Navigating Feather-Destructive Behaviors with Belinda Young [Episode 245]

A Journey of Resilience and Innovation with Belinda Young [Episode 245]

In this episode of the Animal Training Academy Podcast, Ryan Cartlidge welcomes Belinda Young, an accomplished animal trainer and cherished member of the ATA team. With over a decade of experience, Belinda has worked extensively with dogs, cats, and parrots, specialising in reward-based training methods and tackling complex behavioral challenges.

In this episode Belinda shares an extraordinary case study featuring Scramble, her charismatic crimson-bellied conure. Scramble's journey with feather-destructive behavior - a challenge unique to captive parrots - is the centerpiece of this episode, offering listeners a raw, insightful, and inspiring look into the intricacies of animal training and behavior management.

Through heartfelt discussion, Belinda details her exploration of medical, environmental, and behavioral interventions to support Scramble’s recovery. She emphasises the importance of collaboration with veterinarians and behaviorists, the power of targeted cognitive training, and her commitment to addressing Scramble's emotional and physical needs.

What You’ll Discover in This Episode:

• The unique challenges of feather-destructive behaviors in parrots.
• Insights into using environmental enrichment and targeted cognitive training to support behavioral change.
• How collaboration and community support are pivotal in navigating complex cases.
• Practical strategies and creative solutions applicable to multiple species and behavioral challenges.

Why This Episode is a Must-Listen:
Belinda’s journey is a testament to the resilience required when faced with unforeseen training challenges and the transformative power of persistence, learning, and compassion. Whether you’re managing feather-destructive behaviors, working with domestic or exotic animals, or seeking inspiration to tackle tough training problems, this episode is brimming with invaluable insights.

Links:

Scramble is @nevershakeababybird on instagram.

Belindas' website is www.treatplaylove.com.au and business facebook is www.facebook.com/treatplaylovetraining/

Episode Transcript

(00:03):
Welcome to the Animal Training Academy podcast show.
I'm your host, Ryan Carledge, and I'm passionate
about helping you master your animal training skills
using the most positive and least intrusive approaches.
Here at ATA, we understand that navigating the
vast challenges you encounter in training requires a

(00:27):
comprehensive base of knowledge and experience.
It's common to face obstacles and rough patches
on your journey that can leave you feeling
overwhelmed and stressed.
Therefore, since 2015, we've been on a mission
to empower animal training geeks worldwide.
We've aided thousands in developing their skills, expanding

(00:51):
their knowledge, boosting their confidence, and maximizing their
positive impact on all the animal and human
learners they work with.
We are excited to do the same for
you.
Simply visit www.atamember.com, join our vibrant

(01:12):
community, and geek out with us.
And of course, in the meantime, enjoy this
free podcast episode as we explore new ways
to help you supercharge your training skills, grow
your knowledge, and build your confidence so that
you can craft a life that positively impacts

(01:32):
every learner you encounter.
But we will start today's episode where I'll
be talking to one Belinda Young.
Belinda is a companion animal trainer in Queensland,
Australia.
She developed a passion for animals from a
young age and began her career in vet

(01:54):
nursing in 2008.
During this time, she completed her Diploma of
Animal Technology at the Canberra Institute of Technology,
where her interest in animal behavior and training
began.
In 2016, Belinda earned her Cert IV in
Companion Animal Services through the Dauter Institute, a

(02:15):
leader in dog trainer education in Australia.
In 2013, Belinda founded her business, Treat Play
Love, after recognizing a need for reward-based
pet training in her city.
She has continued her work as she moved
from Townsville to Sydney and now to Toowoomba,
supporting her husband's career in the Australian Army.
Belinda is committed to ongoing professional development through

(02:38):
seminars, webinars, and courses, and is a member
of APDT Australia and PPG Australia.
Belinda is also an Animal Training Academy Happiness
Engineer.
She is on the ATA team, sharing the
task of community moderation within the ATA membership
and managing our CEUs for our members.

(02:59):
She helps our amazing members overcome training challenges
and cheers them on with their successes.
So without further ado, it's my very great
pleasure to welcome Belinda to the show today,
who is patiently waiting by in Toowoomba, Australia.
Belinda, thank you so much for jumping on
this podcast episode with me.
Thank you so much for asking me.

(03:20):
And I'm excited about this one.
We're going to do something a little bit
different, everyone.
We're going to be discussing a specific case
study involving Belinda and the beautiful and wonderful
Scramble, also known as Scram, a crimson-bellied
conure who lives with Belinda.
Now, for everyone listening to this podcast, which

(03:42):
could potentially be quite a lot of people
who don't know what on earth a crimson
-bellied conure is, can you enlighten them, please,
Belinda?
Yeah, absolutely.
So crimson-bellied conures are a small South
American parrot.
They're native to the regions of Bolivia and
Brazil and live in the forest in those

(04:04):
regions.
I suppose as far as commonly kept companion
parrots, they're quite similar to green-cheeked conures
in size and volume.
There's always something people are interested in with
conures.
But yeah, they're a small, colourful parrot and
can make very charismatic, funny little pets.

(04:25):
And to give people a reference point to
their size, we're talking softball size?
Oh, I've never compared them to a ball.
Like a small rat size?
Oh, they're probably a little bit smaller than
a rat.
So Scramble weighs between 80 and 85 grams,

(04:45):
depending on how much time he's spent at
the food bowl.
They're smaller than a cockatiel, which people might
be a bit more familiar with.
That's a good reference.
Thank you.
You're better at this than me.
And obviously being so light because they are
a bird and they've got many adaptations for
flying.
Hollow bones, honeycomb structured bones, feathers, ear sacs.

(05:13):
Crimson-bellied conures have ear sacs, do they
not?
Yes, absolutely.
All these adaptations to help them nice and
light for flying.
Now, just to share at this stage, before
we talk a little bit more about what
it's like to live with a conure, we're
going to be talking specifically about feather destructive

(05:34):
behaviour today.
Can you share a little bit with everyone
listening when I say feather destructive behaviour, what
that means?
Absolutely.
So feather destructive behaviour is a problem that
is really exclusively seen in captive parrots.
We tend not to see it in wild
populations.
And it is a behaviour challenge where the

(06:00):
parrots are damaging their own feathers.
Or they could be damaging the feathers of
a companion as well, another parrot.
But most often we see that it is
self-directed and it can include barbering, where
they're chewing little bits off their feathers, or
plucking, where they're removing the feather completely.

(06:21):
And I guess related, but not always in
the same case, you sometimes see self-mutilation
as well, which is sort of a step
beyond feather destructive behaviour, where instead of damaging
the feathers, the bird is damaging their skin,
which can be extremely distressing.

(06:41):
So for the majority of our listeners who
have experience with dogs, it might be similar
to sucking on a paw, kind of self
-mutilation type behaviours, that goes rear or over
licking so much so that they go raw.
Yeah, it can be.
And I think also maybe tail biting you
see in some breeds of dogs and some

(07:03):
individuals.
Yeah.
And for those of you listening who work
with different species, I mean, self-mutilation is
something seen across taxa, not just with dogs
and parrots.
Now, hold this challenge in your minds, everyone.
We're going to circle back to it.

(07:24):
Just share a little bit more about Belinda's
situation, because I think you the listener, you're
probably not living with a conure yourself.
You're probably not living.
I know a segment of our listeners are
living with and keeping parrots.
And so I'm excited to be doing this
episode with you.
But if you're listening and you're not used

(07:46):
to living with a parrot, or you've never
lived with a parrot or you've never even
had any experience working with parrots, can you
just give us a little bit of an
insight to your world, Belinda?
Because Scram is just one of the many
colourful and delightful animals you share your home

(08:06):
with.
Who else is part of your menagerie?
Yeah.
So my husband, Steve, and I, we have
got one dog because we're a very normal
couple.
And one dog is a good number of
dogs to have.
But we have got 11 parrots.
So fortunately, we both thoroughly enjoyed parrots when

(08:30):
we met.
So we both came to the relationship with
that passion.
And currently our 11 include four cockatiels, two
princess parrots, a green-cheeked conure, Scramble, our
crimson-bellied conure, two yellow-naped amazons, and
a green-winged macaw.

(08:51):
Hopefully that comes to 11.
And you're going to have to Google the
rest of those species, everyone, to learn the
colours they have and everything more about them.
So they are the individuals that you live
with and they're into Wumba.
But what is it like living with parrots?

(09:12):
I say that every time I talk to
you, I can see things in your background
on your Zoom that I don't normally see
when I speak to a lot of people.
Right now, when I'm looking at your Zoom
screen, I see a big piece of what
people might describe as driftwood kind of sticking
up in the corner.
And depending on where you're sitting, you might
have multiple big pieces of wooden furniture, tree

(09:37):
-like structures around your house.
And you've also got a giant aviary attached
to your house.
Can you share a little bit about the
setup and what it takes to care for
11 parrots and one dog?
Shout out to Wilbur.
Yeah, Wilbur's a little bit lower maintenance.
He's quite happy as long as there's a

(09:57):
couch and a sunny sandpit to alternate between
during the day.
For our birds, I like to think we
go above and beyond.
We're always looking at ways that we can
continue to do it better, but we try
to set up our house so that each
of our birds has got the opportunity to
move and socialise and engage in species-specific

(10:19):
behaviour.
So when we relocated to Toowoomba at the
start of 2024, we were looking to purchase
a house, and that gave us an opportunity
to look for a layout that would work
really well for us.
Not all of our birds get along, so
keeping everyone safe means keeping some of them
separate from one another.

(10:40):
We have got three separate bird rooms as
well as the conures live in the living
area.
So you could call that four bird rooms
if you like.
And in all of the common areas, we've
got different playstands and areas that the birds
can spend time when they're out of their
enclosures so that they've got different options for

(11:04):
climbing, playing, resting, preening, eating, anything that they
might like to do.
And then, as you say, we've also got
a very large aviary or enclosure that we've
constructed in our backyard.
We use the same material that sort of
catios, netted cat enclosures, are made from.

(11:27):
We've been doing that since about 2011 in
some form or another.
But in our current house, we're very fortunate
that we've been able to enclose a very
large portion of our backyard extending off our
patio.
So that means that when we're at home
and supervising and some bird or another out

(11:48):
of their cage enjoying some social time, we
can open up the back door and they
can choose to come and go inside and
outside.
They've got access to the patio, which is
undercover.
They can also go out into the main
area where they've got ropes and perches and
they can enjoy the sunshine or, on a

(12:09):
day like today, the rain, which the Amazons
and the macaw especially enjoy showering and bathing
in the rain.
So, yeah, we've got basically a house dedicated
to our birds.
So it's the bird's house.
You guys just kind of live amongst them
as opposed to the other way around.
That's right.
And our neighbours up a surprising distance along

(12:32):
the street have very quickly identified us as,
oh, you're the bird people.
Just the bird people or do they use
other adjectives to describe you?
They might not use them to our face.
Are the birds allowed in every part of
the house or do you have some parts
that are human only?

(12:53):
Theoretically, they're allowed in most of the parts
of the house.
Our two male yellow-named Amazons have been
feeling the warm, rainy season in recent months,
which has led to them doing some cavity
-seeking as they look for good places for
eggs.

(13:14):
I don't know which of them is supposed
to lay the eggs, but they're certainly looking
and that's led to us needing to shut
off parts of the house so that they
can't access those to try and minimise some
of that reproductive behaviour.
But in general, they're allowed in most places.
Sometimes the birds will accompany one or the

(13:35):
other of us into the shower to enjoy
some steam or they'll just ride around with
us as we potter around and do housework.
But they spend most of their time either
in their enclosures, their cages, or in the
main living area, which is where we spend
most of our time as well, or in
the enclosure in the backyard.

(13:56):
I like my house except I've always got
a mini human following me around or also
a dog following me around, but with parrots.
So basically there's always kind of a bird
hanging out at any time of the day
regardless of what you're doing?
Yeah, definitely, with some of them not getting

(14:17):
along to ensure that they all have adequate
time to exercise and be social.
We've generally got a bit of a crate
and rotate system going on where somebody is
out all of the time.
Crate and rotate.
Okay.
Now I can assume everyone listening, a little
bit more about scram.
We've talked about what species scram is, talked

(14:41):
about the fact we are going to be
talking about feather destructive behaviour today.
But what happened with scram?
What led to us being on this podcast
together today to talk specifically about him and
this challenge that you've been facing for the
last wee while?
So scramble is the youngest parrot in our

(15:04):
household.
He will be five years old in March
of 2025.
So he's about four and three quarters now.
He hatched unexpectedly in 2020.
At the time we had a breeding pair
of crimson-bellied conures, his parents, that we

(15:24):
had acquired from a friend when she was
needing to move unexpectedly and had to relocate
some of her birds.
And for the couple of years prior, that
pair of birds had bred and I had
hand-reared the babies, two from each clutch,

(15:45):
to rehome as pets.
And that had been a great joy, something
that I really enjoyed doing.
And it was a lot of fun to
raise those babies with the knowledge of behaviour
and training and development that I've acquired over
the years.
And they found some really lovely homes.

(16:06):
One of the homes from the first year
actually came back for a second bird the
second year, which was lovely.
In 2020, after some thought, I had found
that I was feeling very anxious at the
thought of trying to find excellent homes for
any future babies.
It's obviously a big responsibility to bring new

(16:29):
animals into the world and to raise them
and then to home them in a way
that I guess you're satisfied that they'll receive
the standard of care that you would expect
and hope for.
And then in addition to that, the sort
of anxiety I was already starting to experience,
the world started to fall into chaos with

(16:52):
the COVID-19 pandemic and the idea of
trying to home baby birds during lockdowns just
seemed crazy.
So when this pair of birds started to
lay in 2020, I felt that it was

(17:12):
the right decision to not allow those eggs
to hatch.
And the step that I took to prevent
that from happening was to addle or shake
the eggs.
And I felt that I did that very
thoroughly over a number of days throughout the
week that those eggs were laid.
But nonetheless, about three weeks later when I
was checking the aviary in the evening before

(17:34):
bed, I heard a very quiet little cheeping
sound and checked the nest box and there
was Scramble.
And you can see now where he got
his name from.
So when Scramble hatched, obviously in COVID lockdown,
I hand raised him.

(17:58):
It's not ideal to hand raise a single
bird.
It's nice for them to be in a
group so that they can sort of learn
social behaviours together.
But fortunately, he was raised.
I had my two female green-cheeked conures
at the time and they were very interested
in him.
And as he developed, he was able to

(18:18):
interact with them.
But raising a single baby bird during a
lockdown when you're not doing all that much
else, it's a recipe for becoming very attached.
And I said to my husband, this one's
staying.
You know, we're not going to rehome Scramble.

(18:38):
He's a member of the family.
And so he has been.
Scramble, his development was really normal.
He's always been a really active, playful, busy
little bird.
He has had some fairly sort of tumultuous
relationships, I guess, with my female conures and

(19:01):
with also my husband Steve.
So at different times he's been unable to
interact with them well, showing some aggressive behaviours,
I think initially stemming just from high arousal
during play, but then potentially a little bit
later on stemming from, well, perhaps reproductive behaviours

(19:22):
or perhaps a little bit of just habit.
But he was otherwise sort of well, happy,
healthy, playful, busy, enjoyed flying, really good eating.
In 2021, so just before the new year,

(19:42):
we ended up moving for Steve's work, and
we moved from Townsville to Sydney, which meant
that the birds flew from Townsville to Brisbane,
where they boarded with friends for a couple
of weeks while we moved to Sydney and
set up the house for them.
And that all appeared to go well.
Everyone arrived and settled in really nicely.

(20:04):
And then it was the end of 2022
where unfortunately we found out we were moving
again.
The rental that we were in was sold,
and that's where the challenges started for Scramble.
So with a local move, moving within Sydney,
so one suburb to another, instead of it

(20:26):
being a move where we could fly the
birds to a boarding facility, pack up the
house, set up the new house, and then
bring the birds back in, we had the
removalists in while all the pets were still
in the house.
And this was understandably quite a stressful day.
The birds coped okay, but with people moving

(20:47):
through the house, everyone was a little bit
sort of, they were quite active in their
cages, they were quite vocal in their cages
if unfamiliar people were nearby or if they
were moving strange objects near like trolleys and
boxes and big pieces of furniture.
So we had that throughout a full day.
We had removalists in the house packing up

(21:09):
our belongings.
And then on that same day in the
evening after all of the removalists had gone,
Scramble appeared to take a small fright in
his cage where he bumped around the cage
a little bit, sort of knocking into the
walls.
And shortly after that I happened to notice

(21:31):
that he had plucked all of the feathers
from the top joint of his left wing.
This was distressing to see.
It obviously happened in a really short amount
of time and he hadn't just plucked a
few feathers, he had plucked that part of

(21:52):
the wing completely bare.
But otherwise he seemed okay.
He wasn't holding any part of his body
as though he might have broken anything.
He was still solicitous of attention.
When we got him out of his cage,
he quite quickly settled on a play stand
and had some supper.
But obviously that sudden presentation of what appeared

(22:16):
to be quite a significant problem, it was
a worry.
So the next day I took Scramble to
see the vet where he had a full
health check as well as some X-rays.
We were able to rule out anything other
than perhaps a little bit of soft tissue
injury on the wing, which might have been

(22:38):
causing some discomfort.
So we went home with some medication to
address any pain that he might have there
and hoped that that would be the end
of it.
It wasn't.
And over the sort of next 12 months
during the rest of our time in Sydney,

(23:00):
Scramble continued to pluck not just that area
of his left wing, but he started to
pluck the matching area of his right wing.
He started to pluck underneath his wings and
then he started to pluck around his legs
and his belly as well.
So by the end of 2022, he had

(23:22):
gone from having a bald wing to having
a...
He no longer had a crimson belly.
He had a white, downy, fluffy belly.
He'd removed all of his red feathers.
Well, before we go on, just share a
lot of empathy for you and Steve and
everything that all the emotions and all of

(23:45):
the uncertainty and all of the surprise, I'm
assuming, when you found for the first time
that new areas were being plucked and the
problem was worsening over time.
I'm curious, like, would you, looking back now,
how do you think about that Sydney move?

(24:06):
Would you change how you did that now?
Do you think it was the people coming
in?
If you were to do it again, would
you get all the animals out?
Yeah, that's such a good question and one
that I've thought about because it's, I guess,
quite likely that we will move again in
future with Steve's work.
I think what I would do now, and

(24:28):
certainly what I do do now if we've
had tradespeople in the house or anything similar
to that, we tend to move the birds
into parts of the house where the activity
is going to be less and then relocate
them again if the tradespeople need access to
those areas.

(24:50):
And that has worked well so far and
even, I mean, this year in our new
location in Toowoomba, we've had various tradespeople doing
various works and there have been times where
Scramble has been housed separate from but in
view of the works and he's been quite

(25:11):
content and curious, I would describe, sort of
settled in his cage and going about his
usual activities, which has been really nice to
see.
But obviously the intensity of those tradespeople has
been a lot less than a whole house
full of removalists, which is what he had
to contend with in Sydney.
Yeah, and would I be right in understanding

(25:32):
that there's no clarity in whether that move
in Sydney and having new people in the
house moving around, doing lots of activity, was
the catalyst versus seemingly a single event that
caused some kind of fright?
And even then, there's never going to be

(25:53):
black and white data to say it was
one of these two events or it wasn't.
How do you process that?
Do you spend time thinking about that or
have you just gone, it is what it
is and now I'm going to spend my
energy dealing with what's in front of me?
So further disruptive behaviour is a really challenging
or complex problem to deal with and it

(26:16):
can be really hard to resolve because it
can be, I guess there can be multiple
factors that can contribute to it.
We are making our best guess based on
the fact that the first presentation of Scramble's
leather plucking behaviour started on the day that
we had a couple of big significant things
happen.

(26:37):
We had the prolonged stressor of removalists in
the house followed by an acute stressor of
a physical injury.
We don't know though.
It is just an educated guess and we
also don't necessarily know what's maintained the behaviour
over time.

(26:59):
So further plucking behaviour can be due to,
it can have medical causes.
They're not feeling well.
It can be pain in certain parts of
the body.
It can be skin irritation.
It can be nutritional.
It can be social.
It can be reproductive and it can be
due to chronic stress or behavioural and at

(27:22):
different times it could be different things that's
driving the behaviour.
So as much as we try to address
each of the potential causes, it can be
quite a hard one to pin down completely.
What strikes me about everything you've just said
is the complexity and challenge that someone like

(27:46):
yourself, whom is a knowledgeable, educated, skilled professional,
and you then, my mind wanders to a
layman parrot owner who is faced with this
challenge.
It's a, I can't think of too much

(28:06):
comparable challenges with this level of complexity.
I know there are, I'm sure there are,
but it just seems like out of all
of the challenges that I can think about,
the infinite number, this one, it's just one
that can be really challenging even to, again,
knowledge, skilled, experienced professionals.

(28:27):
And I know multiple people who fit that
criteria, who find this really challenging.
Like before we move on, do you have
anything to add in terms of just for
the listeners kind of wrapping their head around
this specific challenge?

(28:47):
Yeah.
I mean, even early on when the problem
initially presented, I certainly felt a lot of
pressure from myself, directed at myself, that I
should be able to fix this.
I should have all the information to be
able to fix this.
And certainly there was, I guess, a sense

(29:07):
of frustration and sadness and I guess a
little bit of embarrassment that it was ongoing.
But the most important thing that I was
able to do was to reach out to
people who, you know, knew more than me,
or perhaps just had a fresh set of
eyes to put on this case so that

(29:31):
I could try and get a, I guess,
a holistic picture of what might be going
on and what else I could be doing
to better support Scramble.
And in reaching out and collaborating, it also
gave me a, you know, a much better
sense of, I guess, peace and wellbeing as

(29:52):
I continued to work on this problem with
Scramble.
So for, I guess, lay people or people
who have not seen this type of behaviour
challenge before, that would be my advice is
reach out to other people.
You shouldn't be embarrassed that this is happening.
It happens for all sorts of reasons.

(30:13):
And I guess, you know, whether you're talking
to an avian vet or you're talking to
a vet behaviourist or you're talking to a
parrot trainer and behaviour consultant, there are so
many different people who can help.
So, yeah, collaboration has been a really big
thing for me over the last two years.

(30:35):
You don't have to wear all the hats.
You can surround yourself and you should surround
yourself with people that are smarter than you.
That's how I always think about it.
Absolutely.
Yes.
Now I'm excited to talk about what you
did next.
Everyone listening, Belinda, I and the fantastic Shelley
Wood, our other ATA Happiness Engineer slash community

(30:58):
moderator and also host of our podcast show,
The Making Ripple Show, we talk sometimes nearly
daily in a group chat we've set up.
We discuss what's happening in the ATA community
areas, but we also share extensively about our
own animals.
And I feel fortunate to have been involved
in Scram's journey this way.

(31:19):
Belinda has shared so much with me and
Shelley over the last wee while.
Belinda also shares a lot bravely in our
Animal Training Academy members-only community areas.
But there's been a lot more that's been
shared within our little Facebook messenger group.
Now, having worked with parrots myself extensively over
my career, I know how prevalent feather destructive

(31:42):
behaviour can be and how incredibly challenging it
can be to address.
And as you bravely shared with Shelley, me
and the ATA members, as well in our
community areas, I found myself truly inspired by
so many aspects of what you did, Belinda,
and how you approached the situation.
So I'm thrilled now that we have this
platform, this podcast show, to share your journey

(32:02):
with our wider audience and create some ripples
out there.
I also love how much of what you
did and how you approached things is applicable
to all species, really, in many different situations.
Some of it's really specific for feather destructive
behaviour, but I think a lot of the
principles and things we're going to talk about
are applicable to other species and other situations.

(32:24):
So I'm excited not only to share about
the feather plucking destructive aspect, but also everything
you've done and learned as an already highly
competent, knowledgeable and skilled trainer coming into this.
So let's get started.
Can you walk us through the beginning of
your intervention?
Absolutely.
So the way that Scrambles Feather Plucking started

(32:45):
appeared very much to be in response to
a physical injury.
So like I said, our first step was
to take him to an avian vet.
And in a way, we were so lucky
that that happened in Sydney because options were
much more limited in Townsville, where we were
living before.
But in Sydney, we were spoiled choice with

(33:06):
avian vet services.
And certainly that was our starting point.
So we started to treat him for pain
and inflammation in the hope that as that
soft tissue injury resolved, so with the feather
plucking, when that wasn't the case, we went

(33:26):
back and we continued our medical workup.
We found a very small yeast overgrowth in
Scrambles' crop, and we were able to treat
that too.
We also found some changes to his kidney
values, and we investigated treatment options for that

(33:48):
just in case there was any, I guess,
sort of systemic or whole body discomfort that
was going on.
We started a different type of treatment for
a different type of pain.
Again, just attempting to rule out that as

(34:08):
a possible contributor to the behaviour that we're
seeing.
And we also looked at medications and supplements
that would support nice, healthy skin just in
case there was any irritation or itching that
was going on.
And I guess the thing is with each

(34:28):
medical intervention that we took, there was a
period of time that followed where we were
watching to see what the outcome of that
change in treatment would bring.
And there would be revisits to see if,
for example, the little yeast overgrowth had cleared

(34:48):
up in his crop and his kidney values
had gone back to normal and so on
and so forth.
And so I would say that 2022 into
2023, so the first year of his feather
plucking, was really a year of looking for
medical rule-outs.
And I was doing that.

(35:09):
It made sense to me to do that.
It's really important if you've seen a sudden
change in behaviour that you are looking to
rule out any medical causes because you can't
train those away.
But I was also really hoping for myself
that it would be medical and there would
be a magic treatment that would just fix
it because obviously that seemed like it would

(35:31):
be an easier solution than making broad sweeping
changes to our environment and this routine that
we're keeping with Scramble.
So that was through 2023.
Got to keep my years straight.
And at the end of 2023, we were

(35:52):
getting ready to move again.
And obviously through that time, I'd seen that
Scramble's feather plucking behaviour had continued and spread
to more areas of his body.
And there was no avoiding this upcoming move.
There was no avoiding that it was going

(36:15):
to be stressful.
This was another move back to Queensland.
So it involved another flight where they'd go
to Brisbane and they'd stay again with friends
until we were settled in Toowoomba and we
could bring them and settle them into our
new home.
And while they were staying in Brisbane, we
took the opportunity to have a recheck with

(36:39):
the avian vet there.
And we decided at that time to trial
a hormone implant for Scramble.
That was an avenue that we hadn't tried
yet.
And given Scramble's history of aggression towards my
husband in particular, but also to by this

(37:02):
point, I only had one female green chick
conure, Savvy.
Savvy at times.
It felt like it was worth trying to
see what impact hormone suppression might have for
Scramble.
So while he was boarding with our friends,
he went to the vet, he had his
bloods rechecked and he had a little hormone

(37:23):
implant put in into his breast just under
the skin.
When Scramble came home, which was just a
day or two after he had that implant
put in, the difference in his behaviour was
quite remarkable where he had typically been quite
highly aroused and showing some aggressive behaviour towards

(37:44):
my husband.
He was now affiliative and solicitous of attention,
which was amazing to see.
It opened up a lot of opportunities for
Scramble to spend time out of his cage
where he previously hadn't been able to.
Yes, if my husband was in the room.

(38:04):
And he also started to show more sociable
behaviours with my green chick conure, Savvy.
So that opened up some lovely opportunities as
well for him to have some positive social
interactions, not with the same species, but with
a very similar species.
So I judged that that was a big
benefit as well.

(38:26):
So this was all looking up.
We're very excited.
And then he started to pick at the
skin just above the implant with his beak.
And he made quite a large hole in
his skin, which started our next unhappy adventure,

(38:47):
not just into the world of feather plucking,
but now into self-injurious behaviour.
And again, take this opportunity to provide empathy
for you.
Thinking back to that time, what a horrible
situation to find yourself in where an animal

(39:08):
that you love and care for is causing
damage to themselves in their way.
So I know that I've said this many
times over the years, but really sorry that
you had to go through that.
It seems that in that situation, although not

(39:30):
being able to say this with confidence, it
seemed likely that this hormone implant, the benefits
that came with it, was potentially the causation
of this new behaviour.
Yeah, that's certainly what it seemed like to
us.
It's difficult to describe how upsetting it was

(39:53):
to see that very first shallow wound that
Scramble had created in his chest.
And then additionally to think that it was
a decision that I had made to try
this implant that had seemed likely had triggered
this response.
I had had hormone implants for other small

(40:15):
parrots in the past, usually for female parrots
that were doing egg laying.
And I had not had a problem with
those birds, but for Scramble on this occasion,
it seemed pretty likely that the implant was
causing him some distress.

(40:37):
Obviously, we're talking back to the vet.
We've seen the vet a lot throughout this
journey.
We opted to put Scram on pain relief
to hopefully address any discomfort that might be
making it more likely that he would continue

(40:59):
the behaviour.
But for a period of several weeks, we
saw that the wound would start to heal
up.
And it seems that as the scab dried
out and started to contract, it would become
uncomfortable again and Scram would remove it and
would be back to square one.

(41:20):
During this time, obviously the progression from feather
plucking, which is distressing, and it's not something
that we wanted to see, but it was
not life threatening.
This progression now where Scram had essentially an

(41:40):
open wound on his body that he wasn't
allowing to heal, this had the potential to
be a life threatening condition and behaviour.
And it was extremely distressing to watch.
As it would start to heal up, my
mood would elevate and then he would damage

(42:02):
it again and I would come crashing right
back down again, feeling really unsure about how
I could best support him to let this
wound heal up.
During this time, I started to look at
every single piece of environmental change that I
could make to try and better support Scramble
to return to healthy and normal behaviour.

(42:27):
So in addition to the support we were
getting from the vet and the medication to
try and keep Scramble comfortable, during this time,
like I said, one of the benefits of
this implant, which had also caused us to
be facing this problem, we think, Scramble was
now being quite sociable with my female green

(42:49):
-cheeked conure.
And during this time they'd been spending a
lot more time together out of their cage
and I had started to house them together
during the day when I was at home.
I was able to change their living arrangement
so that they were housed together full time.
And this also meant that we had a

(43:10):
spare cage, so I was able to move
that to a different part of the house
where Scramble and his now roommate Savvy could
be shifted to of an evening so that
they had a longer period of uninterrupted rest
each evening instead of having approximately eight hours

(43:31):
that Stephen and myself were asleep and the
house was quiet.
They now had anywhere from 10 to 12
hours, which can help with the reduction of
some reproductive behaviours in birds but can also
just mean that they're well-rested and in

(43:54):
good mental health.
I also started to remind Scramble of some
of the basic training that we had been
working on in his younger years.
So at the time that was just some
sort of silly tricks like turnaround or recalls,
targeting, some of the little basic skills that

(44:16):
we commonly teach animals of all species but
they're common ones with parrots.
His diet has always been quite good.
He is a great lover of fresh food,
vegetables, fruits, which they don't get a lot
of, and fresh browse from the garden.

(44:38):
So we've got lots of native flowers and
plants that are safe for our birds to
eat.
So I was making sure that he was
getting access to a lot of those.
And I also started to use our training
sessions to basically help Scramble to upskill, particularly
in the area of foraging, which unlike a

(44:59):
lot of our other birds who have shown
some, I guess we could say natural aptitude
for foraging toys, they will see something new
and they will investigate it and they'll find
a way to get the snacks out of
various toys.
Scramble has always been a little different with,

(45:20):
say, like a little clear acrylic cup foraging
toy with a lightweight lid on top.
Most of our birds will figure out quite
quickly to flick the lid and get the
snacks.
Scramble will sit on the perch and lick
the clear plastic and then beat up a
nearby toy because how could we possibly solve

(45:41):
such a challenging puzzle?
So instead of expecting that he should be
able to solve these problems on his own,
I started to teach him the component skills
that he needed to be able to chew
and lift and manipulate and use these toys
in different ways.
So happily he is now quite an adept
forager, which has been a great benefit of

(46:02):
this whole journey.
So we had some new drugs on board
to help with the possibility of any pain.
And, well, I mean, if you think about
damage to skin and the way that that
damage was done, then I think it's pretty
safe to say that pain would have been

(46:24):
involved.
But if there was any pain contributing to
the ongoing behaviour in that medication, we could
hypothesise would have influenced potentially future behaviour.
We added social enrichment with regards to other
parrots and spending time together, longer rest periods,

(46:45):
diet evaluation, using training to upskill, especially with
foraging.
And if we think about the natural history
of the species and what they probably spend
a lot of energy on in the wild,
I think that's, from that perspective, a really
clever thing to do.
And in saying that, I think that applies

(47:08):
more broadly to the majority of not all
the species that we look after, whether they're
in our homes or in zoos or wherever
you're looking after animals.
So what was the result of all of
these changes?
So throughout all of these changes, obviously I've

(47:28):
seen Scramble, he was engaging well with Savvy.
I felt that social box was being ticked
in ways that it hadn't been before.
His foraging behaviour was improving.
He continued to show decreased aggression towards my
husband, so that meant that he was enjoying
more time out of his cage, which meant

(47:49):
more exercise and more social time with people
as well.
Unfortunately, he continued to do damage to his
skin, despite my working with my avian vet
team.
And at that point, I think we're probably
about maybe four to six weeks after he

(48:11):
started to damage his skin, we made the
decision to remove the implant, mindful that we
might see some other behaviours reoccur, such as
aggression towards my husband.
But we felt that it was unlikely that
Scramble would let his skin heal while there

(48:32):
was still something under his skin which seemed
to be bothering him.
At this same time, we made the decision
to fit a very small Elizabethan collar.
So for Scramble, we used a soft collar
with the hope that that would be very
lightweight and allow him to continue engaging in

(48:53):
as much normal behaviour as possible.
But while he still had this wound on
his chest, and now he had a couple
of small, well, one small suture stitch from
where we removed the implant, we really wanted
to maximise the chance that that would heal.
So at this point, it's not ideal.

(49:15):
We really didn't want to use the collar
because it is preventing him from continuing the
behaviour, but it's not addressing why he is
doing this behaviour.
And with all the changes that I had
made to his environment and lifestyle, I was
feeling really unsure about what else I could

(49:37):
do.
And at this point, I reached out to
a friend and colleague, Lee Stone, at Parrot
Life Behaviour, and I asked if we could
have a consult to just brainstorm what else
could I be doing.
And with her encouragement, I started to look

(49:59):
at how I could make some of the
training that I was doing with Scramble more
cognitively challenging.
So increasing that mental enrichment for him, giving
him some challenges and teaching him how to
overcome them.
But also at her suggestion, I reached out
to a veterinary behaviourist who has experience with

(50:21):
parrots and other exotic animals.
And in consulting with her, I was able
to look at particularly ways that we could
better support Scramble with the use of different
medications.
So that was with Dr Kat Gregory, who

(50:43):
I'm working with on an ongoing basis to
help support Scramble.
So following this, we now had more medications
to support Scramble's brain and to keep him
physically comfortable.
And I was starting to look at some
new training challenges for him as well on

(51:03):
a daily basis to see if we could
help him to regrow some feathers and hopefully
not continue to damage his skin.
How do you think about now going through
what you've been through, hormone replacement implants?
And this question is about what I've just

(51:26):
asked, but it's a bigger question as well
in terms of, let's say, you've got whatever
challenge you have with your animal, you implement
it, and then it doesn't do what you
hoped it would do.
How do you frame that in your mind
as a professional?
Do you go, oh, I'm never going to
do that again, or you've got to try

(51:49):
things out to get the data about your
individual animal?
If someone was to come up to you
now, Belinda, and ask you what advice do
you have about hormone replacement implants, how does
that experience shape your perspective and the answer
you might give someone about that?
So I think one thing that I often
feel frustrated by, in a way, is that

(52:11):
we don't have a, it's not a science
experiment, we don't have a control, right?
So I don't know how Scramble's behaviour would
have progressed if we hadn't tried it versus
had.
And obviously with something like a hormone implant,
that's a medical treatment done by an avian

(52:33):
vet, and while it is something that I
had asked, is this something that would be
good to try, we were all in agreement
that, yes, this was treatment that was indicated.
There were behavioural signs that told us that
perhaps hormone amplification could be a source of

(52:55):
stress in Scramble's day-to-day life, and
a lot of the environmental factors that can
contribute to that problem, such as high-energy
diets and inappropriate handling, lots of sort of
touching, petting and cuddling, those had never been
factors for Scramble because they were things that

(53:19):
I was aware of and mindful of.
And so we felt very much that that
treatment option was indicated and we felt comfortable
doing it.
Like I mentioned, we saw some really big
positives from that, and those positives have lasted
beyond removing the implant.

(53:41):
And again, we don't have a controlled Scramble.
We don't know what that timeline would have
looked like differently if we had left the
implant in versus never put it in in
the first place versus had it in for
a time and then removed it.
But I think the one thing that I
would just be mindful of in future is
just knowing that it's not necessarily a treatment

(54:02):
that might help and can't hurt.
Obviously, in Scramble's case, we think it did
hurt in a way, but I would still
100% be comfortable to have that discussion
with a vet for another bird, just not
for Scramble.
Yeah, some awesome lessons there.

(54:25):
Thanks for sharing that.
Because we've got a long list of things
you've changed here, social enrichment, longer rest periods,
diet evaluations, upskilling, foraging skills.
I think the concept of surrounding yourself with
those.
I like the saying surrounding yourself with people

(54:48):
who are smarter than you, but surrounding yourself
with a good team of people, a good
team of people that you trust and bring
different knowledge, experience, and skills to the table.
We had the collar that you put on,
the Elizabethan collar, which I am enjoying thinking
about the list of other podcasts, thinking about

(55:09):
what that looks like for a bird this
size of Scram compared to their experiences with
Elizabethan collars.
We've had the hormone replacement and the importance
of having that conversation with your vet and
the value that you've had from having done
that in terms of understanding how it could

(55:34):
be helpful, but it could also have X,
Y, Z side effects, but how you do
that again and how that's something that is
individual to each case and team and animal.
The other thing that we haven't really dived
and unpacked more was Lee's suggestion, shout out

(55:58):
to Lee Stone, about cognitive training.
Can you explain to those listening, when we're
saying cognitive training in this podcast episode, what
we're talking about?
Because you could say, well, all training is
cognitive training, but there's more specificity and nuance
to what you're talking about, isn't there?

(56:19):
Yeah.
I guess in Scramble's case, what I was
looking for is what we had been doing
in our training sessions was almost repetitions of
skills that he found quite easy, so things
that he could do again and again with
relatively little thought.
And to be honest, it's not that fun

(56:40):
for him or for me.
There's only so many repetitions you can do
of something that's already well mastered.
So what we were looking for were things
that would get the wheels turning in Scramble's
brain a little bit more.
And that also meant that I had to
think a little bit more, so it took

(57:03):
a little bit more, I guess, training session
design on my part to come up with
challenges that he could meet that we could
also build and develop over time to increase
that challenge as he became more skilled.
So, I mean, one of the skills that
I started to work on, which I had
previously taught our Greenwing McCaw, I decided to

(57:26):
teach Scramble a retrieve behaviour, so I wanted
him to pick up an object.
And initially the goal was for him to
bring it to my hand, but as members
of the Animal Training Academy community know, we
had to do some troubleshooting to find ways

(57:46):
to make this task clearer for Scramble.
And so really during the period from late
July until now, we've been looking at ways
to break down this behaviour of picking up
an object and bringing it to a target
so that Scramble could understand, and it's been

(58:09):
one of the most interesting training challenges that
I've had.
So initially Scramble learned quite seemingly easily to
pick up a little plastic ring and to
drop it into just the lid from a
jam jar, which I had put on our

(58:31):
little training station.
And I was thinking to myself, fantastic, this
bird can retrieve.
But if I put the ring anywhere except
the right of the lid, as Scram was
looking at it, he couldn't do it.
So he could only flick the ring from
the right to the left.

(58:51):
And we sort of broke it down.
So I started to look at, well, how
can I teach him that it's about the
lid?
And we introduced a little target inside the
lid so that he was learning the skill
of touch the target and then adding the
plastic ring back in, pick up the ring
and touch the target.
Initially that still seemed not to help.

(59:15):
I was able to change where the ring
was in relation to the lid just by
fractions, so a little bit forward, a little
bit back, a little bit forward, a little
bit back.
And eventually we did have the breakthrough where
he could flick it from the other side
of the lid in.
But it still seemed a little bit like
good luck rather than good planning that Scramble

(59:36):
was getting this plastic ring into the lid.
We didn't work on it every day.
We were working on other skills as well.
So Scramble learned how to stand on a
little wooden block as a station.
He learned how to go around to the
left and the right on a little like
plastic cone essentially if anyone's ever trained a

(59:58):
dog to send out around a cone in
either direction.
I was doing this in miniature with Scramble.
He's learned to do other skills like shake
hands.
We've been working on a little bit of
voluntary restraint with the hope that we'll be
able to use it for physical exams, which
we're getting close to.
But still every now and again I would

(01:00:19):
bring back the retrieve and we could flick
it from side to side.
We could get it in the lid.
But I was just not happy that he
was just still not quite.
I wanted him to place it in there.
I wanted him to seemingly really understand it
is about putting the ring in the lid,
not throwing it and praying.

(01:00:39):
And what I noticed actually just a few
weeks ago was that the piece that was
really missing was Scramble could pick up the
ring, but he wasn't walking while he was
holding this plastic ring.
And so what I started to work on
with him was building some movement towards the
ring.
So using that little target inside the jam

(01:01:00):
lid, I started to build some reinforcement history
for Scram running from the end of his
little training mat across the mat to touch
the target.
And then I would reward him at the
back of the mat again.
And we would repeat that.
And I found that when I added his
little plastic ring back in, in the path
that he was running on, that he was
starting to pick up the ring and place

(01:01:22):
it in the lid.
Still when I changed the position of the
lid or the position of the ring slightly,
we'd see the behaviour break down.
So it was really interesting to see what
he was understanding versus what I thought he
was understanding.
But again, just like with the initial challenge
of him flicking the ring from just one
side, I was able to change it little
by little until in the past week we've

(01:01:45):
seen the major breakthrough where he can run
to pick up the ring from the front
of the mat and turn around and carry
it to the back of the mat to
put it in that little lid, regardless of
where that little lid is.
So that's an example, I guess, of where
it's taken a lot of time, but at
each step along the way, it's posed an

(01:02:07):
interesting challenge for both myself and for Scramble.
And because the goal with the training was
to offer Scramble that, I guess, that puzzle,
that cognitive challenge, the fact that the skill
hasn't been finished all this time, it's never
really mattered.
Each day that we've turned up at the
little training station, we've met our goal of

(01:02:30):
working on this puzzle together.
And I guess now that he is carrying
that ring really confidently towards the lid, we're
going to have to think of something else
to work on.
But that's an example that we've had where
we've been looking to offer a challenge and
a puzzle in order to keep Scramble's little
brain turning and ticking along and hopefully nice

(01:02:51):
and happy and occupied.
Well, I just thought of something you can
teach Scram, and that is building his foraging
skills.
You can teach him to pick something up,
put it in a bowl of water to
help soften it so he can forage on
it.
I don't know what that something is.
My brain was going, these skills are so
helpful because it's not just about teaching Scram.

(01:03:13):
In this context, you can pick up a
blue thing and put it in this lid.
It's about teaching Scram.
You can pick things up and put them
in things.
Well, I was going to say, putting things
in water comes very naturally to conures.
I think anyone who has fed their conure
or potentially any of their, our macaws and
our amazons do it too.
If you've fed them formulated diets like pellets,

(01:03:36):
they're pretty good at dipping it in water.
But definitely thinking about, you almost need a
little birdie vending machine.
You can put something in a slot and
have a treat come out.
But I might need an engineer to design
that for me.
Steve, you're on.
It makes me think as well that we've

(01:03:56):
been talking about cognitive training and in terms
of what does that mean?
It means that we're really getting Scram to
think.
That's something that we can't necessarily measure.
We can see in observable behaviors like slight
pauses or flinches when Scram goes to do

(01:04:18):
something that he's previously done, but realizes that
it doesn't result in reinforcement anymore.
So after that pause, he does the right
thing.
So we can operationalize it with examples like
that, but also problem solving to really get
Scram using his brain.
So that was a really cool example.

(01:04:38):
And now I'm thinking as well, it'd be
fun thinking about what you just shared in
terms of the natural history of conures and
some behaviors we see from that species.
I wonder if you could train the same
behavior of a different object in a different
context.
So train the same behavior, but in a
different way by trying to get capturing with
something that Scram already does.

(01:05:00):
That sounds to me like fun anyway.
Before we finish up, I want to acknowledge,
Belinda, that you and I talked about a
couple of things we wanted to talk about
in the episode today before we push recorded.
We haven't talked about any of them, but
that's okay.
It's cool, isn't it?
I'm not sure how much there is to
talk about a specific challenge and specific topic.

(01:05:23):
But of course we need to share with
everyone before we wrap up where we are
now.
We've shared about the problem.
We shared about the large amount of.
Things you did with regard to the intervention
to this problem.
Where are we sitting in December?
When we're recording this episode, because it's not

(01:05:43):
coming out until January, where are we sitting
now?
Yeah, I was thinking of that as I
was describing the training I was doing with
Scramble.
Where are we now?
When we put the collar on Scramble in,
I think it was March or April this
year, the hope was that that collar would
be on Scramble for about two to three
weeks while his skin healed and then would

(01:06:04):
be able to take the collar off and
carry on.
That wasn't the case at all.
Each time that we tried to remove the
collar, he would damage his skin again.
I think we saw that happen two or
three times.
He was also still doing some feather plucking

(01:06:24):
while he was wearing the collar.
So he was quite creative in the different
ways that he could hold his body so
that he could reach his wings and also
his legs and lower belly.
He was able to pluck while wearing the
collar.
But obviously during this time, I was changing
some of the environmental factors and I was

(01:06:49):
starting to incorporate more training challenges and foraging
challenges for Scramble.
And then I was working with Dr. Kat
to try and support Scram also with medication.
And what we started to see was that
he was doing less feather plucking on those

(01:07:11):
areas that he could reach.
And at the point that his little legs
were fully feathered, so they had grown pin
feathers, instead of plucking those pin feathers, he
had preened those feathers and he had lovely
full pantaloons.
At that point, I was feeling quite hopeful

(01:07:34):
that we could remove the collar.
So we tried, we removed the collar and
I supervised him throughout one day and then
left him overnight.
And then before we knew it, it had
been a week and then a month.
And he has been out of collars now
since August.

(01:07:55):
So that's a really good outcome.
In terms of his social and foraging behaviour,
he is greatly improved.
So he spends a lot of time obviously
interacting with Savvy, my green-cheeked conure.
They still are housed together very comfortably.

(01:08:15):
He spends a great deal of each day
foraging.
Without his collar on, he bathes pretty much
every day, I'd say probably five out of
seven days, which keeps his skin and feathers
nice and healthy.
We haven't been able to reduce his feather
plucking to zero yet.
So he particularly is still plucking underneath his

(01:08:39):
wings and on his lower belly.
We've not seen it resume to as bad
as it's been, but it's also not as
good as it's been.
He's recently had reviews with his avian vet
where we've been able to confirm that physically,

(01:09:00):
except for the feather plucking, he seems to
be in excellent health.
His blood levels are all normal, which is
really good news.
Obviously, he's on quite a bit of medication
at the moment.
So that was something that we were mindful
of and we wanted to make sure of,
make sure that his body was coping well
with that, which it is.
And we've also had a recent review with
our vet behaviourist.

(01:09:22):
And in doing that, we've been able to
look back at some, I guess, some records
that I've been keeping to see that periods
of the day where he's most seemingly uncomfortable,
agitated or most likely to do some feather
plucking, we've been able to adjust his medications
to better support him in those periods.

(01:09:44):
So we're a couple of weeks post that
now.
I am seeing some feathers regrowing in areas
that he had been removing them from.
And obviously, we're seeing some recent training breakthroughs
as well with some of the little skills
and tasks that we're working on.
So I'm optimistic.
And yeah, we keep working to support him

(01:10:05):
as best that I'm able.
Well, I think you're very able.
I think it's amazing what you've done.
I think it's amazing what you are doing.
And I'm so glad that we, again, could
use this platform, this podcast to share about
this to be continued story with Scram, you
and everyone else you've mentioned today, Scram's team.

(01:10:29):
Also want to acknowledge that you've been brave
today, in my personal opinion, in sharing with
us.
We've talked about Scram, obviously, and the challenge
of feather destructive behaviour.
But we've also talked about how that felt
as a professional trainer to have an animal

(01:10:49):
that was experiencing these challenges and some of
the hurdles you had to overcome in terms
of embarrassment, frustration.
So thank you for your bravery in sharing
everything that you've shared with us today.
Just before we do officially wrap up, because
I could just keep talking and asking questions,

(01:11:09):
but I think we've exceeded the length of
a normal ATA podcast episode.
So we will officially wrap up.
But just before we do, can you remind,
or can you, I guess we haven't mentioned
it yet, can you tell everyone where they
can go to find you online?
And if anyone here has any questions for

(01:11:33):
you, are they free to reach out to
you?
And how might they do that?
Yeah, absolutely.
I'm always happy to chat to people who
are interested in training and behaviour.
And if I can offer any support or
advice, I'm glad to.
You can contact me through my website, which
is www.treatplaylove.com.au. Or you can

(01:11:55):
find me at Treat Play Love Training on
Facebook, where I don't update my socials as
frequently as I probably should.
But you can definitely contact me there, and
I'll get back to you ASAP.
Because you're too busy in the ATA members
-only community, sharing all of your awesome training
in there with us, which we really appreciate.

(01:12:17):
We will, of course, link to all of
that in the show notes for you, the
listener.
And I'm so glad we got to do
this from myself and on behalf of everyone
listening.
We really appreciate you taking the time to
come and hang out with us on the
show.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, Ryan.
And thank you so much for listening as

(01:12:38):
well.
This is your host, Ryan Cartlidge, signing off
from this episode of the Animal Training Academy
podcast show.
We hope today's conversation inspired you and equipped
you with new tools for your trainer's toolbox.
Remember, every challenge in training is an opportunity
to learn and sharpen your animal training geekery.

(01:13:02):
Embrace the rough patches, learn from them, and
keep improving.
And don't forget, the path to growing your
skills and expanding your knowledge continues beyond this
episode.
Visit www.atamember.com to join our supportive
membership, where you will find a community of

(01:13:25):
trainers just like you.
Together, we're making a huge, positive difference in
the lives of animal and human learners worldwide.
Until next time, keep honing your skills, stay
awesome, and remember, every interaction with an animal
or human learner is your opportunity to create

(01:13:47):
ripples.
We're here, cheering you on every step of
the way.
See you at the next episode.