’ mantras, set the bird up to succeed. First, before we placed our bird into an environment where it might have spooked up into that tall tree we should have trained it to fly down from high places. New trainers often forget that birds learn their flight skills through … flying. Therefore, in a safe environment we place our bird on higher and higher perches and allow them to learn to fly down. We train our bird to fly to places on cue and then send them into higher and higher tree branches (or meeting hall rafters!) and allow them to learn how to fly down. We set them up to succeed so that when they find themselves sitting high in a tree they already know how to fly down. The second part of the answer is for every trainer to observe and understand the limitations of their bird when it comes to its flight skills. No matter how much we fly our birds they never get as much “air time” as a wild bird, because of this their flight skills, while impressive, may never reach those of their wild cousins. Therefore we need to once again set them up to succeed by only asking them to perform behaviors we know they can perform. So, when your bird is high in a tree don’t stand right under the tree calling it down, move away from the tree and give your bird the “glide angle” it needs to make the flight.
Don’t forget:
- Repetition builds confidence
- Set your bird up to succeed
- Ask yourself “What’s in it for the bird?”
- Assume responsibility for all your bird’s behavior
Sid
We are all trainers … all the time.
June 18th, 2011I saw the following post on Facebook recently and it reminded me of something that I believe every animal owner is apt to forget, and that is that we are ALL trainers ALL the time
I’ve had birds all my life, though admittedly no parrots larger than a cockatiel. I tend to be permissive and I don’t think in terms of training birds so much as learning to read their body language and making friends with them. I think it’s very hard to make a bird do anything…rather, you win it over with gentleness, consistency and rewards. – Cathy Kendall
At the time I read the above quote I commented that is was a wonderful description of training; in it Cathy expresses the essence of what I strive for in my classes, workshops, seminars, and training. I have written about this previously in the article “Ethical Training as a Way of Life.”
Every time we are in the presence of another sentient being we will make some change in the behavior of that being, albeit often times a subtle one. Therefore if we wish to have a good relationship with any animal, and I include Homo sapiens here, we need to be conscious of our interactions at all times. We have all heard of living “La Vida Loca”, now is the time to live “La vida ética.”
Sid
I scared my bird!
June 12th, 2011
Training is an ongoing thing. No matter how well we believe our birds are trained, no matter how hard we have worked to generalize behavior, one day in our confidence we make a mistake. That happened to me this morning …
Mijo is a yellow-naped Amazon; he is just over a year old and has lived here at Avian Ambassadors since September last year. He actually lives in the house with us and the dogs, right in the middle of everything, pretty much. He gets to go and hang out on the porch for a good time each day with a “jungle gym” built from recycled plastic tubing and other “treasures”, and in the house his cage is in the lounge. While the day can be quiet at times it also has its share of surprises; by design I want Mijo to have as many different experiences as possible and so far our strategy seems to be working. It is not unusual for one of our re-homed dogs to bark loudly while standing within a couple of feet of Mijo. Nor is it unusual for someone to suddenly appear through the hallway right next to his cage. Over time we have worked to generalize his calm behavior to anything that happens.
So, this morning I got dressed and made my way to my computer, passing Mijo on the way. Suddenly he pinned himself against the roof of his cage, wings flared, eyes pulsing rapidly. What in the world happened? I quickly stepped away from him, he calmed and returned to his favorite perch. What I believe had happened was that the t-shirt I was wearing was so different to anything I had previously had on it was scaring him. The shirt, one I have not worn in a very long time is black with several large pink logos of a sailing boat class I used to sail all over the front. Typically I wear light colored shirts.
What to do? I could go back to the closet and change the shirt, however that was really avoiding the issue and not working to fix it. So, since the back of the shirt is plain, without the logos, I turned it around. The plain black shirt appeared less scary and I was able to reinforce Mijo for calmer behavior it its presence. We worked on this for a while intermittently; I would go off about my business and come back and reinforce the calm behavior, still wearing the shirt backwards. Once he was no longer showing discomfort I turned the shirt around. At first, as expected, there was a regression towards discomfort, nowhere near as severe as the first instance but none the less still there. Gradually over the next 30 minutes I worked to reinforce his calmer behavior in the presence of the “killer” shirt. Right now I would say his behavior in the presence of the shirt is calm, he will perform cued behaviors and willing approach me, no matter how close I am to the cage.
In working with Mijo to overcome this fear I feel the most important aspect of the training was that he always had choice; he could approach me or not. Choice is a powerful thing; it imbues the subject with a degree of control and that raises their confidence. Mijo was in total control of when he chose to approach or leave the scary situation. He was never coerced into “getting over it”. I have seen removal of choice as a training strategy being promoted many times by those “internet gurus.” In fact I have a couple of other articles brewing that will focus on some of these later … for now all is calm in the world of Mijo. I just need to find some brightly colored shirts to wear so that we can continue to generalize calm behavior!
Happy training,
Sid.
