Parrots with Gambling Problems...

Undoubtedly the greatest frustration I encounter in working as a behaviour consultant with parrot owners is that when it comes to accessing support and advice, I’m most often seen as the `last resort’ rather than the `first resort’. It’s difficult to explain to people what the potential consequences are when the response pathway for working on problem behaviours follows a whole bunch of old school thinking, homespun remedies, or intervention programs that completely fail to appreciate exactly what behaviour and learning are all about. Let’s be honest though – we live in a society that demands `quick fix’ solutions. I often use the `drive-through, take-away’ approach as the analogy of choice as it encapsulates well how we tend to go through life looking for the most convenient, least hassle, quickest, and cheapest solution to our problems. Hence why the popularity of a range of well-marketed online behaviour and training products and `solutions’ can be so appealing. It’s also why there is a proliferation of chat boards, discussion groups, and online forums for parrot owners – all providing a quick, convenient, and most importantly `free’ access point for the struggling parrot owner to find answers to questions that can be super complex at times. The dilemma for someone like me is that by the time I see the client in the consult room or in their home, I’m trying to clean up a dropped meat pie – it’s just a darn mess! I have a tendency to use a little saying that I learnt from Avian Trainer, Steve Martin - `Set Up for Success’ - in my approach to working with birds and their owners. Problem is, I’m usually the one who is the least set up to succeed. What got me really thinking about this was an article in the latest issue of the IAATE magazine `The Flyer’. The article is titled `Behaviour Fundamentals: Filling the Behaviour Change Toolkit’. It’s an absolute gem, written by one of my great mentors – Susan Friedman PhD. Here’s the final paragraph to ruminate on…

`One mystery that often surrounds problem behaviour is its very persistence. People may have a litany of failed behaviour-change programs by the time they turn to behaviour analysis for help. As they wade through the personal recipes of one Internet charlatan after another, people don’t realise that, with each failed attempt at behaviour change, the window of opportunity closes a little bit more because the problem behaviour is intermittently reinforced. Intermittent schedules of reinforcement build persistent gamblers, willing to behave again and again, without reinforcement, for that one jackpot that inevitably occurs. There should be nothing casual about intervening on an animal’s functional `misbehaviour’. Each intervention should start with a careful functional assessment, and the intervention should be designed to meet the needs of the animal, using the most positive, least intrusive methods. The greater our knowledge of the scientific principles and procedures of learning and behaviour, the more effectively we will meet the needs of the animals in our care.’

Don’t feed your parrot’s gambling habit. When problems start to surface, get support, advice, and a behaviour change plan worked out that uses an approach based on the science of learning, and the art of building a lasting relationship with your bird. Quick fix solutions are for gamblers – effective behaviour change takes work, commitment, and consistency of reinforcement schedules. Most importantly of all - it requires partnerships, between you and your bird, and sometimes, a consultant willing to walk the journey with you - not just serve you at the drive through.