Toilet trained my jenday!

I've got Alex to the point where he will not poop on anything anymore, it's great! He will return to the cage to do his business now. Unless it's something really interesting he is up to, in which case we do still have the occasional accident. I carry him back to the cage every half hour just in case, but even the need for that is starting to lessen. I simply started off my praising him every time and giving him treats/attention he went in the cage and he picked it up from their... Clever little guy!

This is very important to us and very helpful at the moment. I had an issue with my previous housemates (Long story short, one decided to get physical in an argument) so we have been hopping from friends house to friends house looking for long term accommodation. Lucky for us, a place opened on the uni's residences so we took it. I am fortunate to be allowed to have Alex on res! We have some rules to abide by, including the 'no pooping on things' rule, but other then that we couldn't be happier to be settled after a long and stressful week! Two very happy campers here, both avian and human!

He loves the new room. Outside their is a tree which some rosellas frequent and roost in, and he loves to get on the floor by the sliding door (we have a double glass door instead of a window, perfect for coming and going at night in typical student fashion, without waking the house!) and strutting his stuff to the other birds. Their is also a crow that hands around, and Alex does not like him at all. He backs down and almost hisses when he sees him. At least he's not afraid of it I guess.

Just had to share!

Well done, a lot of time and effort would have went into achieving such a feat.

Wow, that's great! Does Alex actually fly to his cage when he needs to go potty? Or do you carry him to his cage to do his business?

PS: I'm glad to hear that you've found such a great place to settle in = )

Thanks guys!

Surprisingly he did most of the work himself Clint. Once he got the gist that I didn't like being pooped on, or having my stuff pooped on (running around with wetwipes after him constantly did get annoying) he seemed to get that it wasn't appropriate. Then it was just a matter of redirecting the behaviour to the cage and letting him know it was ok, even encouraged to do so in there, so he learnt that pooping itself wasn't the problem, just where he does it! I didn't want to accidentally start the issues some people have with their dogs and toilet training (eg, that going to the toilet anywhere is bad) so I let him learn in his own time

Most of the time now he will fly back lex, though I do carry him back every half hour or so just to make sure Eventually I doubt I will even need to do that! He does have one problem with it, if he finds something interesting, sometimes he will forget to fly back to the cage! I did have an incident before today where he was playing with my earrings and found them so interesting he didn't fly back to go! but, thats been the first accident in a few weeks, so i really can't complain.

It's been interesting. I couldn't teach him like a dog with praise and scolding. It had to be on his terms and he had to want to do it. If he pooped out of the cage, it was just a matter of carrying him back to it and hoping he'd get the message. I'd take him back every 15 mins in the beginning and give him a treat when he went. he already knew going out of the cage was not on, as he seemed to pick up on my frustration when he did so!

He's also trained to do afew other things over the last few months. I've taught him to fetch pens and medication on command. (The medication thing was why I'm allowed to have him here actually, apparently it classes him as an assistance animal.) because sometimes I get lazy, lol! It's funny watching him weighed down with a pen dragging it over to you though. He loves to help out and make people happy!

Congratulations on the achievement! It is wonderful how quickly they can pick things up. I have my BCC Tootsie partially trained. I can hold her over a certain spot and tell her to "go poop" and she will. She knows that pooping on me is not welcome but unfortunately she has not put it together in her head to fly back to her cage until after she does her business. If I miss her pre poop shimmy, it usually goes (poop)-squawk!-(fly) *sigh* (get a clean shirt).

That's awesome! I want to potty train Puck. How old is Alex? Puck is 4 already and I don't know if it'll be as easy as when they're young.

Ah! I never thought of that James, I should have tried to teach a command to go with it in case I want him to go somewhere that isn't the cage! Oh well, I suppose I can build one into it eventually! Tootsie sounds adorable! give her some scratches from us

Hi Remy, Alex is roughly 6 months now I believe. Probably more like 7, maybe 8. I would have to go check! I don't think age will be a limiting factor, older birds seem to be just as keen to learn as younger ones. I'm not sure how to really go about it to be honest. Alex just picked up that I didn't appreciate being pooped on, and I just started giving him treats for going in the cage when I carried him back (every 10-15 mins to start with, now it's more like every 30 mins to an hour, he usually flies back himself now anyway). No reinforcement positive or negative for pooping anywhere else, treats for going in the cage. I'm not good at this parrot training thing, Alex does most the work himself!