Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!psuvax1!rutgers!soleil!stafford
From: stafford@soleil.UUCP (Bill Stafford)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Re: pet birds that have the fly of the house
Keywords: how messy?
Message-ID: <815@soleil.UUCP>
Date: 10 Oct 89 21:26:53 GMT
References: <2189@cbnewsl.ATT.COM>
Distribution: usa
Organization: Harris Semiconductor, Somerville, NJ
Lines: 37

In article <2189@cbnewsl.ATT.COM>, nora@cbnewsl.ATT.COM (nora.y.mclaughlin) writes:
> 
> I'd like to pose a question to all the pet bird people in birdland.
> I often hear of how people who own big birds such as Macaws, Cockatoos,
> Amazons, etc. let their birds run around the house on the floor as they
> follow them from room to room.  I'd love to let my amazon do this, but
> I am afraid I
> 'd be stepping in their droppings all the time.  Do you folks
> have this problem?  Is your bird paper trained or something, or do you
> just not care if the bird messes the floor?  Or do you follow them around
> the house with a paper towel in hand

My amazon, Nacho, is sort of potty trained.  When I first got him I noticed 
that he made a short, high pitched squeaking sound as a precursor to taking 
a dump.  When ever I had him off of his cage and he made this sound I either
put him back on the cage or distracted him until I could.  When I did take
him to the cage I said "let's go" over and over until he was in or on the
cage.

After a few months Nacho learned to associate the phrase with the action and
now will say "let's go" whenever he wants to go back to his cage, whether to
eat, dump or sleep.

This "lets go" solution works fine if Nacho is on my shoulder or perched
near me.  However, if I'm not around to take him back to the cage, he
will eventually just take a dump where ever he happens to be.  He is clipped
but I don't keep him caged so he quite often climbs down to the floor
and follows me around or attempts to locate me if I'm out of his sight.
So I occasionally have to clean up an accident, but they are not that
frequent and, in any case, I just could not keep a pet bird if it had to
be constantly caged.

[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]
[]    W.A.'BEEKY' STAFFORD            []  LuAnne, LuAnne                    []
[]    Harris Semiconductor            []  I know your heart don't love me,  []
[]    !rutgers!soleil!stafford        []  But the rest of you still can.    []
[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]