Passive aggressive Senegal behavior

I have a 7 month old Senegal. The best I can describe this new behavior is passive aggressive. She has started refusing to step as most young parrots often do as they enter independence. When I tell her to step, instead of stepping, she will lower her head and demand to be pet. If I am persistent with the request, she will eventually flip over on her side and lay in my hand.
I don't pet her when she does this in effort to give her positive reinforcement. My thinking is step first, offer a scratch as a reward after. Only this isn't working. This little bird is as stubborn as I am and has such a strong will.
I don't necessary like grabbing a foot and forcing a step; but sometimes I will do just that after she has refused to do it on her own several times. When I do this, she will flip over upside down and hang on my fingers upside down. It's like when she doesn't want to do something, she will just get floppy and be a wet noodle unless she gets what she wants.
She's passive aggressive now, but I see this being a serious issue later on when she is feeling less passive and more aggressive. How the heck do I correct this behavior?

(sorry, you really mae me smile...this is soooo aprrot)


Not sure who said it first (wrench?) but you have to out-stubborn the parrot on this one.
She wants one thing, you want the other... now stay patient and only reward what you want happening.


(and I know this is difficult, they are sooo great at being funny and distracting)


Good luck!

I don't know, I guess my personality is different I never have demanded a step up , in my 18 years of having parrots. I ask, I allow them to refuse. And the refusal rate in my house , probably less than once a month, and usually if I come back a few minutes later they are happy to step up. To me they are individual beings, and I try to give them as much free choice as possible... For me if this was my bird, I would spend some time saying hello, giving scritches, then ask for a step up. Then I go to a play area and play train. So to me , why demand a step up first, why not day hello first? I very very very rarely get denied a step up, they know they are going to go do something fun, get some treats, play, or get snuggles, so they want to. I have never spent any time with repetitive step up training either. It sounds like you have a wonderful playful affectionate parrot, why do you want to train that out of her? I don't think spending time goofy off with her, giving some scritches before you ask her to step up or train is going to lead to an agressive parrot. That's my take, we have lots of different types and views, and sometimes it's just good to look at things differently, it's helped me before, and I'm sure it will again. Ps I would never grab the foot and force this, then it's not training, it's a larger being forcing a smaller being....

I never implied that I don't give my bird affection or that I am trying to train the playfulness out of her. I give my girl plenty of love and she gets a lot of attention.

But when it comes to stepping up, she is not listening and instead is demanding something other than what I am asking. If I am not persistent in my pursuit, then she will quickly learn that she can get away with option a if she presents option b.

While I do think respecting a parrot's space is a must; I also think that boundaries need set up and requests should be respected on my end, too. (Especially during an age where parrots are learning to test their boundaries)

This girl is SMART and calculated. If I continue to laugh off her behavior and allow it, it will continue at inappropriate times and eventually become a problem if not corrected.

Happy your approach works for you! And I see where you're coming from with your post.. but I don't necessary agree with everything that you said.

Hi, not saying at all that you don't love or play with her. Have you tried the playing first though, before the training? I've worked with training difficult horses, that actually would bite, kick, smash you ect, and burning off excess energy first was extremely effective. Yep they aren't Parrots, just an example. It's sort of set yourself up for success approach. For my birds there are times of the day they are just better at being able to focus and learn stuff, so I pick those times for teaching. One of mine is a very very hormonal puberty boy right now about eight months I think, abd definitely pushing boundaries. He has to burn off energy, then get some snuggling, then he can focus. Is your bird flighted? I just would try switching up how you think and work with her right now, as you said your way is not working. And I think training should be fun. I hope to hear more about your mischievous girl.

I'm sorry, I thought that "Passive-Aggressive Behavior" and "Stubborness" were the first two personality traits listed under any written descriptions of Senegal Parrots...After over 2 years of being the mother of one I've just given-up on trying to get him to do anything he doesn't want to do...Unless he's doing something that could be dangerous to himself or one of the other birds, I just "Let Him Go..."

See that cute little 13 week-old baby photo of him I use as my avatar? Yeah, I got punked...

When she flops over in your hand that is actually a submissive behavoir and it's good that she does it. Let her grab your finger and just flip her over in the step up position while giving her a cue like "be a good bird" in a happy voice. Once you have her in an upright posistion on your finger then offer your other finger to give her scritches. She'll eventually learn the cue and learn that being on top of your finger is a good thing. Thats what I did with my senegal and she always steps up.

EllenD said:

I'm sorry, I thought that "Passive-Aggressive Behavior" and "Stubborness" were the first two personality traits listed under any written descriptions of Senegal Parrots...After over 2 years of being the mother of one I've just given-up on trying to get him to do anything he doesn't want to do...Unless he's doing something that could be dangerous to himself or one of the other birds, I just "Let Him Go..."

See that cute little 13 week-old baby photo of him I use as my avatar? Yeah, I got punked...

Click to expand...

Just to make a point here, since I got an email regarding my reply above, I WAS JOKING!!! This entire reply was me joking around...I thought that would be obvious, but apparently at least one person thinks that I just let my birds fly all over my house doing whatever they want to do and I'm "irresponsible"...It was a joke. I promise, lol...

And to get back to the purpose of this thread and the OP's reason for writing this in the first place, lol...If you're Senegal is that tame/trusting of you/submissive (and as Sandy mentioned, her flopping over on her back like she does is definitely her being purposely submissive to you), and your only issue is that she will not "step-up" when you want her to, my first question would be "What do you do whenever you want her/expect her to step-up for you?" Meaning what is her "cue" to step-up? It sounds like your Senegal just doesn't know when you want her to do so, like your "step-up" cue to her isn't clear...Usually most people will actually say "Step-Up" whenever they want their birds to step-up, but depending on how you trained your bird/if you actually formally trained your bird, there are many, many different physical cues that tell birds to execute the verbal command...Sometimes it's just the verbal command itself and that's it...So as mentioned above pretty-much by everyone who has replied to your post, in one way or another all saying pretty much the same thing, it doesn't sound like your bird knows exactly "when" to step-up...So I think you either need to "Hit the Reset-Button" with her, go back to step #1 with teaching her to "step-up", and make it completely clear "when" it is you are wanting her to step-up, OR if there never was a physical cue for her to do specific things (clicker, verbal command, etc.), then you need to just start-over and re-train her using a clear cue that you'll do any time you want her to step-up for you...Then obviously lots and lots and lots of positive-reinforcement with both much verbal-praise and her favorite treat whenever she steps-up for you when you ask her to/give her the cue...

In all seriousness (now I'm NOT JOKING, just in-case my "friend" is reading this, lol), Senegals are typically quite stubborn birds, all Poicephalus are, and they usually despise doing anything that they don't want to do. That's why using a ton of BOTH verbal-praise and the favorite treats every single time she does what YOU want her to do, WHEN you ask her to do it, is so very important. Sometimes they are so stubborn, as well as so very intelligent, which is a scary combination, lol, that they will decide that the reward isn't worth doing the requested action. So it's a matter of being very patient with them and then just repetition with the training...As long as what you are asking and when you are asking it are both completely clear, she'll get it eventually...