by SaraBear » Sat Mar 19, 2016 12:15 pm
ParrotsForLife:
I am a logical person and am open to constructive criticism as well as changing my mind on a particular point of view, but I'm afraid the argument of "anyone who came up with that idea is a complete idiot" is not entirely enough to convince me. I have my reasons as to why I prefer to keep her clipped and they are purely for Skye's well-being, not out of laziness or neglect to train her or any such reason. I don't mind discussing this another time, and again, I am open to changing my mind (especially after doing some more research and weighing the pros and cons), but for now, I would like to deal with the issue at hand and not get into a debate about flighted or not. Like I said, I've had other birds before, if this was really the issue, they all would have had the same problem.
I will admit to being frustrated, especially after doing weeks of research and investing a lot of time, money and energy to find that things are getting worse. It's disruptive and unpleasant when she behaves like this and at the same time I feel guilt and sadness that having to keep her in her cage is the only way I can prevent her from terrorising my family. I appreciate an honest opinion if it's constructive, but if I wanted to get rid of her, I would not have taken the time to do what I did and what I'm doing now, instead, I would have just sold her off (which is a LOT easier to do).
Wolf:
Thank you very much, I appreciate your time.
She came from a couple who seemed very inexperienced, in fact, they seemed scared of her and when they removed her from the cage to pass her over to me, they did it with a net (which surprised me, considering they advertised her as being very tame). When I asked them why they were selling her off, they told me it was because the other lorikeet she was living with was bullying her and acting aggressive towards her. I didn't get any more background information about her besides that she'd been sexed as a female. In retrospect, I should've been more scrutinising, but this was my first time purchasing a bird without my father after he passed away (he was the biggest bird enthusiast in the family).
I bought her a very large cage (taller than human height) and decided I'd give her a couple of days to adjust before I took her out. In the meantime, I gave her different kinds of food every day to see what she liked, like apples, watermelon, grapes, rusks, etc. When I first took her out she climbed straight up my arm and onto my shoulder, which she does everytime even until now, but back then I didn't mind. She gets very very excited when she comes out and is very playful and wants to chew everything and explore, all the while we got more comfortable with each other as the days went by and I started taking her out more and more and interacting with her in different ways (like playing with toys, light wrestling, target training her).
When I first noticed that she disliked getting back into her cage, I would try to take her out before her breakfast so that when I was ready to put her back after a short session, I could entice her with some food and she'd be occupied eating while I went about my morning schedule. That wasn't a big issue, I imagine it's natural for her to not want to go back to her cage, in fact it was easier than trying to reposition her while she was on me. After that, I started taking her out more, but when I had to do something urgently or go somewhere, I found that I couldn't put her down at all and she'd fight me to get off. She wouldn't even let me reposition her to sit somewhere nearby for a couple of minutes, or even anywhere else on my body, I either had to let go of whatever needed my attention or just put her in the cage. This was new to me, because all my other birds previously were independant enough to at least let me reposition them, if only for a few minutes, while I had to do something else.
It really started to become a problem when I started introducing her to other people, friends and family, and she would instantly leap onto them and start doing things that made them uncomfortable (like nibbling hard on their face and eyes, pulling their hair, removing glasses) and then biting when they tried to get her to stop. That's when I first used the towel, because she had jumped onto my three year old daughter and bit her hard on the face (until now, my daughter is terrified that she's going to 'eat her'). That's when I realised that I have no control except by force, unless I wait until there's nobody in the house and I'm alone with her (which is extremely impractical, I'm almost never alone).
So I decided I would 'retrain' her to step up and bought a stand at waist height and got my mother to look after my daughter for a day so I could spend some time focused with Skye. When I took her out of the cage, she leapt onto my shoulder as usual, completely disregarded any attempt at targetting or offering her treats and just refused to budge. I managed to get her onto the stand by leaning my shoulder onto it, and when I saw her keen to jump on me I backed off, at which point she was so preoccupied with trying to get back on me that she disregarded any attempt I had to work with her. This is when I became frustrated and turned to this forum for help. All the previous training tips I've read about talk about target training and stepping up and all the videos show the trainers doing it from a stand, or working with birds who are afraid of the people, but what do I do when the opposite is true and she's clambering all over me and I have no control?
Please let me know if there's anything I've missed or if you'd like me to go into any more detail.
