-=> Quoting Kathy Johnson to Pete Hopping <=-
 KJ> Y'know, once you've gotten a parrot and learned a bit about the
 KJ> details of the actual behaviors that cause the most people the most
 KJ> problems, you SHOULD! This was a great post with a lot of information
 KJ> in it. I'm going to save it.
Well! Thank you very much for the compliment!
 KJ> In fact, I'm going to PRINT it and give it to someone. I sold a baby
 KJ> conure to a young lady last January, and she's had MAJOR problems
 KJ> recently because the bird is a nonstop screamer. I KNOW she did what
 KJ> you mentioned and "rewarded" the bird for screaming despite my advice
 KJ> and warnings, and she's gotten evicted from her apartment over it. I'm
Yeesh! I don't know how loud conures are, but that seems extreme to
get kicked-out of an apartment due to a screaming bird...
But one of the things that was drummed into my head while in college
training to be a counselor was "find out who owns the problem."
In this case, is it the conure that is the problem, or is it the
conure's owner that is the problem? Sounds like both of them own
the problem and both of their behaviors must be changed in order
to eradicate the screaming. This is why careful observation must
be done before a plan is put together to modify the bird's
behavior, as the owner's behavior also has to change.
So, if it were me in your shoes, I'd try very hard to get the owner
to understand how her behavior towards the bird is making the
problem worse instead of better. She also needs to know how to
continue doing whatever techniques you are going to use to get
the bird to stop the screaming, since if you are successful
in modifying the screaming behavior, the owner has to keep doing
whatever it is, and not drop back into the problem behavior on
her part.
 KJ>But your advice and observations are dead-on accurate, and I really
 KJ> think that with a little more bird-specific info thrown in,
 KJ>you could  write a great best-seller on bird behavior! (If you knew
 KJ>what I know and can't tell about the author of the bird
 KJ>behavior book you have right now, you'd agree!! 
Heh... about the only thing I do know right now is that all parrots
will make noise, and that many parrots need to chomp on stuff. :)
As a novice, of course, it is difficult for me to seperate the
wheat from the chaff, so to speak, as I read. I did see a few things
in the book you're referring to that I felt did not make sense from
a behavior modification theory standpoint, but not being familiar
with parrots, it's difficult for me to assess the valididty of what I
was reading. Sigh...
... ORGASM.EXE not found  (A)bort (R)etry (F)ake it (W)hine
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