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Little more step up help?

Discuss the methods and techniques of clicker training, target training and bonding. These are usually the first steps in training a young parrot.

Little more step up help?

Postby Calthesa » Thu Jun 26, 2014 12:26 pm

Hello again everyone,

If anyone remembers my previous thread, we seem to have solved the biting problem, but we have a new issue. Pepper is now stepping up when he feels like it (for treats, to get off the floor, etc.) but absolutely does not want to stay on our hands much less step up multiple times in a row reliably or from one hand to the other or anything like that.

We are trying to only give him head scratches on our hands, making him step up to leave the cage and go back in, giving him two treats in a row with an increasing interval between etc., but he just doesn't like stepping up. He steps up and immediately tries to get to our shoulders or he steps up and immediately goes back down even without a treat if we try to withhold it for a moment or with his treat without waiting for the second one.

Can someone give us some tips on how to further train stepping up now that he isn't biting? Thanks.
Calthesa
Lovebird
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is female
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Re: Little more step up help?

Postby Wolf » Thu Jun 26, 2014 3:49 pm

The first thing that comes to mind is two treats in a row. May I inquire as to the purpose of this? It is obvious that it must be to accomplish something, but I can't fathom what it is.
It is possible that this is creating some confusion in Pepper as well and therefore may be what is getting in the way.
Wolf
Macaw
 
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Re: Little more step up help?

Postby Calthesa » Thu Jun 26, 2014 5:32 pm

Somebody at the bird store told me that in order to increase the amount of time he stays on my hand (or stay on an object or allows me to touch him or any other time duration problem) I should try giving him one treat for stepping up, wait for increasingly longer intervals, and give him a second treat so he will stay on my hand in anticipation of the second treat. This advice may or may not be total BS, but I tried it because I didn't know what else to do. I've already stopped doing it, so I don't think it's casing any confusion any more at least.

He keeps wanting to run up to my shoulder and won't step down which worries me because I don't really trust him next to my eyes and soft fleshy face bits yet so I want him to reliably step up before he gets to ride on my shoulder and I want to be able to remove him without much fuss if I need to/want to. I know he won't step down because he likes it up there/feels safer/blah blah blah, and that's fine. I just want to work on fixing the problem and making him feel safer on my hand instead.
Calthesa
Lovebird
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is female
Posts: 32
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Re: Little more step up help?

Postby Wolf » Thu Jun 26, 2014 9:49 pm

OK! Thank you for the answer, I think that I now have a picture of what is going on now.
I am going to assume that at least in part that he doesn't want to come back down to your hands is that he is afraid that you will put him in his cage and he doesn't want that. Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong about this as I would like to know, but it doesn't have much bearing on the possible answer to your request.
We can work with two treats on this. What I propose is that you ask him to step up in the usual fashion and you try to scratch his head and wait to see what he does. Let's say that he runs to your shoulder. Relax and give him a minute, he is expecting you to immediately try to remove him from the shoulder, so don't do that. Start playing with the treat in your hand making sure that he sees it. don't offer it to him, just relax and let him relax and continue to play with the treat in your hand, turning it this way and that, stopping to examine the treat while making sure that he can see it and what you are doing with it. you can move it up close to your face to look at it, just make sure that it is out of his reach and keep doing this. He should get very curious about it until he comes down to your hand at which time you let him have it and praise him for coming down to get it. Then try to step him down some place other than his cage. Praise him and offer another head scratching. Repeat this two or three times. then do something else with him before you return him to his cage.
Let me know how this works out for you, please.
Wolf
Macaw
 
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Re: Little more step up help?

Postby Pajarita » Fri Jun 27, 2014 11:47 am

Well, in my mind, he is doing nothing wrong but I am afraid you are. For one thing, step up is just one single action that immediately leads to another. It's a mode of transportation. It could be to pick him up from the floor, to make him come out of his cage, to put him back in there, to move him from one perch to another, etc but step up and just staying on a hand doesn't work regardless of how many treats you give him. I don't know of a single parrot that would be willing to just perch on a hand and stay there for the duration. Why would them? It makes no sense whatsoever to them and that's why he resists it. Perching on a hand for the sake of it has no attraction whatsoever to a parrot. The hand is not a steady perch, it has no food holders or toys and it's not 'us' - our face is 'us' and that's why he wants to climb on your shoulder (just like any other parrot). Furthermore, the stepping up from one hand to another is called 'laddering' and it's a form of flooding, something that is NOT recommended because it has long term negative effects on the bird and his relationship with you. Parrots are highly intelligent beings which reason and reach conclusions of their own and expecting them to perform stupid, senseless actions over and over and over won't do it for them. You would expect a trained dog to 'stay' but you would not expect a 4 year old to step from one little stool to another over and over or stay on one, would you? So why do you expect him to accept it gracefully?

All parrots want to be on our shoulders (and there are no 'blah blah' reasons for it, they are good and they are solid) and constantly preventing him from getting close to you is not something I would recommend. You have to give him the benefit of the doubt and allow him closeness or he won't bond right with you because he will perceive your actions as a personal rejection (again, parrots are not dogs). You say you are afraid of him biting your face so be careful you don't create a fertile ground for this to happen.
Pajarita
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Re: Little more step up help?

Postby Calthesa » Sat Jun 28, 2014 3:31 pm

To Wolf: Thank you for the advice, I think he is getting a little better since we have started letting him stay where he wants (provided it's safe) for awhile before asking and then returning him so stepping up is more like "oh, they just want to give me treats" and less "oh no, they're taking me away from the fun". We'll just keep working on it. I think we just have to be more aware of the consequences (in his mind) of our actions. We just want him to step up, but he thinks we're putting him away. So thank you.

To Pajarita: I am sorry, but you are making a ridiculous amount of assumptions in your post. I am not "laddering him". I am not "making" him stay on my hand for minutes or hours or whatever you are thinking. I meant that he will not stay in the sense that he will not stay on my hand long enough to be transported, given a treat, whatever. He literally steps up and back down in one second. He doesn't wait to get anywhere or even for his treat. In regards to stepping from one hand to another, I meant to a second person's hand or once to my other hand so I can reach something or just treat and put down or whatever and NOT "forcing" him to step up in anyway or many times in a row.

As far as my "blah blah", that was just my way of saying "etc.". I meant to imply I already knew he had good, solid reasons for wanting to be on my shoulder and I did not need them explained again. I do not think it is unreasonable to teach your bird to stay anyways, but that was not what I wanted to teach him. Additionally, I do in fact let him on my shoulder as much as he wants, but sometimes I need him to step off of it for whatever reason (sometimes as simple as me heading to the bathroom where he is not allowed for safety reasons) and he has to do it most of the time. Not %100, but usually. Like %75 maybe. The problem is he steps up closer to %5 of time right now.

I know you are just worried about the bird and want to help, but I do not appreciate your tone especially when Wolf has already been very nice and polite. As a brand-new parront (even you started somewhere), I think I deserve a little bit of respect. I didn't have to come here and ask for help.
Calthesa
Lovebird
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is female
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Re: Little more step up help?

Postby Pajarita » Sun Jun 29, 2014 9:03 am

I did not make ridiculous assumptions, I was just replying to your words. This is what you posted:

"absolutely does not want to stay on our hands much less step up multiple times in a row reliably or from one hand to the other "

"He keeps wanting to run up to my shoulder and won't step down which worries me because I don't really trust him next to my eyes and soft fleshy face bits yet"

What you posted last tells a completely different story from what you originally posted.
Pajarita
Norwegian Blue
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is female
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Number of Birds Owned: 30
Types of Birds Owned: RoseBreasted too, CAG, DoubleYellowHead Amazon, BlueFront Amazon, YellowNape Amazon, Senegal, African Redbelly, Quaker, Sun Conure, Nanday, BlackCap Caique, WhiteBelly Caique, PeachFace lovebird, budgies,
Flight: Yes

Re: Little more step up help?

Postby Wolf » Sun Jun 29, 2014 10:37 am

It is difficult to answer people on a forum, just as it is difficult to write out what our problem is. It has given me a whole new perspective on columnists such as Ann Landers or Ask Abby.
The poster has a difficult time trying to decide what information is and is not relevant to the problem and its causes. This is compounded as they often don't have any idea of what the causes might be.
Another problem arises simply because of wording, this is a difficult thing to deal with and is probably the primary cause of misunderstandings between the original poster and the person trying to help them. The OP has available to them additional information that for various reasons doesn't get posted, mostly because it doesn't seem to be relevant, to the OP, to the situation that is being described.
This sometimes creates a situation in which the person trying to help reads the post and without knowing the OP or the omitted information gets a slightly different picture of the situation than what the OP intended to convey. This leads to misinterpretations or misunderstandings of what is being presented and between two very well intentioned people who actually are trying to achieve the very same results.
There is no fault or blame to be had when this happens, it is just part and parcel of the process that we all work with. And once the OP has been responded to then the risks that each person runs in this process are reversed, as now the responder is the new poster and the OP has the same problems that were encountered by the person who responded to them in the first place. And that is a lot of room for misunderstandings to develop. Sometimes it is a wonder that there are as few misunderstandings as there are, I know that it leaves me amazed.
Wolf
Macaw
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is male
Posts: 8679
Location: Lansing, NC
Number of Birds Owned: 6
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African Grey (CAG)
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