No beaks or feet? OMG.. how horrible is that! I think if I were to know of all the horrors that livestock animals go through, I would never stop crying. That, combined with animal abuse stories that I do know of, as well as those I don't, makes a person wonder if there is anyway to ever change man's inhumanity to his fellow creatures.

Iris

Jessie,

Can you give us some examples of what you disagree with in her books and why? I would really be interested in knowning.

Thanks

Sally

Taking the point of a chicken's beak off is done, I think, to protect other chickens. Chickens are very cannabalistic. My first thought is we can't even get humans to be civil to other humans, so how can we expect them to consider animals? I think male infants are still circumsized without any anesthesia and it is not considered cruel or inhumane. I "think" they are strapped into some contraption to prevent movement and then the procedure is done. I've never asked, but I don't think anyone has a memory of the procedure either.

Sure. I do think Dr Grandin's books are a good read for animal lovers and many of her thoughts and insights are quite interesting. However, I wasn't crazy about the big emphasis she placed on being the "alpha" with pet dogs. For people whose primary interest is dogs, I'd recommend books by Patricia McConnel (like "The Other End of the Leash" as a compliment to "Lost in Translation." Dr. Ian Dunbar's stuff is great as well.

For instance, Dr Grandin recommended obedience training as a way to dominate your dog and show that you are the "alpha." Now, I do some training with all of my dogs (and parrots) and I took Pharaoh to two series of obedience classes (beginner and advanced). But, I don't think that it's helpful to see training as a way to dominate a dog (or parrot or whatever). It should be done as a way to have fun with the animal and enrich his life. For example, walks with Pharaoh were easier once he was trained since he wasn't pulling all the time and making his own neck sore. Once he learned to come when called he could go to the off-leash dog park. He also just loved the training classes because I'm pretty relaxed and positive when I work with any animal. Neither of us would have enjoyed the classes if my main motivation was just getting him to "obey."

I think the same thing should apply to parrots: training can and should be enjoyable for both bird and owner. There's no need to try to be the alpha - all that's needed is to find a way to make the parrot want to respond appropriately to certain cues or commands. Both person and animal should enjoy the social interactions with each other and training with positive reinforcement should be done in order to enrich the parrot's life. For example, a parrot trained to step up will likely be allowed out of its cage more often than one that's never been taught anything. Untrained parrots sometimes wind up totally cage bound, which isn't good for it. However, I don't think there's a need to take on the attitude that a pet animal must be dominated.

I've seen many cases where people following this "dominance hierarchy" model of dog behavior have had it backfire or have greatly misunderstood their dog's behavior. For instance, some people will get very upset with a dog if it doesn't obey because they figure the dog is just trying to be "dominant" (what ever that even means!), but in reality the dog may not understand what is being expected of it or it could be distracted.

Interestingly, some wolf researchers have noted that dominance competitions in wolf packs are rare and that there really aren't rigid hierarchies in wolf packs (let alone in dogs!) See:
www.4pawsu.com/267alphastatus_english.pdf

Ray and Lorna Copppinger also have some things to say here about the "trainer as alpha wolf" idea:
www.workingdogweb.com/Coppinger.htm

Anyway, that was long! Like I said, I don't want to be totally negative here. I do use an entirely different set of concepts when discussing dog behavior than Dr. Grandin, but I still wouldn't totally discount what she has to say. She has done a lot when it comes to the welfare of food animals and when it comes to livestock animals, she really seems to know her stuff.

For your information ...

I have removed a post from someone called something like "non caged bird" because instead af addressing the topic at hand, they chose to use the forum to bash a particular person and to espouse their rigid philosophy that any bird in a cage or with trimmed wings is being abused.

In the rules of this list, I make it very clear that this type of message is unacceptable.