My bird is a sociopath

[lady_beatrix]

Seriously.

Going down Wikipedia's list of symptoms for antisocial personality disorder:

• Persistent lying or stealing

Kinda hard to tell if she lies, but she steals food out of Itchybutt's* mouth while he's trying to eat it.

• Apparent lack of remorse[3] or empathy for others

Yep.

• Cruelty to animals[4]

She's cruel to Itchybutt. >_>

• Poor behavioral controls - expressions of irritability, annoyance, impatience, threats, aggression, and verbal abuse; inadequate control of anger and temper

Cutie gets annoyed at what seems to be the smallest things and screeches until whatever she's annoyed at stops. Like music. Or talking. Or Itchybutt's singing. Or my trying to pick her up to take her back to the cage because it's getting late and she needs to go to bed soon.

• A history of childhood conduct disorder

Actually, she was very nice as a baby. Maybe a little too nice. If Itchybutt tried to preen her, she'd decide that she should start preening him instead.

• Recurring difficulties with the law

Laws don't apply to birds to my knowledge.

• Tendency to violate the boundaries and rights of others

She sees no problem with trying to force Itchybutt to regurgitate food to her by grabbing his beak in her own or to step on his side/back to get him to sit still while she preens his head. Invariably, he tries to move away whe she steps on him, which makes her tug on his hair, so he screams in surprise/pain, and I end up giving Cutie a talk on how molesting other birds is not nice.

• Substance abuse

I'm sure she'd snort millet if she could.

• Aggressive, often violent behavior; prone to getting involved in fights

Besides pecking at Itchybutt on a regular basis to get him to move away from the food bowl or off some perch she wants, she once picked with a fight with an older female (Female budgies wear the pants in the cage. It'd be hilarious if that were literal, but unfortunately, it's not.) and had a few of her own face feathers pulled out.

• Inability to tolerate boredom

This one is true, but I credit it to her intelligence. When I change the toy in the cage, Cutie'll play with it for a day or so (not continuously, just some amount within the span of a day or so), then lose interest in it. Unless it's a new toy that she's never seen before. Then she might play with it for up to three days. Unfortunately, she's long since decided that Itchybutt is a far greater source of amusement than any toy and will terrorize him even when she does have a new toy available. |:

• Disregard for safety

I suppose she's on the brave side by bird standards. By that, I mean that even though she's paranoid that she's going to be eaten by sheets of paper, blankets, posters, toilet paper rolls, cuttlebones, toy briefcases, large bird toys, etc., she gets over it pretty quickly (usually) and decides that they're either harmless or fun to play with. The exception to this is the toy briefcase (about 1"x.75"x.33" (disclaimer: I suck at lengths)). She's decided that it's safe enough as long as it's sitting still on the cage, but she runs away when I try to show it to her.

* I didn't name him.

Seriously, though, Cutie's an awesome bird. Even though she's really mean to Itchybutt, she's actually... I was gonna say that she's nice to humans, but it's more like she tolerates us most of the time. wtf, Cutie. That was one of your few redeeming factors and it was all a lie. -_- Well, it's not even been a year yet. ONE DAY I WILL MAKE HER LOVE ME. (I guess she loves me now. She does her panicky chirps when I suddenly leave the room.) ONE DAY I WILL MAKE HER LOVE ME AND SHOW IT MORE OBVIOUSLY.

PS. Yvonne, I still have your book, but it's in Davis atm. >_> (I'm sorry, I bent the cover when I put something else in my backpack! I will make it up to you with food in some form or another! D: )