Continued from page 1
3. Reward
negative behavior and thus reframe
meaning of
behavior. When you reward
"bad" behavior,
behavior is no longer bad. The parrot bites your right hand and you reward him by giving a snack with your left hand. The relationship is circular in nature. It doesn't take long before
parrot loses his enthusiasm for biting you. He still very much wants
snacks you feed him after each attack, but he would rather not have to do all of
biting to get
goodies.
4. Blur
starting and stopping points, blur
difference between good and bad. The parrot has been biting one hand and you have been nuzzling
parrot and feeding him with your other hand. Now take
hand that has been doing
nuzzling and feeding and present it to
parrot for biting. When
parrot takes a playful nip, you nuzzle him with
hand he was previously gnawing on.
When you encourage
parrot to bite
hand that feeds him! His confusion will be obvious.
5. Change
reason for
reward. After
"break in" period you only give a snack when
parrot is gentle and playful. Little by little you thus change
reference behavior for getting
snack. Usually at this stage, anyone that moves slowly can play with
parrot with little concern about getting bitten.
I have found
above method, to be by far
fastest, easiest, and most humane way to tame a parrot, and calm down children that appear to have a violent streak.

Charlie Badenhop is the originator of Seishindo, an Aikido instructor, NLP trainer, and Ericksonian Hypnotherapist. Benefit from his thought-provoking ideas and a new self-help Practice every two weeks, by subscribing to his complimentary newsletter "Pure Heart, Simple Mind" at http://www.seishindo.org/anger/index.html .