Toilet Training...Accomplished!

Success! I have no idea how it has happened, but Fig is now, for all appearances, cooperatively toilet “trained”. What this means is that she can now sit on my shoulder around the house without having any “accidents”. This is a double achievement on her part.

 

First, she has finally realized that being on my shoulder is safe, whereas before she always wanted to be in my lap. She never poops if I am holding her, or if she is sitting in my lap, even if something really frightens her, because being embraced, or coddled effectively makes her feel protected. So pooping on me is not something she wants to do, it is something that is triggered by fear, and when she is afraid, she may not be able to help herself. Being up on my shoulder in the house, with a cat around, and TV, and unusual noises, and kids, and things, and an environment in which things are constantly changed, moved, different day to day (Crows are hyper aware of small changes in their environment) simply made her too nervous. Now, however, she has made the leap out of her safety blanket space, and into ours. Her space is still somewhere she wants to be, but she now happily spends hours in our space comfortably without the need to sit in my lap and be reassured. Now she sits on my shoulder, and feels safe and comfortable, even if I am sitting down, which puts us much nearer the cat and kids. This is huge leap of confidence, and trust for Fig which I was not expecting her to make so suddenly. The other day, I had two kids in the house, both rowdy, one rather obnoxiously in the face of the poor Crow…but Fig handled it all very calmly, without pooping!

 

Fig is so communicative; you can really understand what she is telling you. I can gesture to her, do you want to come down to my lap, or up to my shoulder, and she can clearly state her wish to move, or not to move.

She has not merely decided that my shoulder is safe, what is going on is much more than this. What she is saying to me is, I will go onto your shoulder, even though it still makes me nervous, because I want to be a big girl. It is exactly the same thing as when parents send their kid to the store, or let them ride around the block on their own for the very first time. The kid is nervous still, maybe even worried, perhaps afraid, but the kid is saying, I am ready to face my fear, and I want to try, in part because they know they must grow up, and in part because they want to please, impress, and receive praise from their parent for their bold achievement. This is exactly what is going on with Fig.

 

Now, getting her shouldered in the house, was easy. She has been able to sit on my shoulder for more than two years now. The issue was that she has been too afraid to not have accidents when up there, or have stress build up to untolerable levels, causing her to act out, and need a break. I suspected I could get her to the point where she would agree not to poop on me though, because she has been accident free when I carry her around town, or sit her on my lap for as long as I can remember. Something about the shoulder was just too insecure though. Now, thank goodness, it is no longer an issue for her, and this means she can spend time with more than one person in the house, she can do dishes with us, she can sit at the table, and she can be a fully active family member.

 

Fig’s second achievement is her toilet training success. She is still dependent on a human to get her to her toileting spot, but now amazingly she has started to notify me when she needs “to go”. This is not merely a litter boxing effect at work; she has decided very clearly, that she is deliberately going to communicate with me because she realizes that is what I want her to do, what I expect from her. It’s a real Eureka moment for her, and for us. She is very clearly telling me, and I mean actually looking me in the eye, and saying in her own words, “Oh, I get it! You want me to tell you when I gotta go! Right, no problem. Don’t worry.”  Again, I find myself trying to explain something very difficult to describe here.

 

Okay, so she is sitting on my shoulder, for example. And I look up at her, and she does her usual look back at me right in the eye, and “gurrs” softly to acknowledge eye contact. And perhaps she wags her tail, or plays with my hair a bit. Or maybe she softly ambles a bit, shifting her weight foot to foot. Or maybe she looks up, then back, or adjusts an eye. There are so many small motions that she does, and they are all telling, all communicative, and no one is enough on its own to be a full sentence. These head tilts, eye winks, foot fidget tapdancing, tail wags, beak lifts, feather ruffles, and utterances are a fluid, contiguous stream which segue into meanings and action based on context. And while I still find myself guessing at a lot of what Fig does or says or does, she has made one thing very clear, she has said to me,  “Okay, I get it. You want me to communicate when I need to go potty. No problem.” And if I ask her, “Do you need to go?” her response is very clearly nuanced as either, “Don’t worry about it.” or “Yeah, maybe I can go.” or “Uh, Matt, I really gotta go. Hurry up!”

 

We have now had four days together in the house, accident free, up on the shoulder. I even stuffed her full of food just to make certain it isn’t a fluke. It is nothing short of a Xmas miracle.

 

Next, I cannot wait to get Fig confident enough to bound about person to person, shoulder to shoulder, socializing as much as she likes, with whoever she fancies, and building her own relationships, and finally, bounding off to the toilet entirely on her own, and hopefully flushing it too.  She already, ironically, goes bounding about in search of the cat although she is terrified of the cat. She intentionally jumps down to get closer to her in certain situations, and when she gets close, she pulls this cat whisperer face and posture which just mesmerizes the cat. Fig deliberately creates situations where the cat is inclined to chase her across the house at high speed. It is seriously as if she is, no joking, training the cat. I mean, as best I can tell, the Crow is in fact, teaching the cat, by play, and repetition, not to attack, to stop short, to pursue to a certain place, then halt on command. She is taking serious risks, and flirting with death, but like a flutist to a king cobra, she appears to be in complete control. It’s madness. Wonderful madness. I even wonder if she might be copying me by expressing approval, and disapproval to the cat. Or teaching the cat the game we usually play at the park where I chase her from point a to point b and back repreatedly. I shall be writing more about this again.

 

I digress. Just to make certain I have accurately recorded this. I did not train Fig to be toilet trained. I simply expressed mild disapproval when appropriate, and she caught on. She has always understood the meaning of poop, it is a word she picked up very early on as a youngster, and on her own has understood very quickly too that I don’t want to pick her up until she poops. She has understood this so well in fact, that I can tell if she wants to be picked up or not, when I approach, by if she poops or not. A poop means, Yep, I am ready to go! Please pick me up!

 

Likewise, I never trained her not to poop when I hold her walking around town. Usually, I just sweep her legs back, and she relaxes and goes to sleep reclined on my arm, either upright, upside down or sideways. She does not mind either way. She simply won’t poop in these positions.

 

Nor did I ever teach her not to poop on my lap. She decided that on her own. She naturally recognizes me and my person, and I guess she either has too much respect, or too much self-consciousness to go in proximity to others.

 

And finally, I have not taught her to inform me when she needs to go to the bathroom if she is on my shoulder, or perched on my arm, or somewhere in the house. I simply told her, Please don't poop, whenever she alighted on me or furniture.

 

The point is very much that I have not taught her anything. Yes.

 

This means several things. It means that Crows have a self awareness, and self-consciousness. They have awareness of others, and respect for them. They have awareness of a common space, and respect for it. But most importantly by far, this means that Fig, that Crows have awareness of the expectations of others, any respect for those expectations. They try to meet others' expectations, because they desire approval and praise. They understand the tone of your voice. They learn your vocabulary, even if they do not manage, or decide to mimick or use it themselves. They learn, just as a human child learns, by listening, observing, and remembering what happens in what context.

 

Everything Fig has achieved as far as toilet training stems from her own abilities to listen, to remember, to understand, percieve situations, and others' wants, and to act to receive positive feedback.

 

BUT Fig does not merely seek to please. She does have her own boundaries. She does want time alone. She does want what she wants, and she does have opinions which need listening to. She is not simply a robot trying to serve a master, not at all.

 

As one example, she recently objects to using the toilet room when I take her to go potty. This is an inconvenient fact that is going to put a bump in the road I have planned to travel towards full, actual toilet training, where she uses a human bathroom, and flushes the toilet on her own. She has an issue with the toilet room. It is a small, typical Japanese toilet room, so she finds it rather claustrophobic. She feels cornered. She has recently told me in no uncertain terms that she will sit on my shoulder without having accidents. But at almost the exact same time, she has decided to tell me that she really is not a fan of the toilet room. Instead she tells me, she would prefer to poop from her usual perch, the one in the “bath” room, not the toilet room, the exact room I am trying, eventually, to extricate her from over time. She has even invented a game, all on her own, which she often does. When she wants to go to the bathroom, she flies to the end of the laundry room, as far from the entrance to the “bath” room as possible. She is saying, You open the bathroom door, and hold up both arms, and I will hop across and into the “bath” room to use the toilet. She is saying, I like this game, and I like going to the bathroom in there, NOT in there. She has figured out a clever way to get two things that she wants, in exchange for doing the one thing that I want. This is how clever these animals are folks.  

 

This little game of hers makes me think again, more deeply, when I am watching the wild Crows in the trees, and on buildings, what significance, what meaning the place they choose to sit has. Sitting in a certain place can be a powerful way to communicate to everyone who can see you, it’s time to head off to the roost, or time to go foraging, etc… That Fig is now doing this behavior with me using place as communication, talking to me from my shoulder, playing with my hair, and other things….are signs that she is freely, naturally communicating. It is exhilarating. It also has me a bit worried, because she seems to be an incredibly capable negotiator. Who knows what she's going to be negotiating next!?