Several months ago, I received a call
from a local woman named Angie, who said she had a behavior problem with
her parrot, Chico. The bird was, she said, severely
phobic. When I asked what species it was, I was quite surprised to hear
it was a Yellow naped Amazon, since in all the years that I have been
doing parrot behavior work, I had never even heard of a phobic Yellow
nape. With great interest and anticipation, I scheduled an in-home
consultation.
Clarification is needed here, because
this is not a case study about the first recorded case of a phobic
Yellow nape, since this bird was not phobic at all. However, this indeed
did turn out to be a fascinating case, and I learned a great deal from
it. One of the most important things I learned was how difficult it can
be, sometimes, to differentiate between phobic and non-phobic behaviors
– and how incredibly important it is to be correct.
Arriving at Angie’s house, I was
ushered into the living room and looked around – couple of budgies,
but no nape in sight. Angie explained that the patient was upstairs and
she would bring her down whenever I wanted. I requested that we talk
first, and we sat down.
Taking a Behavioral History
First, we discussed in painful
detail various management issues such as diet and hours of sleep, etc.
After all, management has a great deal to do with behavior. For
instance, just like with kids, lots of sugar in the diet often means
lots of hyperactivity in a parrot, and that hyperactivity often
manifests as aggression – in the form of biting or excessive noise.
(So why are you feeding all those grapes and apples every day? Certainly
not because they are nutritionally good for the bird! And don’t you
just love all that screaming??) Once that was done, I then began the
more difficult part of the interview – endeavoring to get a detailed,
coherent history of what had happened with this bird.
Taking a behavioral history is
painstaking work and I again ask extremely detailed questions. I
struggle valiantly – not only to understand, but also to get a
reasonable time line of the progression of events. (How long ago did
the behavior start? Did any event seem to initiate it? Does the bird act
differently with different people? If so, who, why and how? Etc,
etc, etc, ad nauseum). Needless to say, I don’t charge by the hour
when I do consultations!
Chico’s
History
According to the information
Angie had received from the nape’s previous owners, Chico
was a 12-year-old female who loved the husband and hated the wife. Since
they had unwisely allowed her full flight (NOT a good move with an
aggressive bird), she was flying and attacking the woman, who was not
pleased with the situation. Consequently, they sold her to Angie three
years ago.
Once settled into her new home, Chico
initiated the same aggressive patterns toward her new flock – she
adored Angie’s husband Frank, and detested Angie. When the bird
started flying at her six months later, she had the wings clipped. Two
weeks after being groomed, Chico jumped off her cage at Angie in
yet another murder attempt, but this time she crashed to the floor. Chico
started changing her behavior after that incident. Instead of
detesting Angie, she started acting afraid of her. As her fear behaviors
grew, she then stopped snuggling with Frank and became more and more
apprehensive with him as well. Within a couple more months, she had
become frantic whenever she saw either of them, throwing herself around
her cage in an effort to escape.
Thinking that she would settle down
around her own kind, Angie sent Chico to stay with an amazon
breeder, where she remained for almost a year. Nevertheless, Angie
brought her home 6 months ago, when the breeder told her the nape was
not doing well in her environment. It seemed that Chico acted
terrified of the other amazons as well, screaming and thrashing around
in her cage.
Back Home Again….
Back in more familiar territory, Chico’s
strange behaviors continued to worsen. She began to hurt herself as her
condition disintegrated, damaging her wing tips as she flailed, making
them bleed repeatedly. Angie finally put her cage around the corner in a
guest room, on the floor behind a bureau so she could see no one –
this was the only way to keep her from screaming and throwing herself
around, and further injuring herself. Chico’s bizarre behaviors
had been getting progressively worse over a 2-year period; then Angie
called me.
The Meeting
After much discussion, I asked to
meet Chico. Based on her experience with the bird, Angie went
upstairs, wrapped the screaming amazon in a towel and brought her down.
Sitting on the couch with her small bundle, she softly talked and
soothed the bird until the nape relaxed and stopped growling. Angie then
placed her on the living room rug as I requested – I didn’t want her
falling and re-injuring herself. Doing my best to get as low as
possible, I laid down on the floor on my stomach and tucked my hands out
of sight. Phobics are frequently terrified of human hands and I wanted
to be as non-threatening as possible. Angie unwrapped her a couple of
feet from me, and Chico was free of restraint.
Instead of running away screaming, Chico
looked at me steadily. Talking softly to her, I looked down and away
quickly, then tilted my chin down a little and looked up at her. I was
using my body language to tell her I was not a threat. She stayed put,
but her body language relaxed a tiny bit. I moved slightly but she didn’t
bolt. I uncovered my right hand, then my left [which is generally the
scarier of the two, perhaps because more humans are right-handed] and
she stood firm. This was definitely not a phobic bird! The owner was as
startled as I was, saying that in the last 2 years, she’d never seen
the bird not be afraid of someone. (But then, not too many people
had approached her on their stomachs, I thought.)
Moving very slowly and talking quietly
the entire time, I slid my hand over to her on the floor. Amazement
filled me as Chico put her head down in an obvious solicitation
– she wanted her head petted! Chico and I communed for a few
minutes, and then Angie joined us, also on her stomach. Angie was
totally confused by the difference in the bird, and frankly, so was I.
To Angie’s total delight, Chico responded the same way to her
– no flailing and screaming, head down for scritches. As they
interacted on the floor, I sat back and watched and wondered. The only
time Chico showed any sign of fear was when Angie offered the
side of her hand to have the bird step on. Chico scrambled away,
growling… then allowed herself to be approached again. Angie tried the
same maneuver again with the same result and I wondered more.
Eureka!
We then allowed Chico to
just wander around a little on the floor, and I watched her walk.
Something was wrong with her gait! Lumbering along… but slightly
differently from the rolling waddle I expected from an amazon, she
reached the ladder to her playstand. When she began to clamor slowly up
the ladder, I realized what was different about her movements. Her feet
were flat, with toes extended stiffly – she was climbing the ladder
flat-footed. Calling Angie’s attention to this, I suggested
that this was not a phobic bird.
Instead, I theorized that Chico
had a physical problem and was reacting to pain. Angie admitted that she
was always trying to get Chico to step onto her hand, and the
bird would scream and fall backwards to avoid her. Watching the bird use
her feet, I suggested that Chico’s physical impairment
(whatever it was) was making normal responses impossible for the bird.
When asked to step up, she couldn’t grip Angie’s hand with her feet
so she would fall. When she fell, she hurt herself – and that repeated
pain had gotten connected in her mind with the humans in her flock –
hence the fear response at the sight of a person.
"So that is why she stopped sitting
on the perch in her cage!" Angie exclaimed. "She just stands
on the bottom of the cage, and that’s been going on for over a
year."
Call the Vet!
The next obvious step was to get Chico
to an experienced avian vet, to start the slow and probably expensive
process of trying to identify the physical etiology for her progressive
behavior change. Suspecting from experience that this case would
probably be extremely difficult to diagnose, I warned Angie of the
likelihood that the vets would not be able to give her a definite
diagnosis – but vetting was clearly needed.
Idiopathic Condition
= We Dunno
Angie called me a couple of weeks
later to say that the avian vet agreed there was a physical problem with
Chico, but radiographs and bloodwork had given no answers. Chico’s
screaming and flailing episodes were getting worse, and Angie was
seriously concerned about the bird’s quality of life and beginning to
consider euthanasia. I asked that she keep me posted, and to talk with
me again prior to making such a final decision.
Ten days went by and I thought often of Chico.
Then, Angie called back with an amazing report. She’d met again with
the avian vet, and broached the subject of euthanasia. As a last ditch
effort , the vet suggested instead trying a psychoactive drug. Having no
idea whether it would help at all, he shrugged and said, "What have
you got to lose?" So Angie agreed and they started Chico on
haloperidol (Haldolä - Schein). And a miracle happened – or at least,
it certainly sounded like a miracle! Angie sounded understandably
ecstatic when she said, "I have my bird back! Chico is
climbing around, perching, and playing. "Chico was acting
like a normal amazon!
Huh???
Disconnecting Angie’s call, I
immediately phoned her avian vet, whom I knew personally. I was
completely baffled. According to Ritchie, Harrison and Harrison’s
AVIAN MEDICINE, Haldol was used to treat obsessive, compulsive behaviors
in people, and avian medicine uses it with parrots in some cases of
feather damaging and self-mutilation. Chico was neither a plucker
nor a self-mutilator, and I was totally confused.
"I didn’t realize that Haldol was
a pain killer," I said, when I got him on the line.
"It’s not," the vet said.
"But why would it cause any
improvement in this case?" After all, this was a parrot who had an
apparent physical problem that evidently causing extreme pain – this
made no sense to me!
"I don’t know," the vet said.
Over the phone, I could almost hear his shrug and rueful grin. "Makes
no sense to me. But it’s working, so I’m not quibbling."
Wise words.
Follow-Up…
Six months later, Chico is
still acting like a normal amazon. She started feeling good enough to
resume her aggressive behavior with Angie. A quick call to me, and Angie
began training Chico with nurturing guidance, thereby
establishing herself in a position of higher rank. This caused Chico
to back down with her murderous tendencies, and gradually she and Angie
built a relationship of mutual, if grudging, respect.
So is Chico still on haloperidol? Last
I heard, yes. Can she stay on the drug forever? Probably not
without serious side effects such as toxic changes to the liver. The vet
tried to wean her off the drug a couple of months ago, but Chico’s strange
physical and psychological behaviors resumed shortly thereafter. The
drug therapy was resumed, with hopes of trying again to wean her off in
the near future.
"Chico’s quality of life is
more important than anything to me," said Angie on the phone.
"As long as she’s happily eating and playing, I’m grateful. I’m
so glad to have her back!"
…and the Moral of the Story
A dramatic change in a parrot’s
behavior always necessitates a visit to the avian vet FIRST
to rule out the possibility of an underlying physical problem. Too
frequently, a physical problem remains undiagnosed and untreated when
the assumption is made that the problem is behavioral in etiology. In
this case, evidence of what appeared to be phobic behaviors did not
automatically mean the bird was phobic. Angie’s assumption was
that Chico had a behavior problem, so she did not seek veterinary
advice – and unintentionally allowed the bird to suffer unnecessarily
for a prolonged period. This complex case also stresses the necessity of
careful observation and history-taking from an experienced lay parrot
behavior analyst.
And as an aside, avian medicine certainly
does not have all the answers, any more than human medicine does. But
often, avian vets can make an incredible difference – even
when they don’t know why!