Tamed Senegal Suddenly Won't Step Up: SPOILED

[Marguerite]

PROBLEM SOLVED! No worries, thanks to those who replied.

Hi!
I have a 1 year old female Senegal. She is very tamed and attached to me and does tricks, easily goes on her back, and everything else. I am warming her up to my boyfriend using the excellent advice given in the one-person bird article.
However she has recently been very defensive of some areas, and has stopped stepping up unless seriously tempted with treats and target for about 10 minutes. Often times if not always when my hand is near her she get stressed and worried, often times screaming and then flying onto my shoulder for safety. It makes her very difficult to deal with and almost impossible to put away. Again this has just started, coming almost out of nowhere.
I've tried rewarding her when she steps up, rewarding her for going in her cage, and it just gets worse and worse!
I am at a total loss! Help please!

[entrancedbymyGCC]

I doubt she's "spoiled"... when you think about it, what does that really mean? It sounds to me as if for some reason she is less willing to come in and out of the cage on your hand. Could anything have happened that made that process less enjoyable? I have created temporary problems with my green cheek twice now by being careless about the timing and rapidity with which I move my hand when asking him to step up. The first time, I almost banged his head on the cage and he got worried about that. More recently I thought he'd stepped all the way up but he hadn't and he wound up hanging upside down from his perch instead of perched on my finger. Now I'm working though a period where he's either reluctant to step up or he over-tests with his beak prior to.

Try to see it from the bird's perspective. I think she's too young to be going through maturity although I'm not sure for a Senegal, so I would guess something has happened to make her less comfortable with the process. If you can't figure out exactly what, you may need to be patient and basically retrain the behavior. Don't forget to reward her amply when she does the right thing.