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Is Experience Necessary for Success with Parrots?

Is Experience Necessary for Success with Parrots?

Is Experience Necessary for Success with Parrots?

Parrots have been part of human culture for centuries, admired for their intelligence, social nature, and striking plumage. In modern times, they are often kept as companion animals, forming deep bonds with their caregivers. However, unlike domesticated pets such as dogs and cats, parrots retain many of their wild instincts, making their care complex and demanding. Their advanced cognitive abilities, emotional sensitivity, and need for environmental enrichment mean that successful parrot guardianship requires more than affection—it demands knowledge, adaptability, and a long-term commitment.

Despite their appeal, many parrots suffer from unmet behavioral and welfare needs in human care, leading to high rates of relinquishment and rehoming. Understanding what makes a suitable parrot caregiver is therefore critical to improving their long-term well-being. At the time of this writing, we don’t have standardized welfare indicators for parrots, meaning we don’t look at certain behaviors and qualities as measures of what makes for good care. This is really hard to do, and it does depend on many factors.

Traditionally, compatibility between a pet owner and an animal has been assessed through factors such as prior experience, available time, and lifestyle fit. In the case of parrots, adoption organizations and breeders may prioritize applicants with previous bird experience, assuming that familiarity with avian care predicts success. However, experience alone does not guarantee compatibility, as parrots present unique behavioral and environmental challenges that differ significantly from other companion animals. Additionally, factors such as an adopter’s willingness to learn, openness to guidance, and ability to adapt to a parrot’s evolving needs may be more reliable indicators of a successful match than prior knowledge alone. As understanding of parrot welfare deepens, it becomes increasingly clear that assessing compatibility requires a more nuanced approach—one that goes beyond checklists and considers the dynamic relationship between the bird and its human caregiver.

As noted by Tibbetts and Windsor, prior experience is not always a determining factor in predicting adopter success. In fact, sometimes it’s all too easy to blame failure on the species of the parrot, an upcoming addition to the family, a job change, or a move. More important is an adopter’s willingness to learn, openness to guidance, and sense of commitment—qualities that often shape a more adaptable and responsive home environment. These factors create a household that can be guided toward productive and science-based care practices, rather than one that rigidly adheres to pre-existing philosophical beliefs, potentially closing itself off from newer developments in animal behavior and welfare science.

In some adoption models, prior experience with dog training, particularly an understanding of operant conditioning, ranks highly as a desirable trait in potential adopters. Dog training is a highly variable industry, with many concepts and techniques being denigrated and stripped of their meaning, such as desensitization or even positive reinforcement. This makes additional challenges assessing behavior knowledge.

Post-adoption consultations often reveal a significant gap between expectations shaped by previous dog training experience and the realities of working with parrots. While operant conditioning principles are universal, their application varies greatly across species due to differences in ethology, cognition, and motivation. For example, many traditional dog training techniques rely on environmental control and structured reinforcement schedules that do not always translate seamlessly to parrot behavior, where social dynamics, autonomy, and sensory processing play a more prominent role. This mismatch in expectations can lead to frustration, particularly in adopters who anticipate predictable progressions in behavior change based on their prior experience with non-avian species. When parrots fail to respond in expected ways, adopters may incorrectly attribute the challenges to stubbornness, defiance, or an inherent difficulty with parrots as companion animals, rather than recognizing the need for a shift in approach.

Importantly, this does not suggest that adopters with previous training experience are unsuitable for parrot adoption. Many birds have thrived in homes that, while not professional expert environments, have provided them with enriching, committed, and adaptable care. Instead, this pattern highlights the inadequacies in our current evaluation processes for predicting welfare outcomes in adoption settings. It also underscores the frequent mismatch between the expectations of the adopting household and the realities of parrot care, ultimately placing the parrot in a vulnerable position when unrealistic assumptions or unaddressed challenges lead to rehoming, neglect, or chronic stress. To improve long-term success, adoption organizations must refine their assessment criteria and provide targeted education that bridges species-specific differences, ensuring that adopters—regardless of their prior experience—are prepared for the unique complexities of living with and training a parrot.

Long-term relationships with like-minded parrot people is one of the strongest ways to help with a lasting relationship. Instead of getting conflicting information from different sources and trying a little bit of this for a few weeks and a little bit of that, finding a community that will help your go the distance is worth its weight in gold. If you want to learn more about these concepts, join us for a full class on assessing skills and compatibility in February inside the Avian Behavior Lab!