First time CAG owner... PLEASE HELP!

[hollaroo22]

So my boyfriend and I got a CAG last weekend so we have had him now for one full week. We got him from a lady who has had him his whole life (he's 6) and she sent me pics of him all over her house, told me how tame he was and sweet and he sounded like the perfect parrot for us parrot newbies (though we have had a lovebird before and we both grew up with birds). Which I'm sure he was sweet to HER but after the first week with him I am slowly regretting getting this bird....

I love animals, have always loved animals and have never met an animal who didn't like me till NOW! This parrot, for whatever reason, just despises me! He will SOMETIMES let me pet him (he comes up to the bars and puts his head down for me to scratch him) which he used to let me do a lot the first couple days we had him but I guess since he has gotten to know me he decided he doesn't like me so the petting is becoming less and less because he doesn't come up to me as much, even though I'm the one that uncovers his cage every morning, feeds him, and gives him water.

Now of course he is just all over my boyfriend. He pets him, last night he picked him up, he comes out of the cage for him, and when I open his cage he doesn't even go near the door. What really boggles me is that when we have a friend come over the parrot hasn't even met b4 the parrot lets them pet him all they want!! Then when I try, he bites me!!!! I know it has only been a week, but I just don't understand why this bird hates me. I talk nice to him, whistle to him, I said good morning and talk to him all morning, he doesn't care. Last night he actually let me pet him n front of my bf but then turned his head up real quick and bit my finger HARD and it scared me and I pulled back and started crying... now I'm terrified of him.. not that he bit me, but that he went from nice to "surprise b*tch! I hate you!"

I read online that your suppose to let them bite you without flinching or making a noise, which I did earlier that morning, I put my hand in a fist so he couldn't grasp my finger and he bit my knuckle, and I thought I did a good job but later when it surprise bit me I just became extremely discouraged. It really sucks because I went halves with my bf on this bird and I just spent a bunch of money on something that hates me and hurts me. My bf of course loves the bird so I see us keeping it long term...it does bite him SOMETIMES but he works construction so he can take his bites much easier than I can.

Ugh! Sorry this is so long! But I am SOOO stressed because of this, especially since I'm the caretaker of our pets (we also have a dog and 2 rabbits). The lady I bought him from (his name's Kirby btw) said he got along with her other pets and her kids! Which Kirby gets along with EVERYONE EXCEPT ME! What am I doing wrong? I really want to improve my relationship with him. When no one's home is when he is more likely to let me pet him so when he does I have been giving him a treat right after for letting me pet him, but when my bf is home Im scared of him, I used to not be but after than surprise attack I just don't know what to think! I wanted my bf and I to have a relationship with this bird together, but seeing him love my bf and hate me makes me jealous honestly, especially since I'm the one actually taking care of him!

I'm sorry this was so long, hopefully someone will read this and offer some good advice that I can do to win over this bird. I'm alone with him for house in the mornings and an hour in the afternoon b4 my bf comes home so it would be best to work with him then. But what do I do? I'm crying just writing this. Please help! Thank you!

[Wolf]

OK, you have just received your first lesson about parrots, when they bond to a human. Don't think that I am being rude or anything like that, because this is a good thing and despite what you are thinking all is not hopeless, but this is something that you need to know and understand about parrots. first of all most of the time when a parrot bonds with a human it rejects everyone else and views them as a rival for the time and attention of their chosen human. This usually means that they will either ignore and/ or bite anyone not their chosen one.
Now you have only had Kirby for one week, and the person that he has chosen for now is subject to change. You being the one to take care of his needs, food, water, cleaning and so forth has no bearing on his choice, nor does it matter if you like birds or not. No one knows how or why they choose the people that they do.
I have a CAG, too, but I also have other parrots, one of which is a Senegal Parrot who chose my Lady to be her special person. I am the person who takes care of the animals in our home. This little bird would be let out of her cage and fly over to me just so that she could bite the @#%$ out of me. The point here is that within a few short months she changed her mind and is now bonded to me, although she does accept my Lady as part of the flock. and this could happen in your case as well. So don't get bothered about this and have some patience, nothing is yet etched in stone.
Now to begin with the thing that you need to do is to work on taming him. to do this you need to set aside several, 3 or 4, 15 minute time sets for working with Kirby. And yes, at this point it would probably be best if you do this without your boyfriend being present as Kirby thinks of you as a rival right now.
You begin each session the same way, in that you will stop when you enter the room with Kirby in his cage, look at Kirby kind of sidelong, not directly as a predator would and notice where he is and what he is doing and slowly start your approach towards him. As soon as he starts to act nervous or starts to move away from you, stop and do not go any closer to him for this session. You want him to understand that you are not a threat to him. Now talk to him normally, but also in a calm voice. It doesn't matter too much what you say to him although a few nice bird, good boy, good Kirby type phrases wouldn't hurt. I tend to talk about how I would like our relationship to be and things that I would like to do with him. at the end of the session say good bye and leave. It may take just a few sessions or it could take months but you will at some point find yourself right outside his cage. It is at this time that you can introduce treats to these sessions. You proceed in exactly the same manner except that you will now offer him three or four treats through the bars of his cage during your talks. Once, Kirby, is taking these treats from you with no sign of aggression then you can do the same thing with the cage door open. When he accepts these treats without any aggression then you place your hand just inside of the cage until he does not try to bite it and then you can proceed to offer him treats held so that he must step up onto your hand to get the treat. You are successful when you and Kirby can do all of this without him biting you.
At this point you should have earned enough trust that you will be accepted at least as part of the flock and won't get bit. As I said earlier, he may change his mind about who is his special person or he may not, but you can at least get along together without getting bit.
Kirby is also going to need to have three to four hours of free time out of his cage to fly about, explore or even just to hang out. This is in addition to the sessions you have with him which are your one on one time with him for now. Kirby needs to be on a solar light schedule which is basically where he gets up with the sun and goes to bed with the sun. and he needs a good diet, with fruits, vegetables and whole grains and not a lot of seeds.
Have some patience as things could change quickly at this stage and it will take several months for him to fully adjust and by then who knows how things will come together?

[cml]

Some very good advice from Wolf, as per usual . I would listen to his posts as he takes time to think himself into your situation and tries to reply based on that.

Now, I basically agree with everything Wolf wrote, but I will try and make a few suggestions as well, possibly in a different manner.

What you need to realize is that, as Wolf wrote, the parrot doesnt care that you give him food or cleans his cage, it has little impact on the bonding process. I think you realize that parrot ownership is quite hard and thus joined here to ask a few questions, which is great . You are very welcome aboard!

You need to STOP:
* Expecting the parrot to love you after a week, it may take months.
* Petting him, as he clearly does not want it atm. This may change though, but parrot simply are not as cuddly animals as say a dog.

What I would do now is:
* Just sit close to the cage, talk to Kirby and once in a while offer a treat if he's ok with that. Dont do anything else atm.
* When he accepts you (this can take many weeks, do NOT rush things), and takes treats without biting, start with target training.

Target training is an awesome tool for bonding with your parrot, and even if you dont want to keep training your parrot and teaching it tricks, target training is an essential tool to use in my personal opinion. With it, you can communicate to the bird what you want and distract it from bad behavior.

Read more here (its essential that you read it carefully and not only watch the videos, Ive had people skipping the reading part and its not good ):
http://trainedparrot.com/taming

When you got target training down, and I iterate, this may take MANY WEEKS or even longer if the parrot does not like you, proceed with step up training, using target training to target Kirby onto your hand. Again, this may take a LONG time to work flawlessly, especially if you have a biting issue.

So why the training approach?
I take this approach as it will be a concrete and structured way for you to work with Kirby rather than letting things go by chance. It's easy to make mistakes as a new parrot owner, trust me - Ive been there and have had to work through lots of stupid things I did wrong. We learn by admitting that we dont always know best and trying new ways.
With training you will ensure that the parrot will see you in a good light and feel that your relationship is rewarding, and not only demanding, and this will greatly increase the bond between you and build for the future.

Again, please read this link as it will give you a great start:
http://trainedparrot.com/taming

Let me know if you want an even more structured approach than I've outlined here.

Also, even if everything atm works well between your BF and Kirby, its important that you and he are consistant in the way you treat Kirby and at a later stage he too should do everything I've outlined here, but for now it will be enough that you train with Kirby.

[Pajarita]

All good advice so I just have a couple of points, only. Please, please, please, do not take his rejection of you personally. Parrots are not like dogs, 1) they couldn't care less how much you love animals, 2) their brains are not programmed to try to please an authority figure (like dogs are, for example) and are3) incredibly ungrateful when it comes to who feeds them or cares for them.
1) is because parrots are monogamous animals which stay all their lives with the same mate (in most cases) so they actually 'fall in love' and stay in love with a specific individual which makes it difficult for the person who loves them but it's not returned the love.

2) is because, in the wild, they live in a flock which is not only a great extended family but also the most equal of all social groupings because there are no leaders, no bosses, no alpha roles - ergo, their brains are wired for independent thinking and not following orders.

3) is because they are not predators. They don't have to work either alone or in a team to get their food, they just fly around and, when they spot a source of food, they come down and eat - therefore, our providing them with food is not something that is actually saving them any work or time because, as far as they are concern, food grows on trees -LOL

This is not happening because there is something wrong with the bird, with you or with anything you have or have not done. It's just the way parrots are. I am the bird person in my house, my husband loves the canaries and is very kind and generous when it comes to the parrots expenses but he doesn't like them at all (he is actually afraid of them) and, as far as he is concerned, if we have no choice but to live with parrots, they should all be in cages. But there is one bird (also a gray) that loves him and just tolerates me. It has been years and she hasn't switched her affection to me even though she goes days and days without seeing him and I am the one that does all the work and all the loving. Like I said, it's the way they are. But, even though he might never love you the way he loves your boyfriend, you can achieve a good relationship with him so he doesn't bite you.

Now, I don't believe in the 'don't react when bit'. I think it's stupid. Parrots are highly intelligent and empathic and don't like to cause anybody pain (they are prey animals that do not live in a hierarchical society so aggression is not wired into their brains, it's only used as defense or for protection). Don't go putting your fist near him to 'show him'. The best way of teaching a parrot not to bite is to avoid the bite in the first place so spend time with him, open his cage and let him out (put a perch outside his cage and a nice branch tied to the side of it that goes up so he can climb on it), offer him treats, etc but don't ask him to step up unless you have to and, when and if you do, use a stick.

[hollaroo22]

Wow thank you everyone for the awesome replys! I definitely don't have a problem working on training, especially since you guys told me I don't have to let him bite me! Knowing that things can change gives me a great amount of hope that I didn't have before. I didn't realize how different parrots were than other animals (and other birds in general for that matter!)

I'm really glad I found this forum. I'm actually sitting on our bed next to the cage and my boyfriend is sleeping in the other room and I have Kirby's door open and he's sitting out on top of the door whistling at me and letting me pet him! It's like he knows I read this forum and understand him now !! But I'm going to continue to back up if I realize I'm threatening him in any way.

Thanks again everyone who replied! I'm sure I'll be asking more questions in the future!

[Wolf]

We will all be happy to help you find your way with your bird and answer to the best of our ability any questions that you may have. One of the unique things about us is that we care about your bird's welfare just as much as we do our own birds and we love our birds.
My Lady still ribs me for driving 1200 miles round trip to pick up a little parrotlet that needed a home. She should know after more than 20 years together that I am not always prone to do the most rational of things, that I always do as my heart dictates.

[Pajarita]

Indeed we do! And we all started not knowing anywhere near enough, just as you did, so we know how frustrating and disconcerting parrots can be.

[Navre]

A grey that has been in one place for the last six years may need quite a bit of time to adjust to the new place.
I had a grey, and when we bought a new couch she went through weeks of adjustment. When my son was born, she never did adjust. After about 3 years of her trying to hurt my son whenever she could, we found another home for her. I thought this was kinder than keeping her locked up all the time. (I'm still not 100% sure it was kinder for her as I had hand fed her as a baby.)

I'm not trying to be discouraging, just pointing out that birds, and especially greys, can take a long time to adjust to new surroundings. Also, if he is not used to dogs, they could be adding to his stress.

Also, you're a brave woman knowing you're going to take a bite from a CAG and not backing down.

[hollaroo22]

LOL! Yeah I took his bites the first week (he never broke the skin but did leave and indent that lasted all day) but after everyone's replies and seeing I don't have to let him bite me it was like Hallelujah! His previous owner did have dogs, kids, and other birds which she said he got along with them all fine. He doesn't seem to be bothered by the dog at all, Emry (our dog) will go sniff him and he doesn't back away or bite, just lets him sniff!
Since I'm home more than my boyfriend he has definitely been warming up to me. I was doing homework on the bed and opened his cage and let him climb on the bed and gave him some papers to chew up/apple pieces and he was pretty content just sitting next to me making a mess! When I would go to pet him he wouldn't back away but would just kind of stare at me like "Really. I dare you." Since he wasn't putting his head down to let me pet him I just slowly pulled back and thought "I'll just let you continue to be content.." lol.
I'm going to try to start that target training soon, it would be very helpful since when I wanted him to go back to his cage I just kind of shooed him to his cage...! But not in a scary way, just cleaning up and saying "Go to your cage!" in a nice way and he got the picture! I've even been teaching him some new whistles and it's really awesome once he starts saying them! He's even been talking/jibberishing when no one's in the room (like when I'm in the bathroom nearby he gets pretty talky)