So the little Duracell chime noise in commercials freaks out my male cockatiel. I have a female as well, but it only bothers the male. At night when they're covered he can hear it from the other room and lets out a sleepy-sounding scream, even though he should be asleep. Worse though is in the daytime when he's alert every time he hears it he screams for about 30 seconds straight. And this is not an attention squawk, loud whistling, anything like their normal noise... this is an ear-splitting scream, and I can tell he's freaked out. It makes it completely unpleasant to watch tv, because you have to be on alert for a duracell commercial so you can mute it

I've tried playing the noise over and over (at duracell.com it does it in the intro) and over and over to make him realize it's not a threat or anything, but all it did was make me suffer hearing loss, and freak him out more. I tried playing the noise while giving positive reinforcement (holding him, giving him millet, etc) all to no avail.

Oh and the old Duracell noise from 80's commercials (youtube) doesn't do it. He could care less. It's the newer, higher pitched noise.


Does anyone have any other ideas, or does the same thing happen to you??