Dogs and Parrot Cages

I currently have 3 dogs (2 GSD's and 1 Black Lab) and 3 birds (2 GCC's and 1 Grey). When unsupervised the birds are seperated by a gate from the dogs but are allowed to interact (birds in their cages only) when someone is in the room with them. Before the birds i had a mini rex rabbit that had a very large cage in the room and the dogs were not restricted. My youngest gsd loved to lay on the couch and watch the rabbit and would put its nose up to the cage whenever the rabbit moved. I never had to worry about harm coming to the rabbit (the other two never cared other than for the longest time my female shepherd always pulled the "come look at the rabbit" when anyone new came over).

When i brought the conures in the dogs watched them but didnt really care to bother interacting with them, so i didnt actually have a gate barring the dogs from the room.

What caused the gate to be put up is when Ziggy came home. My youngest loves her, he watches her and will run up to the cage when Zig is on the door or on the bottom of the cage. But Zig loves to taunt him and will bite at him, which will cause him to bite the cage. The cage is thick enough its not going to break. So far while supervised the worst thing thats happened is ziggy turned after snapping and my pup pulled 2 tail feathers out(she left him along for a month after that) and one of the pups got a tap on the nose (no blood or harm amazingly)

my question is do i leave them seperate while unsupervised or let them interact and learn their lessons? just to say again there is no chance of the cage breaking.

My gut says leave them seperated

I think you answered your own question.

I agree with your gut. When both pets cannot be trusted to ignore one another there will always be danger. Add to that that if Ziggy were to somehow get a leg out of the cage or a wing he could be severely injured, that a bite from a grey is no laughing matter especially to such a soft part of a dog's body, and that dog saliva (along with other mammals) is toxic to birds, and I would say that allowing them near one another when you are gone is asking for heartbreak.

With that said, depending on how well trained your dogs are, there could be another solution. Perhaps instead of blocking off the whole door you could get one of those puppy fences and just block off the cage area. It all depends on the dogs. I also suggest you train your dogs to leave the cage area alone with or without the barrier. They are smart breeds, and dogs with a good training foundation who understand when they are being taught something should have no trouble learning to leave a certain area alone. My malamute learned not to go into the livingroom when she was 10 years old, even though she had always been allowed in before (she was incontinent and the livingroom was carpeted). I would also say that if you have not established a teaching relationship with your dogs where you can train this concept fairly easily, you need to do so RIGHT NOW because your house is a disaster waiting to happen otherwise, with birds and dogs. Any bird owner needs to know 100% that no matter what is going on they can stop their dog from doing whatever he is doing. NO MATTER WHAT, and without being able to physically reach the dog. A 100% instant reaction to the word "no" or "leave it" is the only way dogs are safe to be around birds, and I believe this is true even when the birds are caged, though the risk is lesser then.

Best of luck!

So i have been working with both of them (dog and bird) when i am around my pup knows he cannot bite the cage and if i tell him no or leave it he will walk away (unhappy about it but away). i've also been working on Zig to stop teasing the dog as well and she has gotten good about it with me right there. it does go out the window though when i'm out of the room.

Sounds like a good start. My dog is not allowed to approach the cages at all. He is very reliable, but that is because of firm boundaries. He is not even allowed to look at a bird that is near him, and he KNOWs that. I was laughing at a picture the other day where he is standing right next to some budgies on a play stand, and very deliberately keeping his eyes elsewhere! He loves the birds and gets very excited when a new one comes home, but he knows they belong to me and it is only by my will that he is allowed to be around them.

My deal with socializing parrots around dogs is supervised interaction...

Hold the bird, let the dog come up and sniff... Your parrot will let him know in short order where the boundaries are. And one good nip on the nose will discourage any further incursions. (Most don't put or keep their nose in harms way, but a hand on the dog prepared to push him away is generally effective.)

I'd keep the gate up.

Birdman666 said:

My deal with socializing parrots around dogs is supervised interaction...

Hold the bird, let the dog come up and sniff... Your parrot will let him know in short order where the boundaries are. And one good nip on the nose will discourage any further incursions. (Most don't put or keep their nose in harms way, but a hand on the dog prepared to push him away is generally effective.)

I'd keep the gate up.

Click to expand...

I've done this with each of my dogs. They've all gotten a good pinch on the nose and that's all it took. They give the birds a wide berth. However, I have an advantage in that I have dogs with almost no prey drive.

I must agree with something I read some time back b4 I came to the forum that a dogs natural instinct is to hunt, a bird left alone with a dog well trained or not is a recipe for disaster. Candi's lil boy ( Toby ) is very smart and has been great at everything he's been taught in his now 18yrs in human yrs except he still will bother bathroom trash cans w/o fail. I know there is no relevance in the bathroom trash, but I'm just saying be careful.

Not all dogs have the hunt instinct and they can be trained. I wouldn't leave my birds out alone with the dogs because I'd worry about my mac biting them, but I don't worry about my dogs even one iota with my birds. I have had dogs though in the past that I wouldn't trust with birds for one second, even with training.

The only hunting our dogs ever did around bird cages was the "hunting for food the bird dropped." Which actually, helped with some of the cleanup. Less waste.

(Unless you count the dog poop from eating all that bird food. )

Our dog hunts flies, bunnies, other bugs, squirrels, shadows, lazer pointers, but he does not hunt birds. Not allowed, and he knows it.

We actually had a bird that used to CALL the dogs. They came running too! Cuz the bird entertained itself by feeding the dogs, and would actually repeat commands the bird knew that the dog knew.

COME HERE!

SIT!

DOWN!

ROLL OVER!

GOOD BOY!

BAD DOG!

Trust me, stuff like that prepared me for having conures skateboarding across my living room coffee table later in life...

My Dad's macaws used to sit outside and call the neighbor's dog. Stupid dogs came running every time. Couldn't find anything. Left again. Bird Called the dogs again. Stupid Dogs came running... Who needs toys when you have a dog to entertain yourself?!

Or a cat...

Wanna have a "cat jumping" contest?! It's your turn to scream first!

"What?! It's normal."

Hahaha! I am waiting for one of my birds to learn to throw food to the dog - I suspect Scout will start soon.

For now definitely separate them when no one is around to watch. Continue to work with them but as much as I think my dogs won't do something, I still don't trust them. When we brought Buddy home, his cage was to flimsy so we got a bigger, stronger cage. I am not too concerned about the dogs getting the cage opened or getting the bird out of it, or knocking it over.

Now for the comedic fun. This is Canelo 20 minutes after Buddy arrived at our house in March. It took him 20 minutes to realize something new was in the house, the pugs had already smelt the cage over and had moved on to bones.



This is Canelo's new thing, eat what the bird drops. I open the cage door every morning. When the pig started this, I started pushing the door closed but not locking it, until I watched Canelo open it. Well this has turned into a game for Canelo and the bird, Buddy now throws food to Canelo. So now I have to tell him to get out of the cage and lock it but he listens.

SilverSage said:

Hahaha! I am waiting for one of my birds to learn to throw food to the dog - I suspect Scout will start soon.

Click to expand...

Once they discover they can get the dog to do stuff by feeding it, it becomes somewhat compulsive...

It's rather amusing to watch an Amazon parrot calling a dog by name, and not only getting the dog to do tricks for it, but rewarding the dog by dropping food on the floor.

NON PARROT PEOPLE JUST DON'T GET THIS STUFF...

Taw5106 said:

Well this has turned into a game for Canelo and the bird, Buddy now throws food to Canelo. So now I have to tell him to get out of the cage and lock it but he listens.

Click to expand...

THERE'S THAT KILLER DOGGIE HUNTING INSTINCT IN ACTION...

Tossing food to the dog does tend to be entertaining for a bird. Seems to be something like you or I going down to the duck pond and throwing bread in the water...

TUSK however, didn't throw food to the cats. HE PELTED THEM WITH IT...
He politely fed the dogs. Absolutely tormented the cats... Why?!

"TUSK however, didn't throw food to the cats. HE PELTED THEM WITH IT...
He politely fed the dogs. Absolutely tormented the cats... Why?!" - Birdman

ROTFL!!!

Taw5106 said:

"TUSK however, didn't throw food to the cats. HE PELTED THEM WITH IT...
He politely fed the dogs. Absolutely tormented the cats... Why?!" - Birdman

ROTFL!!!

Click to expand...

Actually, my sister and I had quite the fight over it. It was christmas, and Tusk let himself out of his cage, got into her Christmas decorations AND THREW THEM ALL AT HER CATS... NEEDLESS TO SAY, I HAD A NUMBER OF BROKEN THINGS TO REPLACE. AND THE FACT WAS, HE DID IT ON PURPOSE TO TORMENT THEM... AND ACTUALLY TAUNTED MY SISTER. "CAN'T CATCH ME, AND I'LL BITE YOU IF YOU TRY!"

He avoided capture all afternoon because my sister didn't know the "Do I have to go and get my towel?" trick... and bluffed her and her son with his beak.

When I got home from work, that was kind of the last straw, and it was pretty much time for me to move out...

Tusk also locked the cats INSIDE the macaw cage one day. Slammed the door on them and latched it. Then sat on top of the cage dropping stuff on them, while doing his poofy bird dance...

My Red Fronted macaw tended to join in the fun... so she wasn't much better - BUT ONLY WITH THE CATS!

OMG that is hilarious, Sylvester and Tweety material but with two parrots. Was the macaw in the cage with the cats??? Parrots are great! Buddy now throws food at husband when he's passing the cage. And yes he's baiting the dogs. I made popcorn and husband left the bowl on the couch. I went in the kitchen, husband starts yelling. Buddy was in the popcorn bowl, he'd eat a bite of corn and toss it. The dogs were all over it.

Taw5106 said:

OMG that is hilarious, Sylvester and Tweety material but with two parrots. Was the macaw in the cage with the cats??? Parrots are great! Buddy now throws food at husband when he's passing the cage. And yes he's baiting the dogs. I made popcorn and husband left the bowl on the couch. I went in the kitchen, husband starts yelling. Buddy was in the popcorn bowl, he'd eat a bite of corn and toss it. The dogs were all over it.

Click to expand...

No. Maggie was sitting on top of her cage. The cats went inside to sniff around, and Tusk slammed the door on them and locked them in. Then Tusk, Sweepea, and Lila had a little "Cat Jumping" contest...

(Which was really entertaining until my sister walked in the room...)