Bird Amnesia?

[JadeW]

Do anyone else's birds sometimes seem to forget everything they've learned? Cas didn't really seem to understand any of his behaviours tonight. Even step up (although he tends to struggle with that). Has anyone else just had a training session that didn't even get off the ground? Sigh. Maybe it's just time to start from the beginning again.

[Kim S]

Maybe he is just testing you, seeing how much he can get away with

[JadeW]

Haha, you know maybe! He seems to have remembered what he knew this morning

[Michael]

Sounds more like lack of motivation. There needs to be a certain presence of hunger or the gears in that little noodle stop turning.

[JadeW]

Ah, that would make a lot of sense actually. I read in one of your other posts the suggestion of taking food away a couple of hours before, and I'll definitely have to try that next time I want to work with Cas. Thanks for the tip!

[lzver]

I do believe that birds have days or even moments throughout the day where they just aren't in the mood to do what you want them to do.

I've been doing a lot of work with regaining trust and rebuilding my relationship with Lucy my Red Belly (she definitely went through terrible two's and used to be aggressive and bite very hard) and I've made great progress. She still has her nippy moments, but I can handle her again.

Lucy had her usual playtime outside of her cage last night and she just truly wanted to do her own thing. She would not step up for me, food wasn't motivating her, etc. Everything we have worked on over the last couple of months was not working last night. I won't let it discourage me though. She'll get her playtime out tonight and I'll see if she is in a better mood.

What about everyone else? Do you find there are moments your parrots just aren't in the mood and just want to be left alone to do their own thing?

[ptuga72]

What about everyone else? Do you find there are moments your parrots just aren't in the mood and just want to be left alone to do their own thing?

All the time, DH and I have the scars to prove it!

A friend of ours told us that Scarlet is like a 6 year old girl. He is totally right. She can be sweet as pie and as stubborn as a mule. She is the kind of girl that likes doing things all-by-herself. I keep thinking we're making progress on step-up, but when she's done instead of working for her millet, she'll just do the bambi eyes and say "hullooo" (her way of saying "give me a nut"). Other times she'll just walk away.

I liken it to when I ask my husband to take out the trash. Sometimes I think I could bribe him with a new computer and it still wouldn't get done. Sometimes they plain don't want to do it. That is the up side and down side of keeping incredibly intelligent beings, they have personalities and attitude!

[JadeW]

Today I tried making sure Cas was hungry before our training session, and it was like night and day! I took out his food before I went to the gym and by the time I came back he was so eager to do whatever I asked! Even some tricks he had been "struggling" with were done so fast and so well! I'm so proud of my little guy

Thanks for the tips and the help! I'm also going to try making sure there's a definite difference between casual out of cage time and training time. Should help some too