Frustrated. Parrot is aggressive and holding back training.

[Tashlee]

Hi there, I purchased an Indian ringneck a few weeks ago from a petstore.
I've named her Pookie, given her time to settle in, and proceeded to start target training.

My problem is that she is a very agressive bird who just loves to bite my fingers. And I'm quite frustrated because so far my search for answers to this problem have been futile. It's like almost every article or book I read says "This is how you tame an agressive bird" and gives some great tips but then proceeds to skip over the exact details I need. But let me go back and explain where I am with Pookie at the moment.

She successfully goes to a target on command, recognises the clicker and happily receives the treat. I am currently pointing the target at or through the bars, and giving her treats this way too. But while I say she does this happily, she is also EXTREMELY happy to have the opportunity to bite me whenever she can reach my fingers. And she really tries hard to get me, stretching as far as she can whilst pinning eyes and whistling in a particular way that I've recognised as an attempt to lure me closer with her oh-so-sweet cuteness.
The only solution I've seen to this is to hold the treat just far enough away so she can't bite, but can grab the treat. And so for now that's what I've been doing. Even to me this seems like it might not be an effective way to do it but I haven't heard anything better....

Training has progressed so far for about a week and a half, with up to two training sessions a day. She has it downpat (although sometimes she gets lazy and complains noisily if I ask her to travel too far..) and i know we should progress soon, so I've tried to take it to the next level. The next level being that I open the cage door and I do the target through the open door. She's handling it semi-okay, she is wary and looks around alot, of course, it's a new thing...

But as soon as I reward her with a click and hand her a treat she will lunge at my fingers again! Then she growls or pins her eyes. The bite hurts a little but it's not too bad. I think it would be worse if I didn't tighten the skin (I try not to flinch or pull away).

How can I train the aggression out of her? I turn my back and ignore her if she does bite me (or tries to lunge) but this is doing jack. I can't raise my voice, I cant scare her, I cant cover her cage... I know these actions are bad. She simply continues on doing whatever and when I return she will be fine but as soon as fingers are involved it happens all over again.

So this is as much detail as I can possibly go into about it, i've tried to include everything I can think of, so it may be tedious to read, I'm sorry.

some extra info:
-She is terrified of gloves, which is a shame because that was one of my "clever" ideas to withstand bites that I can't use now.
-I spoke to the lady for a while at the petstore whilst choosing, and she recommended this one out of the others because it would come to one of the employees and "cuddle" against his hand and want love. This was a major selling point for me
-She is full-grown, got all of her feathers, is a lovely blue colour with a light blue ring (so she's not a baby) and can whistle well but hasn't learned any words yet.

[Michael]

http://TrainedParrot.com/Taming
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbXHrqqEIp4

The only way to eliminate the biting is to replace it with desired behavior like step up. It just may take a lot of the new behavior to replace the old one.

[Tashlee]

I've read that article at least twice now, and I've seen that video before too.
But what i see is the parrot biting her, and then later accepting the treat without biting her... There's a part in between this that i feel like i need to see....

So... what i'm doing is right then? I should just keep at it and the aggression will subside?
It's just difficult to reward her for doing something right, but then she does something wrong as she takes the reward. It's like i have to reward her through the bars or else she bites, which makes my fingers more enticing.

Thank you for the advice, I guess for now I'll just stick with the training and the open door target training too and hope she will get better.

[sidech]

You have a new bird not yet adapted to its surroundings and who doesn't trust you yet. You have no relationship with this bird. Why are you trying to train it ?

Is this your fist parrot ? Parrots are not like dogs, they don't NEED to be trained. You can have a marvelous pet bird who's never been trained per say. I don't train my bird, I educate it on what's acceptable in the house or not, and how I want him to behave. He's never had a treat for doing anything for me. He just does it because he wants to and because he wants to be with me. Why ? Because I'm a member of his flock whom he likes and trusts.

Training a bird is not essential, taming it and making it accept you is.

I think you are rushing things a lot. I would quit the training for now, and start again, if you really want to, when the trust is gained and mutual.

Just work on gaining his trust. Step back, give it time, be patient and don't force yourself on the bird. Let it come to you.

[GlassOnion]

Actually, training helps a lot when the sometimes the bird really changes at puberty. Training helps to re-gain trust, know where its boundaries are when it tries to push you, distract bad behaviours, and have a mutually understood language.

Has your Ekkie hit puberty yet?

[Tashlee]

Sidech, this is not my first bird, my first was a lorikeet I hand reared from a baby after it was given to me by a wildlife rescuer. This was years ago but that bird was amazing, my best friend. So I guess I was just expecting it to be a little easier with this new bird, but apparently not, so I'm trying to rectify that by learning better.
Also when I refer to my "training" of Pookie, I also mean taming. It's the same thing right? gaining trust by interacting with the bird and teaching it good behaviour? If i quit my "training" of it, i'd essentially just be cooing at it through some bars.... i'd prefer to interact with her by feeding her and stuff. Also, i never force her to do anything, because when she's had enough she wanders off an ignores me!

GlassOnion, I have my suspicions she could also be in a bluffing stage, but i probably cant know that for sure until it's been a few months. But yes she does have her ring (it's pale in colour), and she can whistle really well, I don't know if she can talk yet, she doesn't seem to have learned any words....

[Acka]

One of the best ways is to ignore it, you could do this if it wasn't a very strong bite but from what I've heard it looks like it's a pretty strong bite. You could wear gloves I know it sounds stupid but if you wore gloves you could easily ignore it and eventually when it realizes it's getting no attention for it it should stop, (: but before yu do that you could get her used to the gloves buy just putting them through the bars of the cage and once she starts feeling more comfortable around them try wearing them while training (:

[Tashlee]

Yeah, I do the instant spin-and-walk-away when she's been nice but suddenly gets nasty.

And using treats and targets have been helping to distract her while i remove and freshen her food bowl. She gets VERY aggressive when it comes to her precious food bowl.

I tried letting her wander around the outside of the cage yesterday. She was curious but cautious and went back inside after 5 mins. I praised her with food.

I've been leaving the gloves around near her cage to try and slowly get her used to them. Thats coming along slowly but if i can just have her not afraid of gloves that would aid the training SOO much.

Do you think if i clipped her wings it would make her less independant? It's not like she could escape, i'd be doing it purely to make her feel less like she is in control. I know it sounds bad... but i wont do it until i find some decent advice on that. I dont want to clip her wings.. but i'd do it to aid taming...

[marie83]

I dont see how clipping her wings will help really unless she is flying from one end of the cage to the other in an attack mode aimed at you. All it will do is make her feel more insecure as she can't get away as easily if something frightens her. Its not clear to me from your original post if the biting started before or after you started opening the cage door to target her? If it started when you opened the cage door then I'm wondering if she is frightened of it being open. Can you open the door and then target her through the bars away from the door, gradually moving closer to the door over a period of a few days.
Im not too sure how hard a ringneck can bite but it is important you dont react to it so definitely try to get her used to the gloves if shes really hurting you.

When your targetting her is there any chance she thinks your going to touch her and then lunges at you because she isn't tame enough yet, perhaps your moving your hand towards her to give her the treat and shes seeing that as a threat? If thats possible then hold the treat slightly further away and let her move to get it. Don't make any moves towards her at this stage, let her come in her own time if shes not used to people interacting with her. I guess what I'm saying is did you actually see anyone handling the bird before you bought her or did they just tell you she was tame?

Another possibility is she's territorial over her cage, but unless she was sold with the cage she was living in in the petshop (unlikely I would think) then I really doubt this if you've only had her a few weeks. I really dont know much about IRN though so maybe they more territorial over other species.

[Tashlee]

thanks for the reply,
She has been lunging at my fingers since i got her, not just when i opened the cage door the other week. She takes food happily 40% of the time. Sometimes she lunges for the food, sometimes she'll take the food, drop it and go for my fingers.
When there's no food or treats involved she'll do her best to get my fingers. sometimes if im just talking to her through the bars she'll sit and listen for a while, and then lunge unexpectedly.
She just gets randomly aggressive for no reason i can find.
Targeting itself has never been an issue, she does it well, but it's trying to reward her with a treat that she goes for my fingers, so i have to do it through bars. I'm just hoping the biting will somehow fade out so i can start giving her treats upfront and not through bars.

She'd bite hard enough to pierce and draw blood if i didn't tighten the skin at the last moment. instead i've got light gouges on my hands and arms. I usually try not to react.

Just now i was able to switch her food and water out without any attacks, i waved the food in front of her to keep her focused on it rather than my hand in her food area. it worked well.

Never saw anyone handle her, was assured she was friendly with an employee though