Don't Ask Social Media for Behavioral Advise

               With so many social media influencers, people who post regularly on forums, and individuals that have their own information-based websites for parrots, it can be easy to want to ask them questions pertaining to your bird’s behavior. You are at a loss, you’re frustrated, and you just want the relationship you’ve always dreamed about with your parrot. You feel the person or website is trustworthy, so you ask. Usually in forums, you will get hundreds of different answers from different people with varying education and experience levels, which leads you to be incredibly confused, overwhelmed, and still at a loss. You are not alone. Asking someone online that is not a true training professional is a recipe for disaster, and I will be elaborating why you should not do this.

My Process

               For reference, I want to talk about my training process as a professional. I have multiple degrees in the science of behavior, as well as been professionally training exotics since 2015. I have almost 20 years bird experience under my belt with more than just “my flock” or just parrot species. For a summary of my training process, you can find that information here. Essentially, I use functional assessment and detailed measures in order to get accurate information pertaining to the behavior and contributing factors to keep the behavior strong. From phone conversations to 6-page document questionnaire forms, to follow up meetings, it is more information than could ever be typed on an online platform. I also ask my clients for videos and photos when applicable to best understand the behavior and situation. From my network of professionals in the training community, this is extremely standard.

Your Online Forum Post

               First, there is a post or comment where you initiate support of some kind. I have seen this presented in a variety of ways. I’ve seen the comment being very generalized like “my bird bites, please help” all the way to a 5-paragraph summary including a sentence of the bird’s history, a paragraph of the behavior, a paragraph about how emotionally drained the caretaker is, and a concluding paragraph with a sentence along the lines of “I love my bird, but if this isn’t resolved, I will have no choice but to rehome.” This is not to poke at people who have made these types of posts. When I first got into training it was because my Sun Conure Maui started having a hand aversion, a very common thing I work with for conure clients. I left these posts EVERYWHERE because in 2013, I was not as educated and experienced as I am today, and felt these same feelings. If anything, I commend people who are trying everything they can in order to get help for their bird! I see and receive these all the time within my practice.

               Unfortunately, when you leave comments about behavior asking for advice, it will not be enough information to completely understand the behavior. Behavior is influenced by many factors that may not even be related to you or your handling. Short posts, even multiple paragraphs, are too short to fully understand the behavior, which is why my training process has a lot of emphasis on getting as much information as possible. It also allows room for a lot of labeling to happen. “My bird is aggressive because it bites” is a label driven sentence. Labeling should not be used to describe behavior because it has a lot of room for interpretation, leading to varying advice. This sentence could be talking about fear-related aggression, overstimulation, mishandling, frustration, lack of skills, reaction to force being used/lack of choice being offered, and so much more. All of these have different approaches for behavioral modification. When we say an “aggressive” animal, we all think in our minds varying degrees. Some people may say a barking dog is aggressive, where someone else may think a biting dog is aggressive, and others may think a dog that killed someone is aggressive. When I see labels being used with no description from my clients, I stop them immediately and ask them to rather describe the bird’s body language, the environment, and their reactions. I do this so I can better understand the behavior rather than assuming the situation.

Forum Responses

               Once you have made your post, then you get your responses. Responses come from people with varying backgrounds. Some people are self-proclaimed “experts” because they do well with their own birds, or they have a large flock, or they have been doing this for 40 plus years, or any reason you’ll see that they will immediately post in defense when someone disagrees with their methods, or to prove their knowledge. In reality, behavior and modifying it is a true science. There are terminologies, practices, methods, and ethics behind training, and behavior can be studied and replicated. If someone does not have that education in the science behind behavioral modification, then their assistance should be taken with a grain of salt. It’s not to talk down to people who are good-hearted trying to help; these commenters always have the best interest in mind! But they are speaking on a topic they are not trained enough to speak on, which can lead to behavior getting worse, or simply no change.

               Commenters will swear that their methods worked for their bird, which is amazing! I am so glad that they were able to go through trail-and-error training and found a method that worked for their bird! They feel that from your short, generalized description that you are working with the same thing they were, so this method must work, right? Well, again, there is not enough information from both sides to accurately find correlations in behavior and other contributing factors to say this method will work for you. Also, could the method that was used by the commentor be using positive punishers, force, and other coercive measures and the behavioral change they saw is just escape/avoidance behaviors or learned helplessness? How will you know that is the case without the education to make those decisions? I think we all can say that if someone said “I was hitting my bird” or said “I gave the bird no choice, it must” then we can easily make that assumption. But for biting, what if someone said “when the bird bit, I shook my arm (earthquaking)” or “I pushed into the birds’ legs to teach them to step up” or “I clipped my bird’s wings so they were reliant on me to step up.” What would you think of each one of these? These are all training practices that involve positive punishers and other negative measures described above.

Behavior is unique per bird and situation. I never give the same plan and approach for similar behaviors to different clients because every situation is unique. There are too many factors and individualized reasons for a bird to be showcasing those behaviors. Following the advice that worked with someone else’s bird to your own is not the best option. I always say it worked for one, but have the methods and approached been tested on many? When working with a professional, they have tried the methods with a wide range of birds with different backgrounds, difference species, different ages, etc. to be able to be assured that the modification strategies and approaches they suggest have worked. It may not be a similar concoction from bird to bird because again, behavior is individualized, but methods should be successful from bird to bird.

If you are not getting comments and advice word-for-word exactly how to do it, you may be getting those generalized concepts. For boredom-related screaming for example, someone may simply say “increase enrichment” which we know is a true modification and management strategy. Perfect! But, is that all you need to do? Other factors could be cage size, the type of enrichment, adding foraging. We could also be unknowingly reinforcing the behavior, so then no matter how much enrichment we give, we aren’t going to get anywhere. When you and the person giving the advice do not know all the contributing factors, it can lead to generalized advice with holes in its effectiveness.

Also, the plans that are given to modify the behavior are not nearly as detailed as they need to be. Modification plans need to include reinforcing mechanics, the use of a bridge, shaping behaviors, what to do when behavior does not go anticipated. They also need to go over each small approximation you need to take in order to have the behavior be worked on. The training plan needs to reference DISC. The advice always leaves out the most valuable information that you will need. We need to be fully educated on what we are doing and the mechanics in order to be able to educate on bird on expectations, replacement behaviors, and to modify the behaviors in order to be consistent and decrease confusion and frustration.

All in all, asking people online and not hiring a professional give you generalized or incorrect advice. Generalized advice rarely helps anyone except when it’s “talk to your vet” or “talk to a professional trainer.” Could it work? Yes. I can’t say universally it couldn’t. Sometimes, it all just lines up perfectly, and you get a desirable enough response from when you try the advice. What it most often leads to is a lot of trial-and-error that can prolong training, not help behaviors, possibly start new undesirable behaviors, or simply not have any behavioral change; all of these options can be equally as unproductive and frustrating. Finding a professional and working with them will give you everything you need in order to be successful. You will have a mentor to walk you through the entire process. Remember birds live anywhere from 15 years to an entire lifetime. Investing in your companion so you live harmoniously and positive lives together is so important. No matter the price of the life you have, that animal is still life, and they deserve to be able to co-exist with us, just like we deserve a happy co-existence with them.