# Personality Change



## ashcatash (May 23, 2014)

Hello everyone,

I have a five-year old male cockatiel named Oscar. For the past four and a half years, he's been great. Talkative, playful, bossy, arrogant...the usual cockatiel. He enjoyed shoulder time and spoke over 15 phrases and whistles.

Then my boyfriend moved in. He works from home as a salesman, so he is always on the phone while I am away at work. Oscar has bonded (?) with him and now only screams for him. Constantly. For hours. He paces up and down the cage, calling loudly, and banging his water bowl or attacking his toys angrily. My boyfriend has been patient for months now, but is reaching his breaking point. He covers the cage and puts it in the back room, but Oscar keeps screaming (plus, my bf feels guilty for this). Oscar is literally only happy when he is perched on his shoulder, which is impossible because my bf is on the phone or Skype all day with customers. It's affecting his business because the customers have been complaining about Oscar's screams. He thought about putting the cage on the porch, but there is a hawk that lives in the tree outside so he didn't want to do that.

Even when my bf is not home, all Oscar does is scream for him. He doesn't play with toys anymore and he's stopped talking. He will sit on my shoulder but doesn't seem to care much for me anymore (hurts my feelings). 

We need the noise level down. I thought about buying another cockatiel but not sure if that would make things worse. We have two parakeets in a separate cage that Oscar hates (one is his nemesis...lol). They play and sing happily and ignore him.

Please help. It's gotten to the point where my bf is about to move out because the screams never end. They start from about 7am to when Oscar is covered around 8pm.

Thank you!


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