Congo Grey turning her back during training

[Dragon Wizard]

Hi all, first time posting here.

My 18 week old Congo named Dragon has a habit of turning her back to me when I'm training her and I've been trying to teach her the "here" command, we had graduated from stick pointer to fingertip and she has previously been able to turn around and even do a step up afterwards, but recently she is doing a few things that are "rebellious"

1/ she takes her sweet time to eat treats and won't do anything until she's totally done and has wiped her beak( and she takes like a full minute to finish something that would otherwise take 10 seconds, I've only noticed this during training), compared to our caique who downs the snacks asap and is quickly ready for more. I've used sunflower seeds and pomgranate gems

2/ She turns her back to me after every clicker + treat command and after a few rounds just ignores my "here" command and faces away.

I'm really keen on her understanding and obeying the here command because when i place her on my shoulders she goes far back sometimes out of eye range and i want her to come forward. When she's very rebellious she tries a bit to evade me.

3/ Another thing I need help with is when I'm placing her back in the cage (and i've taken great effort to practice the step up and step down reward thing) she'll latch onto my shirt with her beak and try to get back up on me.

This isn't 100% of the time but it's closer to 50%. Sometimes she's a really good girl but other times she gets really willful. I'm trying to do several short 5-10 minute trainings per day, on top of the time we spend playing where i reinforce the step ups and shoulder discipline as much as i can. She also loves staying on my shoulder, particularly when in the kitchen so that's become part of our quality time in the mornings, but I'm worried I let her on to the shoulder a tad premature and she's gotten some attitude out of it.

Am I expecting too much from such a young bird? We bought our caique of the same age at the same place and she has progressed in training much faster. I don't know what I'm missing with the grey.

Thanks in advance, any advice is helpful.

[liz]

LOL wow are you in trouble. A birdie that young who knows she doesn't have to listen has got to be super smart. Good luck.

[Wolf]

Do you want the truth or do you want the ego boost?

[Dragon Wizard]

Give me the truth man

[Wolf]

Alright, that is what I was hoping that you wanted, some people get offended when I give them the truth, Although I was being a bit facetious, I also really did want to know where you were.
I don't know how long you have had these two birds, although at 18 weeks of age, I would venture to say about two weeks, maybe. At this age they are both still just babies and even though I don't know what you are feeding them, I am pretty sure that it is not actually as they need to be fed for their stage of development. Both of them should be getting soft foods twice a day in addition to a good quality seed mix for their dinner. They should also get some fresh, raw vegetables and a little fruit along with their breakfast. I personally don't like pellets and I neither use them nor recommend them for any bird, however, realizing that you are not me, you can, if you must, use them in place of a quality seed mix for their dinners.
Most of your questions were concerning your Grey, Dragon, but most of the answers apply equally to both of your birds. By the way, I am happy that you got two birds instead of just one as this is very important for their welfare, and even moreso given their age. I don't know how much experience or knowledge that you have in regards to parrots and as a result I may be telling you things that you already know or not, but in either case I mean no disrespect to you in any way.
At this point in your relationship with your birds, I am assuming that you have not had them for very long, you should be concentrating your efforts on getting to know your birds, and earning their trust and bonding with them, not putting so much effort into their training just yet. In many respects building your relationship with these birds is a lot like building a house. If you want a good sturdy house, you must first make certain that you have a strong foundation. These first few months are when you build your foundation with your birds. This is when you get to know them, their body language, their likes and dislikes and build both your confidence in them as well as theirs in you, this is when they learn about you and you learn their personalities, this is when they decide whether you can be trusted or not. This stage in the forming of your relationship becomes the foundation for their forming a strong bond with you and creates the framework for all that will come in the years ahead. There is plenty of time for training later, this is the time to build your relationship. This is the time to just hang out together and learn about each other. The more time spent hanging out together and talking to them the better. This is also a good time to get them on a good healthy, nutritious diet, and get accustomed to having them on a solar light schedule.
There are many things that you will do with both birds in both building your relationship and in training because it is the right way to proceed and it will work just fine but both birds will respond very differently to these same methods. The are very different birds from each other and they have very different personalities and they like different things or sometimes they like the same thing but like it presented differently, they are going to respond to different things in different ways. They do not " see" the same thing in the same manner. I don't know if you have a brother or not, but if you do then you know that although you were both raised in a similar manner that you are both different and understand thing differently from the other, just as you have different tastes in what you do and do not like. Although there are many similarities between you there are also vast differences and this is the same with your birds. This is heightened by the fact that although they are both parrots, unlike you and your brother ( if you have one) they are of different species. With this being the case how can you reasonably expect them to respond the same to anything. These are a few basics that you should take into account and give some thought to because although these thing apply equally to both birds they are individuals and even thought they respond similarly they are motivated differently.
This is the point where I switch to try to address you specifics concerning Dragon. Ok, I have just reread your specifics and Dragon is trying to communicate to you, by turning her back, that she does not want to do this at this time. She may be wanting to take a nap, or she may just not be in the mood for training right then. I can't say why, but she is trying to let you know so you need to be aware of this attempt to communicate with you and respect her in this and you would be wise to listen to her when she tries to tell you something.
In regards to your concern with her behavior with eating her treats, the first thing that comes to mind to me is that you are being unreasonable, as it is her treat, you gave it to her, she performed for you and you gave it to her and she has the right to eat and enjoy it however she chooses to including the cleaning of her face afterwards. Now that is my opinion on the matter, but in all fairness, perhaps she is not all that hungry at the time or perhaps she is not as impressed as your other bird with that treat meaning that maybe she doesn't like it as much as the other bird. I can't say for certain what is going through her mind, but of this I am certain, if she is cooperating with you then rebelliousness is not any part of it. My Grey always takes her time whenever she eats anything and she stops very often to clean her face and beak when she eats. So I suspect that this difference in taking and eating her treats is just a normal behavior for a Grey. You are undertaking an exercise in futility in expecting two different species of bird to act the same way, it is something like expecting a gorilla and a baboon to act the same.
With the last specific , Dragon is trying to tell you that she doesn't want to go back in the cage as that means being separated from you and she wants to spend some time with you or perhaps more time with you. It could also be that she doesn't want to go in the cage, so perhaps you could consider putting her on her cage as opposed to in it. Many times you can avoid what will become a problem behavior by simply acknowledging what she is saying, in this case that she doesn't want to be put into the cage, by just stopping and walking about for a minute or two talking to her and then asking her to step down in the cage. I know that very often that this is all it takes to get my Grey to willingly go back in her cage when she lets me know that she doesn't want to go in it.
Back to the this applies to both of them type information. You are thinking like you think that a parrot is a domesticated animal like a dog and that it lives in and understands a dominance based hierarchy, both of which are wrong. A parrot is not a domestic animal and it neither understands nor does in live in a dominance based society. Your Grey is not being rebellious in any way, but it also doesn't follow orders either it is not a concept that it understands. Birds live in a flock and are very social to the point that being alone in their natural environment is the same as a death sentence and in captivity being alone is the single most harsh, stressful and abusive thing that you can do to them. Birds band together in groups or flocks in order to protect themselves fro predators, yet each bird is an individual and does not take orders from any other bird in the flock They each one acts together to protect themselves and thus the entire flock from danger of their own volition. There are no alpha birds or flock leaders. You need to rethink your thinking as regards to these wonderful creatures. You are thinking that you can make them to conform to your lifestyle and they simply can't do that. You have to alter your lifestyle to meet their needs. They are not being rebellious, or belligerent or dominant they are just being a bird and specifically they are being a parrot nothing more and nothing less. If you get bit by a parrot and you will, you are the one in error and in nearly all cases you could very easily avoided it.

[Dragon Wizard]

Wow, thanks for the great perspective shift. I hear everything you're saying and agree with your approach, we're interested in creating a happy flock here at home. I had heard that training was a way to connect with your bird so that's why I had been pushing the envelop on that.

I have probably been a bit hard on her because I've been approaching the relationship as the "authority figure" and getting frustrated when she didn't respond to that all the time. She's very affectionate with me and the bond has definitely begun to grow, but maybe I'll cool the training for now. She already learned the step up and down pretty well and that's mostly the only thing I really needed her to know.

But on the subject of the putting in cage thing, sometimes she gets a little wild, flying on the other bird's cage (which we haven't allowed) and I've been taking her down right away saying, no, and counting to 5. nowadays she steps off right away, but when she doesn't I had been putting her back in her cage to show her that if she won't behave nicely to the other bird (we thought it was a domination tactic because she'd poop in the other bird's cage sometimes) that she can't be out with everyone.

Now is any of that ill conceived? Like where do you draw the line without being abusive?

[Wolf]

I don't let any of my birds on another birds cage if the other bird is in their cage at the time as that is a great way for them to lose a toe or more. So at those times I simply remove the bird from the cage and either spend some time with it or return it to the top of its own cage. No big deal. Now since I have the cages about three feet apart I usually open all of the cages at the same time and they all come out and mostly just climb up to the top of their own cage or one will fly to the tree that I have as a perch for them and I usually start playing and working with another one of them, sometimes one of them will go to one of the empty cages and go in and steal food and look around and even play with and trash the others toys. Again, no big deal I just make sure that I remove the visitor when I return the rightful occupant to their cage top.
The only place that I draw the line at is them hurting each other and that is actually my responsibility to prevent. I don't ever use punishment with my birds as they are not being bad. At worst they are just doing what would be the right thing to do if they were in their natural environment, but sometimes it just doesn't fit in with life as a companion bird.
Once, Mimi, my psychotic Amazon got scared, while I was working with Kiki, my Senegal and Skeeter, my Parrotlet and flew over to Kookooloo's, CAG, cage and went inside. Since my hands were full, I had to put two bird in a safe place before I could address the situation ,as Kookooloo made a beeline into her cage to defend her space from the intruder. By the time I placed the two on me in safe places, Kookooloo had Mimi blocked off from being able to exit the cage. This is the biggest difficulty in this type of situation. And she was chasing Mimi around the top of the cage biting at her. It is kind of funny, afterwards to see two parrots with one chasing the other running upside down from the top of a cage. I simply put one hand between them and Mimi step onto my other hand and I removed her. disaster averted. I returned Mimi to her space and all was good once again in the land of oz. No punishment, no drama, no one had done anything wrong. Mimi, simply got scared and flew to the wrong spot to be safe and Kookooloo wasn't trying to dominate or actually even hurt Mimi, she just wanted Mimi out of her space and was totally right in her actions, it is what she would have to do to protect her nest from an intruder in her own environment. But it is my responsibility to keep them from harm. I am the one who opens all of the cages, so I am the one who set the stage for this.

[liz]

I am sorry, I read your post as 18 month old which I consider still young.
Yours is such a baby. I would consider it as a 1 year old child who has learned to walk.

I raised 2 absolutely opposite kids who were 18 months apart in age by myself. I learned to choose my battles. If my son refused to eat green beans I asked him to cover one with mac and cheese to eat it and I would be happy. My daughter ate everything. My son walked at 9 months but my daughter didn't even try until 13 months. At a year old my son could follow 3 directions and complete them in order. At a year old my daughter looked at me as if you have to be kidding.
Their IQs were tested in middle school. One was 138 and the other 137 but I never told them which was which.

These two were close in age coming from the same gene pool but were complete opposites. Each one learned at it's own speed and interest.

[Pajarita]

Wolf is 100% correct. An 18 week old gray is a baby and babies are not sent to school, they stay close to their parent figure and are just loved, fed and taken care of. Parrots are the same as all young animals, they want to be with their parents and play so, please, no training until he's much older. And, if you do your job (as a parrot parent) right, he will love you to pieces and would be much more willing to learn. But, I warn you, given half a choice, parrots will not obey anybody, not even their beloved human. Mine listen to me but I don't train them (no target, no food reward, no sessions), I teach them the same way I taught my children when they were little, namely, with repetition, consistency, patience, ignoring the bad behavior and praise, praise, praise for the good one.