Biting & Aggression: How to Solve Problem Behavior with Clicker Training. The Bird School for Parrots and Other Birds

by Ann Castro

DOES YOUR PARROT BITE? THEN THIS BOOK IS PERFECT FOR YOU! It is also useful for implementing preemptive measures to avoid your bird becoming aggressive later on in life. Parrot behavior consultant Ann Castro shows you how to carry out behavior therapy with your aggressive birds at home. Step-by-step she explains all the measures that a behavior consultant would work through together with you. This book will teach you how to resolve biting and aggression problems with your birds using clicker training. The methods used in this book require the knowledge of Clicker Training. If you are not familiar with this, please also read my books “Clicker Training” and “More Clicker Training” for Parrots and Other Birds.

64 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 19, 2012

Reviews

[Erin · Rating 2 out of 5]

One of the sentences in the first chapter stood out to me: "during my personal consultations, I communicate much more diplomatically, of course. But for this book to be of maximum use to you, I must give you the best information in clear words leaving nothing open to interpretation."
As I read this book, I kept wishing she HAD written it a little more diplomatically. Why does a client deserve to be treated more kindly than a reader? It felt like she had extreme time constraints or wanted to keep the book as short as possible. It's not that I disagreed with the advice she gave- a lot of it was actually good advice- but the advice was abrupt, with little explanation or understanding for other unique situations people face. She abruptly gives advice, gives very little support for the advice, and then tells you that anyone who tells you differently is incompetent (yes, she does use that word at one point). There is very little info about who the author is or what her experiences have been and why she should be trusted above all others. A kind introduction about who she is and how she came to love parrots, why she has been called to help parrots, and what her experiences are would have set a much better tone for the book and would have gone a long way for convincing the reader to trust her. I am a volunteer at a parrot rescue and was looking for information on how to help some of the parrots who come there with aggression/biting issues, but this book didn't really help- it was too aggressive itself and felt like an attack- I felt like I wanted to defend myself even though I wasn't even the cause of these birds having issues- I can't even imagine how a bird owner dealing with these overwhelming issues would feel. I get that some parrot owners need a wake up call to realize that they are reinforcing the issues, but some understanding, encouragement, kindness, and hope would go a long way to create trust between the writer and the reader, and take the edge off of the harsh words.
For example, she says "keeping a parrot alone in a cage is cruel" and says that you must find a partner for the bird that is the same species, opposite sex as part of the resolution to biting/aggression.... I get why she might believe that birds shouldn't be alone, but i can't for the life of me understand why it would be a good idea for someone who can't handle their current parrot because of biting and aggression to adopt a SECOND parrot too (likely with its own set of problems to deal with) when they are already overwhelmed. She referred to techniques from her previous books a lot and says that those are required reading first to understand the methods used in this book. I already was familiar with clicker training, but I kept thinking.... This is such a short book, couldn't you have included a little bit of the info I needed in this book too? I figured if I found this book at all helpful that I would go order her first 2 volumes to read, but at this point I will just move on.