Help with shy bird.

[dohcsvt]

Hello, I have been a member here for awhile, but not active recently. I have 2 birds a named Ollie and a named Stanley. We have had the green cheek for about 3.5 years abd the sun for about 2.5. We make sure to take time every day and spend with them. I spend 5 minutes a piece in the morning practicing thier tricks. They fetch, target, turn around, wave hi and shake hands.
The problem is with Stanley. He has never been one for touching, but I thought he would outgrow it...he has not. He will step up, go to his perch with me and perform tricks, he will sit at the perch in the kitchen and eat with us, and EVERY night they both come out for kisses. Stanley loves to give kisses and will let us kiss his head and back even. The problem is touching. If we try to pet or scratch him he immediately bites and runs away. He will then step back up almost immediately, there is just no touching him with your hands. Even when we trim his beak and nails I have one helluva time getting ahold of him, the odd thing is once he is in my hands...he is like oh well, I guess I will just let daddy do what he needs to. Then while I trim and file he just stays in my grasp and does not really bite or anything...but DONT try to pet him or scratch him. BTW Ollie, just lets us do whatever we want to with him, he is more like a dog than a bird.
If anybody has any input on this I would greatly appreciate it.
Thanks.

[cml]

Welcome back, its been a while!

[Eric&Rebecca]

Petting isn't for all birds, some just don't like it. At least in my experience you can't really train them to like something. Of course there is target training for being able to touch the wings to place a harness on etc. Perhaps you could try some of Michael's trainings?

It may be that your bird just doesn't like to be pet.

[Wayne361]

Hello, I have been a member here for awhile, but not active recently. I have 2 birds a named Ollie and a named Stanley. We have had the green cheek for about 3.5 years abd the sun for about 2.5. We make sure to take time every day and spend with them. I spend 5 minutes a piece in the morning practicing thier tricks. They fetch, target, turn around, wave hi and shake hands.
The problem is with Stanley. He has never been one for touching, but I thought he would outgrow it...he has not. He will step up, go to his perch with me and perform tricks, he will sit at the perch in the kitchen and eat with us, and EVERY night they both come out for kisses. Stanley loves to give kisses and will let us kiss his head and back even. The problem is touching. If we try to pet or scratch him he immediately bites and runs away. He will then step back up almost immediately, there is just no touching him with your hands. Even when we trim his beak and nails I have one helluva time getting ahold of him, the odd thing is once he is in my hands...he is like oh well, I guess I will just let daddy do what he needs to. Then while I trim and file he just stays in my grasp and does not really bite or anything...but DONT try to pet him or scratch him. BTW Ollie, just lets us do whatever we want to with him, he is more like a dog than a bird.
If anybody has any input on this I would greatly appreciate it.
Thanks.

Currently he doesnt want to be touched...hence the biting. I would suspect he fears your hands and the fact that you stated when you want to trim his nails "I have one helluva time getting ahold of him" would re-enforce his dislike at being touched. You state also that he kinda stays in your grasp when trimming nails....this is called "flooding" where the bird doesnt want to be there but feels powerless i.e. gives up the fight (not recommended for training or relationship building). Basically IMO you are doing everything to prevent your bird from wanting anything to do with your hands. You need to go back to Positive re-enforcement in your methodology. basically make being touched scratched a positive outcome for the bird every time.

Hope this helps,

Wayne

[dohcsvt]

Thank you for all of your input. I had never heard of flooding. How am I supposed to trim his nails and beak with out holding him? I don't want to scare him, he is my little boy, but I want to keep him healthy and well groomed.

I will try to add some touching interaction to our morning training sessions, where I will positively reinforce after he has been touched. Does this sound like a decent plan?
Thanks again.

[cml]

Thank you for all of your input. I had never heard of flooding. How am I supposed to trim his nails and beak with out holding him? I don't want to scare him, he is my little boy, but I want to keep him healthy and well groomed.

I will try to add some touching interaction to our morning training sessions, where I will positively reinforce after he has been touched. Does this sound like a decent plan?
Thanks again.

Its not easy eh? I dont want to do grooming myself yet, because I can only hold Stitch on his back atm. We've worked with positive reinforcement to get there, and I dont want to ruin that.
Leroy, is a lot like Stan, and doesnt like being touched much at all. He likes the occasional head scratch, but after months of training towards being able to lift him, we havnt progressed far - I can put my hand around him, but not lift. There's where we hit a road block.

All lifting we are doing though is through positive reinforcement, and I never force them. Stitch actually leans in when he sees that my hand is going to grab him, its super cute . With Leroy though, we still have a long way to go.

Grooming is as I said impossible for us atm, and their nails have been fine for over a year, being at the correct length naturally through wear. Now they've hit some sort of growing phase though, because they have gotten alot longer in a short time, so I am gonna book a vet appointment to trim them down a bit.