Alexandrine training troubles

[lemondrop]

Hi there,

I acquired my alexandrine parakeet almost a year ago now, was told she was about a year old at the time. She is more fearful than aggressive - i've been trying to teach her to step up for months, it's the thing she just won't trust me with. I have a feeling she was not handled properly or enough where i purchased her from (pet store) and she was the only one available. She has definitely come a long way though, as she can target to a clicker and stick, spin and waves when she wants a treat or if she wants to be pet. She lets me touch her head, beak, neck and back, and vocalises to me and no one else in the household (one person bird).

I am finding the biggest issue is the stepping up. She has actually gone backwards and goes to bite my hand when i put it towards her. She might put one foot on, then run away from me. There have been times when she puts both feet, but hooks the back toes over the perch and clings really hard so i can't lift her up or move her around. Whenever i use a wood perch for her, she flies in fright, so i stopped trying that. I've watched so many videos, i have a barbara heidenreich dvd that i watch every now and then for inspiration - i just don't know what i'm doing wrong! It's stressful and kind of hurts, particularly when i take Pip to the vet or the bird minders because it's always 'ooh your bird doesnt know how to step up' 'it's up to you you know' and such. I don't know if it is just me being not good enough, or that my bird does not trust me enough yet.

Thanks for reading, please let me know some things i can do as I love my bird and want our relationship to be a good one!

[Wolf]

With only the information provided it is very difficult to actually give you much in the way of an answer. The answer to why she is not yet stepping up for you may be as simple as you are not spending enough time with her on a daily basis or it may be rooted in past treatment by other humans or it might be something else altogether. I really don't have enough information to hazard much of a guess.
From what I can gather you have made substantial progress and are obviously spend time with her and it appears that she is wanting to trust you enough to step up for you but there may be something that you do that interferes with her trusting you, it may even be that she is looking for some behavior from you that will decide the trust issue that you are not doing. Or as I said it may not be you it may still be something from her past that she doesn't yet know how to deal with.

I am pretty sure that it is something simple as it usually is but don't know where to begin. You are our only window into your birds world so the more that you can share with us as far as her living conditions, her schedules, her diet as well as what types of training you have done with her paying as much attention to how you train as what was taught and anything else you can think of would help us a lot to answer you. The more that we can understand your bird the better and more accurate our replies will become.

[lemondrop]

Well, i spend a vast majority of my time with her - she has a large cage in our sitting room, has a lot of time each day out of her cage, upwards of 4 hours, anywhere up to 8 as long as i am home and can supervise her. That being said, she has a playstand near her cage where i do most training. She does not normally leave her cage and stand - the only time this has happened has been when she was fully flighted, would get a fright from something, and fly off into the next room or somewhere she had no clue how she'd done it or how to get back to her cage - so she is now clipped to prevent her flying into our windows, which was traumatic and we have since covered them with sheets.

Her routine is generally, covers taken off between 8 and 9 in the morning, pellets and water refreshed, Some bonding time and trick training - then i will generally have breakfast and if it's something she can have i share it with her. Then I give her some fruits/vegetables and set up foraging toys for her. If i am not at uni, i periodically spend time each day doing light training eg spinning, waving, kissing, touch training, petting, talking. In the afternoon i give her a bath, and she puts herself to bed at around 6PM every evening.

I started her with touch and clicker training, but it is too difficult for me to use the clicker when stepping up as i cannot coordinate bird, pine nuts, clicker and hand/arm at the same time haha; so i generally just put one hand in front of her and try to coax her onto my hand with pinenuts in the target hand - barbara heidenreich style.

[Chantilly]

Well, i spend a vast majority of my time with her - she has a large cage in our sitting room, has a lot of time each day out of her cage, upwards of 4 hours, anywhere up to 8 as long as i am home and can supervise her. That being said, she has a playstand near her cage where i do most training. She does not normally leave her cage and stand - the only time this has happened has been when she was fully flighted, would get a fright from something, and fly off into the next room or somewhere she had no clue how she'd done it or how to get back to her cage - so she is now clipped to prevent her flying into our windows, which was traumatic and we have since covered them with sheets.

Her routine is generally, covers taken off between 8 and 9 in the morning, pellets and water refreshed, Some bonding time and trick training - then i will generally have breakfast and if it's something she can have i share it with her. Then I give her some fruits/vegetables and set up foraging toys for her. If i am not at uni, i periodically spend time each day doing light training eg spinning, waving, kissing, touch training, petting, talking. In the afternoon i give her a bath, and she puts herself to bed at around 6PM every evening.

I started her with touch and clicker training, but it is too difficult for me to use the clicker when stepping up as i cannot coordinate bird, pine nuts, clicker and hand/arm at the same time haha; so i generally just put one hand in front of her and try to coax her onto my hand with pinenuts in the target hand - barbara heidenreich style.

I could simply be that she is clipped that she does not want to step up, or it could be something entirely different like Wolf said. Mabye, instead of a pinenut try a peanut, I know peanuts are not that great for them and there is concern about fungus growing in them, but that is why you get roasted From memory you can get like 500g bags at Woolworths for under $8 (I know, expensive.. but that way they are human grade and you dont have to worry as much about anything growing in them, and you can show Pip how good they are) they absolutely love these and once Pip has one or two, he will probably want a billion more. Just an Idea, hopefully it helps Just know that once he has had one, pinenuts might not be quite as exciting, or mabye he will prefer pinenuts.

[lemondrop]

@Chantilly haha yes, i have thought about peanuts before but do worry about aspergillosis - sometimes Pip gets almonds, cashews or macadamias as a rarer treat - but she always seems to prefer pine nuts for whatever reason - with her i believe it's the oily texture. The more oily the better! I even noticed she ate more pellets than usual this recent packet, as the batch seemed not as dry or fully cooked and the pellets seemed oilier than usual.... Oily bird. Lol!

[Pajarita]

Well, the fact that she is clipped is working against you, actually. Clipped birds feel insecure and vulnerable and, when you are talking about a bird that you are trying to get to trust you, it's making things much harder. The other thing that calls my attention is the apparently (and I do say apparently because you don't actually give any time frames so I might be wrong on this) too often training sessions. These birds are not like poicephalus or cockatoos when it comes to training... not all species are the same, you know. Psittaculas tend to be more interested in what is going on around them than to involve themselves in the action by learning tricks and they are not birds that bond that deeply to a human that would make them want to please its chosen one. But even pois should only be trained in very short sessions and not more than twice or three times a day so your overdoing it seems to me that it could be a factor. You need to be VERY careful of the interaction with a psittacula because they are difficult birds (never recommended for newbies, actually). It requires long, consistent and daily interaction but it's not the same kind that you would have with say, a gray, or a too, or a pois. They are not ones to stay on your shoulder for long or to initiate stuff, they seem to prefer been there watching things closely and making comments about it.

PS Never bathe a bird in the afternoon, only in the morning and in a warm room.

[lemondrop]

@Chantilly I tried peanuts today and we actually made some progress, haha thanks for the tip.
@Pajarita I was not aware of the bathing in the afternoon thing! Also, the training sessions really are about 2 - 3 a day. Any other time, if she wants something she waves at me. She also tends to initiate training sessions by standing on her playstand perch.

The clipping does frustrate me - when I first purchased her I had her clipped, the people did a horrible job - i was hoping that she'd be trained enough by the time she moulted and flight feathers could grow back, and when they did, she seemed more spritely but was causing me a lot of grief as she kept flying into things, to the point where she got mild concussion and that was a last straw. This is a safety measure i wish i could forsake - hopefully by next moult it will be better

[Wolf]

Ah yes, the wonderful world of parrots with all of the thrills and chills of flight school. Actually parrots have to learn to fly and despite the many branches of the trees that they must learn to navigate through the forests is easier most of the time than the inside of a house, when it comes to crashing into things. This time will be harder for the bird than if you had allowed her to continue. So the heads up is going to be to cover windows and doorways with a sheet or curtain to reduce the impact of running into them, It also reduces the risk of her running into the windows at full speed. Still they are better equipped for the impact at a younger age. Then when she has gained some control over her flight and landings you will want to try some window decals for a while so that they learn that there is not a hole there as they really can't see the glass. You could also mount a branch or two across the window to encourage them to land there instead of trying to fly through the window. She may still crash into the wall a time or two while she learns to turn tightly in flight so you will have to grit your teeth, clench your fists or whatever but you really need to let her learn while she still can. You may even have to take an even more active role in teaching her to fly if she has forgotten how to do it.

As for teaching her to step up you really don't need to use the clicker, but if you feel the need to use it then practice a little where she can't here you on making the same clicking sound using only your mouth. Hold the nut in one hand and ask her to step up on the other one. Hold the treat so that she can see it but has to stretch to reach it. If she stretches for it then for the first couple of times give her the treat. Use a half or a quarter of the unshelled peanut for this. Them move the treat a little further back but not much, now you want her to have to put one foot on you to get the treat. When she does this reward her a couple of times. then with the same distance so that she must put one foot on you to reach the treat ask het to step up but do not reward until she steps up. If at the end of the training session reward her for one foot or move to another item so that she can earn the treat. Always end with her getting the treat, it is very important.

[Pajarita]

Yes, what Wolf recommended is good but it seems to me that her real issue is hands so what I would do first is start by touching her toes with one finger (only until she tenses up, mind you) and putting my hand on her perch without trying to touch her or asking her to do anything. Watch her body language and never 'push' her to accept it, just go as far as you can and, as time goes by, she will start feeling more comfortable with having your hands near or touching her feet. As she gets used to this, start putting your hand palm up in front of her with a treat on it. Don't ask her to step up or anything, just put the hand at the same height you would put it for a step up (about an inch above her feet and in front of her toes) with the nut on it, praise her when she takes and simply take your hand away. Once she moves her body forward to take the nut without a single split second hesitation, start putting your dominant (right if you are right-handed or left if you are not) hand in front of her but holding the treat in your other hand right next to it so she has to lean over or even step on your hand (she will start doing it with only one foot) to get to it. Don't move your hand when she does, just allow her to reach and grab it, praise when she does and move your hand away. Once she is doing this all the time, start putting the treat hand just the tiniest bit farther so she has not choice but to actually step on your hand and start using the command "Step up!", allow her to grab the treat and move back on her perch, praise her and move away. Then, after you've been doing this for days and she no longe things anything of stepping on your hand, start moving the hand where she is stepping on just the tiniest bit higher so she feels movement under her feet but can still reach the safety of her perch. You see where I am going with this, right? The trick is to get her used to stepping up on your hand EXTREMELY gradually and always allowing her a 'way out' until she feels completely comfortable with the procedure. Once she does, you can start putting your hand sideways she can grab your finger or arm with her claws. Always praise, praise, praise and reward, reward, reward but also always respect her 'limits'.

[lemondrop]

Thanks so much for the tips guys!! This will surely help me a lot i will keep you updated! The flying tips are especially appreciated - i will be better prepared next moult!