This post is a follow-up to a previous article, “Pets, Medications and Pills – Oh My!” which teaches how to train dogs and cats to accept oral medications.
When we found out that Jane, our African Grey Parrot, would need to take liquid medications by mouth for the rest of her life, we knew we had to do some training! But we also had to get the medication into her pretty quickly, because she needed it to remain healthy. This is a situation that is all too common for pet owners.
We Didn’t Follow Our Own Advice
We had not taught Jane to take medications, or even reached our goals for handling her in a very cooperative way, even though we’ve had her for 10 years! Yes, animal trainers make poor choices, just like other pet owners.
Arteriosclerosis is Common in African Grey Parrots
Jane came to us when she was 15 years old. At the age of 25, she was diagnosed with arteriosclerosis, which is common among caged parrots. In fact, Alex, a famous African Grey Parrot owned by Dr. Irene Pepperberg, died of this disease. Alex had not been diagnosed, however. Indications of his disease were found only after his death.
We are hopeful that with medications, an excellent diet, and plenty of exercise and care, Jane can live a long and healthy life. It is our job to make sure she participates in her care and takes her medications voluntarily so that she doesn’t develop any negative associations with the process over time. She’s doing very well at this point!
Cooperative Care for Taking Medication
We took a different approach with Jane’s medication than I described in my previous article. In “Pets, Medications and Pills – Oh My!” I described conditioning pets to having their mouths handled, introducing a pilling device, and practicing putting treats on their tongues, whether liquid or solid. We certainly could have taken that approach with Jane, and it would have helped further condition her to handling. However, we chose a different procedure.
Shaping is Based in Behavior Science
We decided to shape Jane to approach a syringe with liquid inside. Shaping is a training process by which we can create a completely new behavior that an animal has never done before! This sends a chill down my spine – creating a behavior from nothing is almost unbelievable, unless you know about shaping.
You see, most behaviors we teach to animals are ones they have done before; our goal is really to get the animal to perform the behaviors when we ask for them. Consider sit, lie down, come, pick up something, jump over something, walk along next to you, and more: dogs already know how to do these behaviors and they perform them regularly. Trainers teach animals to perform these familiar behaviors on cue. That gives the trainer a little control over the behaviors.
But we can shape a behavior from nothing, using operant conditioning! We must break the behavior down into its smallest components and create a plan to reinforce successive approximations of the final behavior until the animal is reliably and correctly performing the whole action. This is what we chose to do to teach Jane to take her medications.
Taking Medication is Not a Natural Behavior
Parrots don’t “come with” the behavior of reaching their mouths toward a plastic thing, nor of licking liquid out of the end of the plastic thing. This is not a natural behavior for them, and in fact, it’s highly likely they could perceive the plastic syringe as threatening. We know the syringe will not hurt Jane, because we control it; but she is a parrot, not a human, and looks at things as a parrot would. Parrots are wild animals, after all. Even a domestic animal like a dog or cat is likely to perceive a syringe as a scary thing if they have not been socialized to it or carefully introduced after their socialization window has closed. So, from nothing, we had to create a series of behaviors in which Jane reached toward the syringe and voluntarily drank her medicine from it. Challenge accepted!
Train Animals, Don’t Test Them
We knew we had not exposed Jane to a syringe during our time with her, but we had no idea as to Jane’s previous experience. What if someone had previously shoved a syringe in her face, scaring her? Therefore, we did not bring out the syringe until we were ready with treats to associate with the syringe and to reinforce any movement she made toward it. You see, there’s no need to “test” an animal. If you begin with a good experience and reinforcement for the tiniest movement in the right direction, you eliminate the risk of a negative association. If the animal did have a bad experience related to a syringe or a similar item in the past, building a good association and reinforcing anything like the behavior we want immediately begins to overcome that previous bad association.
First Steps in Medication Training
We set up a safe, controllable environment on our kitchen bar. A variety of bits of nuts and cookies was handy, in a bowl. We brought out the syringe and reinforced Jane’s first head turn toward it, using a click and a bite from the treat bowl. The first step of shaping this parrot behavior was complete! And we continued. We got the first dose of medication in her – even though it took about 20 minutes. The really important thing is that Jane volunteered to work with us. The treats we offered proved to be reinforcing the behaviors we wanted to develop. How do we know? We know the treats reinforced the behaviors because she offered the behaviors more and more throughout the training session, taking all the medicine!
Ensuring Training Success
Operant conditioning is the process of learning from the consequences of behavior choices. Jane made the choice to look toward, approach, or touch the syringe and a treat was the resulting consequence each time. It’s a little like the “Hot and Cold” game. However, we only paid attention to the “Hot” responses – those that were steps toward the final behavior. In addition, we set the environment up so that Jane was very likely to do the behaviors we wanted – the “Hot” behaviors. We presented the syringe close to her so she didn’t have to walk a long way to get to it. The surface was comfortable for her to walk on. She knows us, so our presence did not present a threat. We were pretty sure the medicine had a pleasant taste. She got reinforcers (treats) for the simplest bits of behavior. Because of the way we set up the training session, “Cold” behaviors were very unlikely. When “Cold” behaviors like moving away from the syringe did occur, we could ignore them and set up the next response so it was even more likely we would get the behavior we wanted.
Changes With Training Progression
You’ll see in a later video that this first training session looks nothing like the final behavior. The training environment changed several times and the rate of reinforcement decreased as training progressed. The amount of time required for Jane to take the full dose of medication also decreased. We adjusted these variables by always considering our vision of the final behavior. We implemented changes as we learned how to make the process simpler for ourselves and for Jane. The rate of reinforcement always decreases as shaping progresses. This is because the individual steps of a behavior system blend together as the animal takes several actions in series for a single reinforcer.
More Training Progression
We made changes as the behavior was ready, as Jane was ready to progress to the next step. We stuck to using the bowl of treats for a long time, giving her a single bite from it for each correct response. Now, she takes the whole dose of medication by licking the syringe several times before getting a big, fat peanut. We occasionally offer the treat bowl after a few licks, but Jane usually refuses. It seems to be her way of using the Premack Principle. Each step in the process has become a reinforcer for previous steps, creating a chain of behaviors leading to a big, fat peanut. We no longer need treats from the bowl to keep her moving to the end of the behavior chain. She has shown us that she has fun with the entire process of taking her medications, and she loves the peanut at the end! A peanut is a rare treat for her.
The Goal Behavior: Voluntary Medication Taking
Our slow and steady training has resulted in Jane being able to take her meds from anyone who has tried it! Our petsitters and family members have carried out the routine with her. Because the process is exactly the same each time, and the only variable is the person holding the syringe, Jane has generalized the behavior chain to all people we’ve submitted. I predict that more new people will be able to complete the process as long as they follow the routine.
We could have handled Jane’s mouth first, and taught her to open it as described in the article “Pets, Medications and Pills – Oh My!” That procedure would have been perfectly acceptable on all levels. We simply chose to use shaping instead and we are pleased with the final behavior. Training plans must incorporate behavior principles to be effective, but there are many options.
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