Too willing to step up

[Elaihr]

Hi there,

I'm new to these forums, so forgive me if I ask something that has already been asked. I've taken a look around but didn't manage to find what I was looking for, so, I thought I'd just start a new thread.

I recently (three weeks ago) got a blue-headed pionus named Penny. She's 1 year and 8 months old, in other words, she's not a baby but she's definitely not old either. Her former owner (sold her because her husband had gotten a serious condition, they weren't exactly very cheerful and felt like this would affect both their parrot and their dog in a negative way) treated her very well, which probably helped Penny growing up to be a healthy, calm, well-socialized and nice parrot. I haven't had any problems with her since I brought her home, she seems to have adapted quite quickly. She's curious, wants to tag along when I do things around the apartment, tries different kinds of food, new toys, steps up, lets me cuddle her... The only thing makes me a bit confused is that she steps up almost too easily. Almost as soon as I stick my hand anywhere near her, she steps up, then continues upwards, to my shoulder. I want to be able to train her doing some simple tricks, and eventually have her wearing an aviator harness, but I realise this will be very difficult if she's constantly trying to sit on my shoulder, as I won't be able to see her properly (or what I am doing, for that matter).

So, my question is pretty much, how do I make her NOT step up as soon as I get my hands close to her? And when I want her to step up and she does so, how do I keep her from climbing up on my shoulder? In her previous home she wasn't trained at all except from learning to step up when X (her previous owner) reached out her hand to her, with no voice command or anything. All she did was reach out her hand and said "come here Penny" or whatever, and if Penny did not want to, she would just shrug and move onto doing something else, leaving Penny to do whatever she wished to do (I visited a few times before deciding upon buying Penny, so I have seen her in a few different situations with her previous owner). She also used to receive treats for anything at any time, so she's not used to having to "work" to earn treats.

Ah, now I'm just rambling. I realise it will take a lot of time and hard work to get Penny into training and "working" for treats, and I'm certainly willing to do it. All I need is just a few tips on how to get started, and how to make her stay in a position where training is possible (I really don't think it is as long as she's on my shoulder, my eyes will pop out eventually if I try to look at her and/or see what I'm doing in that angle...)

Also, thank you everyone for posting such interesting and informative threads, these forums are great!

[Wolf]

Hi glad you have such a nice friend.

Training is always an interesting concept to me and your bird was indeed trained to step up, however, the cue was not step up. As per your story it was, "come here Penny" or whatever. In all truth any and all time that you spend with Penny is training and she is always learning from you whether you have a formal training schedule or not. Any thing also can be used to reinforce the behaviors that you want or don't want, such as treats, scratches, time on your shoulder or whatever. it just depends on how both you and your bird see and value them.

If you don't want Penny on your shoulder, simply remove her from the shoulder and tell her no, stay or what ever you decide to say, just be consistant with it. You do not have to use the same commands or cues as everyone else if you don't want to. The cues don't even have to make any sense to anyone, just as long as you and Penny are in accord with the intent of the cues that you choose.

[marie83]

First off I would stop treating her for no reason to start with. When you take your hands near her with the intention of letting her step up then introduce the command want to use before she actually does step up then reward her when she does. At times when you take your hands near her when you dont want her to step up then dont reward her when she does. Now you already know she wants to be with you so more than likely she will step up every single time regardless of whether you ask her to or not but eventually she will click on to the fact that sometimes she gets rewards (when you ask) and sometimes she doesn't (when she helps herself to your hands/shoulder.
Now the problem you have is that her climbing on your hand and up to your shoulder is a reward in itself so you need to make it less rewarding than not climbing straight up for the time being, for that I would suggest teaching her the step down command and/or encouaging her to stay on your hand for longer, if she is very food/cuddle motivated this should be fairly easy if you can keep her attention with the reward before she starts making her way up on to your shoulder. If you struggle to keep her attention once she is on you then put her straight down and ask her to step up again, reward, repeat. If she steps up without you asking then try to put her straight down before she starts climbing up.

When i was first trying to teach my conure some idependance (he was same only wanting to be on my shoulder all the time) I would sit on the sofa and put him on the arm and distract him with cuddles, toys and food. I would then sit a bit further from him and put the treats down for him rather than handing them to him. I then started putting the treats in bottle caps to encourage him to spend a bit longer on a surface other than me.... in the end I had so many bottle caps we moved to the floor and treats were only in a couple of them. I could return to sit on the sofa whilst he ran round them all tipping them up excitedly. We moved on to hiding treats on His play tree, these days we dont put many treats there but he will spend ages looking for them just in case.

So you might ask how all this would help you but I found teaching independance helped me with training ollie as he was a lot less clingy and he learned to pay more attention and work for his food. I could put him down anywhere and he wouldnt instantly go back to my shoulder. He would pay attention to me to see what I had in store for him that time, he loves training now.

I have to say though, ollie was a baby when I got him. It would probably take a lot of patience to get an older velcro bird to be a bit less clingy. Good luck.

[marie83]

Here is a video of the bottle cap game


viewtopic.php?f=22&t=10111

[Pajarita]

LOL - She is not an 'older' bird, she is not even sexually developed yet so, for starters, you should not think of her as 'grown up' because she is not. For another, perching on your shoulder and just chilling there IS pretty much all pies do! They don't really take well to trick training (if that was what you wanted, the Senegal breeder was right and you will be disappointed). As to 'work' for treats, well, it all depends on the species, the treat, how you regard your bird, and what you want out of the bird (we have a saying in Spanish 'No le pidas peras al olmo' -don't ask for pears from the elm tree) but, personally, I give all my birds treats just because. Why? Because I don't consider them my pets but my companions so, the same way that I would share a treat with a friend for no other reason that it gives me pleasure to make my friends happy, I would share with them for the same exact reason! And I am sure that's the same reason the lady had for giving her treats. Penny seems like a sweet little girl who grew up dearly loved (she has no issues) so, if I were you, I would count my blessings, enjoy her, and don't 'mess' things up.