Tinkerbell Legacy - Living with a flying parrot

Tinkerbell Legacy - Ranting 02 (bird proofing of home)
Tinkerbell Legacy - Having a flying parrot - Ranting
02

Started on evening 11 Feb 05 in cybercafe somewhere in
VangVieng.

Yesterday when I got here, I moved into the most
expensive place because I was tired and liked some
luxury. It cost 22USD, and worth 3 times more.

Today feeling a lot better, I moved into a 4 USD
lovely local kind of bungalow deciding to be closer to
nature and just across the river and 700 meters
further from town. Crossed by a bamboo and plank
bridge and about 80 meters long and wobbles when you
walked on it.

Then this evening in my room that I suddenly thought
of the absence of TV and BBC and CNN. A crescendo of
sounds hit me from outside the hut. At least 6
different kind of frog calls tried to compete with 2
geckos and lots of insect calls.

Cost by being close to nature is that to reach the
internet cafe, I got to walk lighted up by the tinest
crescent of moon and lights from all the stars. Yes,
the bridge gets more wobbly at night.

12 Feb

Rented a motorbike for 5 usd to ride around a bit.
Vang Vieng area is charming, rustic and more beautiful
than I thought. I think I will stay on a few more
days.

Then in the evening when hack in town, saw a local pet
parrot with wings clipped and hanging out on a string
of fairy lights around a short column. She is small,
looks like a ringneck but the head is purplish with a
green body. Tail was badly plucked. This must be a
local Laotian parrot.

She moved away from me as I approached. So I bought a
banana pancake, stood next the the parrot and started
to eat. She came down and was fed bits of banana and
pancake. She then allowed me to give her head rubs
and beak rubs.

She ate her fill and then moved up out of my reach.
And here I am in another cybercafe to continue.

Tinkerbell Legacy - Having a flying parrot - Ranting
02

If there are some areas in your mutual living space
that you do not like her to go to, you need to create
areas that you like her to go to and that she likes
too.

Within the flight area at home, you should provide for
several perches and areas that she can play in. That
will be the areas that she will normally do her toilet
in. I had a parrot tower. There are perches I made
for her. I placed rattan baskets with iron chains to
weigh the basket down. The perch she loved the most
was the very wobbly rattan cirle suspended by a rope.
She would fly off this perch making it spin and land
back on the spinning circle. It is strange the first
and cheapest simplest perch I made for her was the one
she most loved.

If you have to chase her away, there must be a few
places she can fly off to. You also train into her to
fly to those alternate areas on cue. I talk on this
after I get into clicker training.

Then, if necessary, divert her away from some areas
that you do not want her to go to.

You must have bought some toys that she absolutely
hated and kept that away. Rejoice in your good
fortune. Those same toys will act as voodoo charm to
ward her away from places she should not go to. I had
a rotating floor mounted fan that she went to once. It
was totally grilled but she shitted. I did not wanted
a second time.

One of the doll she feared was placed on that fan. A
little stuffed cartoon dinosaur kept Tinkerbell away.

Little candy stripped hula hoops, little sashimi
bamboo roll mats were placed at forbiddened areas.

If eventually she got over her fear, you just have to
find new things that she does not like to keep her
away from those areas.

Continued 12 Feb

There may be some areas that you tolerate her to be
on. Sometimes when you have the energy, you chase her
away from those areas. Sometimes, you pretend that you
did not see her there.

Please do not misunderstand that the parrot is always
trying to go to forbidden places. Most of the time,
she remained at her play areas. She may fly from one
to another play areas. In most cases, she will fly to
me when I call (recall training after I talk on
clicker training). She may decide to fly to me even
though not called. I try to be tolerant of that. If
she is your friend, is it not all right for her to
come to you when she felt like it? Is your friend
only able to get to you only when you want her to come
to you?

I allow her to come. I talk with her for a while ,
scratch her head and then ask her to fly away if I am
busy. If I am not busy and can postpone whatever I do
until later, I will play with her and allow her on my
shoulder to watch what I am doing (allowing on
shoulder is a subject to be trained for, in another
letter).

If she kept returning and I am very busy, she gets put
back into the cage until I am free.

She is not 24 hours out of the cage and flying about
all the time.

In the morning, we spend about an hour together before
I go to the office. She then goes into the cage. Now
and then, my wife let her out for a while. She stayed
in the cage most of the day. After work when I get
back, she is again out of the cage, with the door
opened so she can go in and out as she wanted.

Normally, she will then go out with me and my wife to
the park or nearby school to fly in her harness for a
while. Should we go out for dinner, she joined us
most of the time.

Then back in the apartment, there will be some
training and play with her. Sometimes I choose the
time. Sometimes she choose the time.

Then at about 1030pm to 11 pm, I dim the lights
indicating that she fly to her bedroom. She liked to
sleep in my bookshelf which I screened off. When she
go to sleep, I can cover that bookshelf and switched
on the lights again.

She remained in her bedroom bookshelf until she woke
up in the morning. She never shit in her bedroom.

The truly dangerous areas were made safe. The flight
area is not 100% safe. There are some electic wires
and cables about. She never seemed to go there. Most
of the time, she was watched as a compromise.

One very important point is that she did not know how
to fly when she first came to me. In the first two
weeks, I trained and trained her in 'step up' for her
to step up on my finger. If your parrot does not step
up for you on your finger, you should not consider
letting her fly yet and fly in the house. Tinkerbell
was also trained to step up on a stick.

This is so important that you should not demean the
'step up' in form of punishment to her. You should
not repeatedly make her do step up to punish her.

Your parrot must be trained to understand 'NO'. She
will understand, but may not respect that all the
time. More will be said later under training and
after I describe what I perceive of their psychology.

As a friend to a friend, there are acceptable and
unacceptable behaviours that you can expect from your
parrot.

If you do catch her in an unacceptable act, you MUST
not allow that and you must scold her immediately,
ONLY IF YOU CATCH HER IN THE ACT. If you do not see
her in the act and only saw the results later, DO NOT
SCOLD HER AT ALL.

If you are afraid of your parrot, she should not be
allowed to fly yet. A respect for her beak is
acceptable, but if you are afraid, that parrot must
not fly until you trained her enough AND no longer
afraid of her. More of this later on.

Warmest regards

Shanlung

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