aggression? im not sure what this means!

[featheredfaery]

Im having trouble decoding my 1.5 year old male ekkies behavior towards me and my dogs lately!

To me, sometimes when im sitting on the couch he will hop on my chest and flap his wings right in my face! It feels aggressive but im really not sure! In addition to this he will also... im not sure how to describe it.... put his beak in my eyes. Like hes preening my eyelashes or something, again, it feels aggressive but hes never bit me, its just the most obnoxious set of behaviors and usually results jn him being put in his cage.

To the dogs he also "attacks" their eyes, chews on their ears, nails, even their teeth!! My dogs are very relaxed around him but i cant allow this to continue!! Any help wiuld be wonderful, im at my wits end!

 

[suley]

I'm not very experienced with birds but in any case it is very hard to say what his actions mean from the information provided.

I know with my male who is also 1.5 yrs old that any time he shows any kind of aggressive behaviour he is usually frustrated or trying to tell me something. Working out what he is trying to say can be difficult since they can't say it.
Just last night my brother was over and for some weird reason which i didn't get was he was trying to get into his mouth. Literally trying to stick his beak into his closed mouth and wouldn't let it go till he left the house.

Is he actually hurting or harming the dogs? If not i don't really see the issue. Sounds like he is just curious or maybe bored but not agressive.

 

[Anansi]

Hi, featheredfaery, and welcome to the Forum! The wing flapping depends on context, so it's hard to say without video or at least greater detail as to the occurrences. How often? What precedes the action? Whether vocalizations accompany the flapping? How long it continues? Is the wing flapping accompanied by any other movements or behaviors?

But take my Maya, for instance. Sometimes she'll flap her wings out of a desire to exercise. But other times she'll do so out of frustration toward Jolly (my male ekkie.) Particularly if he flies a little too close to her head as he's passing by. Lol! (Yeah, sometimes he acts like an obnoxious little brother. Hahaha!)

As for the whole beak in eye thing, I've heard something similar from one of our long-standing members, Mark (Birdman666). One of his birds regularly preens his eyelashes and nuzzles her beak into his eye. They've had this interaction for years, so I reckon it really comes down to how comfortable you are with the behavior. I, personally, am much too fond of my eyes to risk my ekkies' beaks being in such close proximity to them... despite the depth of my bond to both Maya and Jolly. I would simply worry that they are only one startled twitch away from inadvertently adjusting my capacity for depth perception.

As for his behavior with your dogs, however, I think you should curb that right away. For the safety of both parrot and dogs, your ekkie should never be allowed to do anything around their eyes or ears, especially. And for your bird's safety in particular, he shouldn't be allowed to stick his beak into the mouth of any mammal, human or canine. Birds have no defense against gram negative bacteria, and both the human and canine mouth is full of said bacteria. Such exposure could potentially make your ekkie very sick.

In fact, I personally would not even allow my birds any physical contact with a dog... if I had one. No matter how well-socialized either animal, all it takes is for that dog's predatory instinct to get the better of him just once to ruin everyone's day. And could you really blame him? It would simply be a dog being a dog.

 

[drlisaort]

Excellent points I'm glad you addressed Anansi... as I was thinking along the same lines. I do have a German Shepherd who is totally afraid of Oliver but she's very old (14) and runs away from him....but with that said, my son has a new baby boxer that I'd never, ever trust around my parrot.