Radio Free Blue & Gold: All Gus, all the time.

[Kentuckienne]

I couldn't find the thread about xmas presents, but I made some for Gus. He has a chewable wicker basket filled with wads of paper, some containing nuts in the shell, wrapped in newspaper to rip. Also new wood pieces on his coconut toy. But a new one is a whiffle ball, stuffed with colored paper strips, with nuts in paper wads tied to the holes and a stainless steel bell at the bottom. I hope he likes it.

 

[Kentuckienne]

Gus didn't care about his presents. What he wants us the paper they were wrapped in.
[ame="https://youtu.be/UGLwF1ViHcs"]https://youtu.be/UGLwF1ViHcs[/ame]

 

[SailBoat]

Gus didn't care about his presents. What he wants us the paper they were wrapped in.
https://youtu.be/UGLwF1ViHcs

Our Amazon headed for the Christmas Tree as soon as he realized the presents were there. His favorite Presents, the boxes they came in!

Love the Video!

 

[Kentuckienne]

I wonder if all the ripping today was significant. Gus got to tear up all the wrapping paper. Then he tore the nut-wrapping papers into bits, ignoring the nuts in most cases. He was allowed to tear up paper on the floor instead of on the perch table, which he seemed to like. I hung one toy on his cage top and he did regurgitate for a while. But then after supper, he sat for the most part and accepted skritches. He did do some lap burrowing and lots of finger head-shaking. He allowed himself to be turned on his back a little. What he did NOT do was puke all evening. Usually it's nearly impossible for his person to handle him in the evening because he pukes constantly and doesn't understand why his precious offerings are not accepted.

I'm wondering if he just hasn't been getting enough tear-up time. He usually gets to tear paper a bit, but not so much as today. We were worried that the ripping was encouraging nesting behavior because Gus will tear paper into teeny bits on his cage too, then push the bits around with his beak and act wiggy. Tomorrow I'll make sure he has a lot of tear-up-paper-on-the-floor time and see if the pattern continues. He's also been put in his cage earlier and the light turned out but the tv stays on in the next room so it's not the best sleep.

 

[Rival_of_the_Rickeybird]

Sounds like tearing, for Gus, is like golf for some people. Mellows 'em out. I was working on a pun with birdie in it but had no success.

 

[Kentuckienne]

[ame="https://youtu.be/k01CljOUsVg"]https://youtu.be/k01CljOUsVg[/ame]

More Gus for your entertainment. I gave him some phone book and he decorated the top of his cage. Is he making a nest, I wondered? Then he began heaving beakfulls of paper over the side. I got a little bit on video. He throws them and we both watch them flutter down.

 

[GaleriaGila]

He's so DAINTY and THOUGHTFUL and QUIET.
Like he's coming up with a parrot version of gravity theory.
And then he looks up and wonders if you saw that, too.
I love how he tosses them up into the air.
So sweet.
I love this vid.


He's a fan of Salt-n-Pepa? Or you are?

 

[SilleIN]

Funny Gus does about the same thing as Sugar. If I put anything on his cage, he'll play with it a while and once he's done, he'll clean up (throw everything off). I wish I was as diciplined

 

[Kentuckienne]

He's so DAINTY and THOUGHTFUL and QUIET.
Like he's coming up with a parrot version of gravity theory.
And then he looks up and wonders if you saw that, too.
I love how he tosses them up into the air.
So sweet.
I love this vid.


He's a fan of Salt-n-Pepa? Or you are?

What you said....you're right! Most likely he never had a cage with a top to sit on before....never had a phone book to rip on top of a cage before...this was likely the first chance he had to throw paper scraps down and observe them fluttering down.

I can't say what he's thinking, but he does seem to be thinking. I just realized he's exploring his world. And that most of the parrot books I read go about it differently. Most of what I read has to do with how to shape a parrot's behavior. Keeping them manageable, so they always step up, go in the cage, eat right, don't poop the table, don't chew the table, don't bite or scream....and all these are important things for a bird to know if it lives in a human world.

But this was different. This was Gus doing a new thing and observing the result, then doing it again and observing the result. Was it just interesting to watch the paper flutter because it was novel? Did it give him pleasure, the way I enjoy watching the flurry in a snow globe? Is he learning something about how the world works - some things drop like rocks and some flutter?

It makes me think that I give him toys to keep him busy, not to help him discover his world. Maybe he would enjoy a selection of sticks of different softness to see if he enjoys chewing one in particular. What about balls to roll down different sloped ramps, or u shaped ramps? I just have the idea of helping him discover the world but not a lot of ideas of how. Does anyone have a suggestion? Something their parrot has discovered or enjoyed?

 

[Kentuckienne]

Gus had adventures for New Year's Eve. First, a car trip in his travel crate to my sister's house, where we had a delayed Christmas get-together. We had a se one cage there, and she will parrot-sit now and then so they needed to meet. After the noontime party, the better half and I went in town and spent the night with a friend. We planned to get back early Sunday to have more time introducing sis to Gus, because he's much larger than the Amazon she used to keep for us and she was a bit nervous about the beak. But we had no time to work with the two of them.

She had been talking to Gus in his cage, and he was chirping ...Hi?...we aren't sure...and holding up one foot. She knows his prison cage history and couldn't stand it, so she opened the door and he stepped right up. He ran up to the shoulder, she worked out how to get him back on the cage, then he would hold up a foot and she would relent and pick him up. At one point he sat on the cage with his back to her...she touched his tail feathers, he didn't seem to mind, she touched his back feathers, he didn't seem to mind, she touched the back of his neck, he scratched his head and fluffed his feathers, she took a chance and scritched his head, he stretched back and let her rub his nostrils. By the time we arrived, they already were friends. The three humans took turns holding out arms while Gus climbed from on to another, happy to have the band back together.

It's not a very exciting story, I know. But I loved it that my sister felt so strongly about his mental state that she was willing to risk that big beak to take him out of his cage, and he was gentle and trusting enough to get a complete stranger to scratch his head. She didn't know the first thing about macaws, and he didn't know here from Eve, yet they found an understanding. Gus may puke a lot and like my husband best, and bite chunks out of the log walls, but he sure is a gentle, sweet little bird.

 

[GaleriaGila]

I get a little squeeze (a good one) in my heart when I hear Gus stories like this.

 

[wrench13]

And that's why I love a good GUS story!

 

[Rival_of_the_Rickeybird]

The History of Gus. Gustory.

 

[Kentuckienne]

Today I started spending more time with Gus. Opened his cage door in the morning, but he wanted Man to take him out, so he had to come out on his own. I made slight headway giving him potato and bits of egg white. After breakfast I went to Square One. Sat and read to him from the first of the Big Beak-O-Phobes thread. Put his tree stand in the bathroom so he couldn't see his cage, wrapped a towel around my arm with a macaw blue sweatshirt over it, grabbed some newspaper. Had to get The Man to ferry him to the bathroom. Mark is right - he was much better in a neutral space. I sat next to him and we both ripped up paper for a while. He is so CUTE - he tears off a strip and tosses it up in the air a little with his beak, then turns his head to watch it flutter down, then tears off another strip. After a while he got tired of doing that and let me pick him up. Ran to my shoulder, back to me knee, climbed down to the floor, decided he didn't like the tile floor, made me pick him back up. He even allowed me to scratch his head a little bit. When he got antsy we went on walkabout through the house and looked out all the windows. He sat with me again for a few minutes and let me scratch the neck, head, even under the chin before getting antsy again. This time I took him back to the cage. Went and changed shirts, came back, he charged. This time I remembered to snake my head back at him with wide open eyes and bob my head. Gus looked surprised, sat up, raised his head feathers up but didn't charge, bobbed his head slightly, then went to groom the cage top so I left him alone. Baby steps! Now I just have to be consistent .... work a little every day, set up stands and play spaces around the house, start clicker training, read Birdman666's posts every day, and let Gus have input into the pace of things. I do love that little bird!

 

[JBassset]

One thing my friend and I have been doing is going on outings with him where she handles him more than I do.

She came with me to pick him up and held him while we took his cage down and then helped put him in the box they used as a carrier. So she became the mean person who took him from his home. Good for me in a way as I was a neutral. But she's my backup!

So for happy outings she always comes with us. When we go to the vet she's never around.

The breakthrough was when we were going on an outing and I got a "SURPRISE! Drug test required" for work. So she dropped me off while I went to do that and took him to get coffee. We both figured it wouldn't be long and he was on his car perch in the back so he wouldn't attack her.

No, instead he wanted to climb into her lap at the coffee drive through and flirt with the girls there.

Now Romeo and Becca are best friends. He'll dance for her and let her pet him and such.

Just a thought but maybe if you're around for all the FUNSIES you'll become also favorite?

 

[Kentuckienne]

Just a thought but maybe if you're around for all the FUNSIES you'll become also favorite?

Man, I hope so. We haven't taken him anywhere yet - he doesn't like outside, and it's winter anyway. I was taking him out on the screen porch on warm days, which he likes. That's why I took some paper into the other room to rip up with him.

I wonder....when a parrot bonds exclusively to one human of a pair, how much of it is because the partner - who maybe didn't or doesn't want a pet bird in the first place - has the typical human reaction of "you don't like me? Then I don't like you" to the bird. The more standoffish the second person, or the more hesitant, maybe the bird bonds more to the favored human, which begins to cut the partner out of the scene (don't sit next to my human! don't touch my human!) which engenders more resentment... this is good advice, to persist in doing things with the parrot that the parrot enjoys. I will remember it.

 

[GaleriaGila]

Ms. K., I think you are describing the exact "vicious cycle" that has solidifed between the Rb and my ol' man (The RIVAL!).

 

[Rival_of_the_Rickeybird]

Absolutely rings true. Hey, I gave the little monster breaks, but he only gave me BITES.

*rim shot*

 

[Kentuckienne]

Absolutely rings true. Hey, I gave the little monster breaks, but he only gave me BITES.

*rim shot*

You must not be breaking the right parts.

 

[GaleriaGila]

Rival is laughing as I read him that!

He says he will try breaking other parts, which gets him a withering glance from me, which sends him for another beer.

The cycle has a few detours here and there, but it continues...