Harness Training

[Jules1]

Hi
I've read Michaels book and watched many DVD from Barbara, and Bird Tricks and they all say to start slow in putting on a harness for your bird. I've seen many people just put the harness on and give lots of treats and take them outside right away. And now the birds love the harness because they know they get to go outside. What is wrong with this method? Many people do this.

Besides what bird willingly will put on a harness without years of trying????

Julie

[Wayne361]

By forcing harness on "flooding" a few things can happen. One the bond between you and bird is damaged. Two, good luck getting the harness anywhere near the bird next time you want to put it on.
Its just bad practice. Train bird to WANT to go into harness....positive reinforcement...you are also setting up long-term cooperation from bird.

Wayne

[Wolf]

Hi
I've read Michaels book and watched many DVD from Barbara, and Bird Tricks and they all say to start slow in putting on a harness for your bird. I've seen many people just put the harness on and give lots of treats and take them outside right away. And now the birds love the harness because they know they get to go outside. What is wrong with this method? Many people do this.

Besides what bird willingly will put on a harness without years of trying????

Julie

Hi Julie;

Are you sure that these birds haven't been desensitized to the harness before you saw them getting it put on? Most birds will not even allow you to approach them with the harness without getting accustomed to it first. Giving the bird treats for accepting the harness is common practice as is taking them out right away, in fact, treats and going out immediately are recommended procedures.

Also it does not take years of trying.

[cml]

Also it does not take years of trying.

Tell that to Stitch !
(Admittely, Ive not tried for more than a year)

[Wolf]

Also it does not take years of trying.

Tell that to Stitch !
(Admittely, Ive not tried for more than a year)

Hi Stitch; And a fine good day to you too. now you know that there is no good reason to play your human in this manner, silly bird! It don't take no year to put on a harness so be nice to yourself and your human and put on your harness and give cml the flight of his life!

[cml]

Also it does not take years of trying.

Tell that to Stitch !
(Admittely, Ive not tried for more than a year)

Hi Stitch; And a fine good day to you too. now you know that there is no good reason to play your human in this manner, silly bird! It don't take no year to put on a harness so be nice to yourself and your human and put on your harness and give cml the flight of his life!

Stitch says hi back, and that he'll think about it!

[Kaiit]

I'm glad to see a topic on this as it's something I'm approaching with my amazon at the moment.

I've been (very slowly) teaching my 20-year-old bird to fly again, gradually building up his flight muscle and endurance and have got to the stage where I want to take it to the next level and try a bit more recall and distance in a larger space, which I can only get outside. I've ordered a harness, which should come in the post next week, but I've already started training my bird. As I've read is typical of amazons, he /hates/ his back/ wings/ tail being touched, so I'm slowly de-sensitising these areas with rewards and target training. He has responded to this really well so far. The next step for me is rigging up a mock harness to practise getting over his head as he has a habit of lunging at, and biting ferociously, anything foreign near him. Obviously I will have to go back to step 1 when introducing the harness instead of the mock but it will hopefully get him used to having something near/ on his body without wrecking a £30 piece of equipment!

(Also, I might add, I am /so/ impressed by all the videos I've been watching on parrot harness/ flight training!)

[Harpmaker]

I've seen many people just put the harness on and give lots of treats and take them outside right away. And now the birds love the harness because they know they get to go outside. What is wrong with this method? Many people do this.

What is wrong is that if it doesn't work it is hard to recover from. I tried the "flood them and let them see how cool outside is" method with a Brand X harness. Corsair spent the whole trip outside fighting the harness. She hardly noticed where we were. Then I found The Parrot Wizard site, bought an Aviator harness and went back to desensitizing--which took longer now because of the previous bad experience(different design and color did NOT fool Corsair). I would hang the harness on her training perch and she would pick it up gingerly and drop it to the floor(it WAS funny to watch). We worked through that, and moved up to it touching her, putting her head thru a body loop to get a treat, putting her head thru the head loop, and, many months after the first attempt, wearing the harness for less than half a second. She still isn't happy, but she doesn't leave or bite. We are working on wearing it longer now.

You might be luckier, but I wish I had known to do it right the first time.