About Jazzy

[apropst]

Jazzy is an aggressive hybrid conure, about the size of my Sun Conure. She will hold her foot up, saying "step up" and will either step onto my finger, then nail me or just nail me when I get within reach. If stepping up is my idea, same thing. I transfer her from cage to play gym using a hand perch (actually a long dowel) because she will go from end to end trying to bite me. She will bite through long sleeves on my arm, drawing blood and has flown at my face, piercing my lip and cheek. I can give her treats and she might take them or just as likely go past my fingers to bite me. It's hard to ignore the bites when she is drawing blood. I have never had a bird of my own or been around anyone else's that bites so viciously.

The only treat Jazzy will take from me is a pepita. But how do I get her to take it without biting me so we can work on the target training?

She is a beautiful bird and fun to interact with. Jazzy will dance and sing with me. She does certain things to let me know she wants out of her cage and she loves climbing around on the play gyms. But I want to do more with her as I do with the rest of my birds.

[marie83]

Oh wow, what a nightmare for you.
How old is Jazzy? How long have you had her? and has she always been this way, if not when did it start?

[Eurycerus]

I wish i had some advice. I had a crisis the one day my new friend bit me multiple times. My guess is you may want to start with basic training and start all over. She must have learned something along the way leading her to bite viciously seemingly randomly to you, and she would get what she wants. It sounds like you are doing the best job you can. I look forward to hearing more.

[liz]

keep dancing

[apropst]

marie83

Jazzy has lived with me for 21/2 years and is nearly 8 years old. She has always treated me this way. You can read about why I have her in the introductions section under "My bird family". Her previous owner held her but would get bitten, too, although not as frequently. Her children could not get near Jazzy.

If you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them.

[marie83]

Ah yes I remember reading that story now. Did jazzy have a settling in period at all when you very first got her? The reason I ask is I would suggest starting from scratch if possible, rearrange her cage, place it in an unfamiliar room (just for a while whilst you retrain her). Alternatively if you cannot do that take her into a small unfamiliar room and work with her there.
At 8 years she is probably very set in her ways but that doesn't mean with time and patience she cannot learn new ways.

Before a training session take her food away from her for a few hours so she will want to work for her treats, it's not cruel as long as your not leaving her without for too long. Then gear yourself up with whatever you need to stop you reacting to bites, thick sleeves, a baseball cap to protect your face etc but if shes never seen you in a baseball cap before you may need to desensitize her to it first.
I suggest you start with target training if she isn't already trained to do it. I won't go into all the details as Michael has an excellent article on his blog on how to do it. What I will say is you may wish to modify it a bit to suit your birds aggressive streak- use a long target stick to start with, put treats in a bowl and let her pick her own if your worried about your fingers and you really really must not react if she does bite.
I do understand it's hard, my silly boyfriend has managed to teach Ollie that it's a fun game to attack bare feet, I didn't realise this and walked in the room with no socks a couple of weekends ago. I can tell you standing there letting him attack my feet was no fun at all but he has never done it to me since- obviously there are easier ways to deal with it like by wearing socks but the point is I don't want to have chunks out my feet if I forget, probably just like you don't want to wear full body protection in the middle of summer....
Anyhow persevere with the target training until she get the hang of it, no matter how long it takes, practice bringing the stick from different sides each time, if you can target her onto diferent objects then off again, target at short distances then increase them. Keep the training sessions nice and short so she doesn't get bored (maybe around 10 minutes? but that will depend on your bird). Once your successful with this she will be well into the good behaviour/reward scenario so you will be able to ignore biting (she should start to realise biting doesn't get her anything at all)and you can then target her onto a handheld perch as an extention of your arm, then straight back off again, slowly moving your way up and down your actual arm.

I know this sounds really long winded but I do think it's important to help get her out of the automatic bite/flighted attack to get a reaction before you attempt any step up work at all and as smart as birds are I really don't think it will take as long as it sounds, although be aware it might take time with her being older.

Post back and let us know what you decide to do and how you get on with it or any questions then maybe we can all help you develop your training into step ups and beyond.

[apropst]

When I got Jazzy, I wasn't able to take her cage as it belonged to someone else but I had a duplicate. I did take all of her toys and bowls. She was an only bird but I brought her into my house with a Parrotlet and a Sun Conure. She was in a separate room for two weeks, and would say step up and hold her foot up towards my hand whenever I would get near her cage. I opened the door and she jumped out onto my arm before I could even offer her a hand and bit me. Jazzy was on the top part of my arm, so I picked her up and put her back in the cage. I probably did yell when she bit. Then I tried to make her step up, which she would either do, then bite or just try to bite whenever my hand was in reach. I had taken my Sun in to visit a few times as they had been yelling back and forth and I wanted to put Jazzy's cage in the same room. They would "talk" to each other and after two weeks I moved her in with the others.

Jazzy wants to be near me when she is out of the cage, maneuvering around the room to wherever I am, conniving to get me to offer her a hand to step on. I feel badly because I don't do it very often because it always ends up with her attacking me. If she would just bite like the other birds have bitten me, it would be different. But she must always bring the blood with a quick, jabbing, bite where she holds on. That's what I don't understand and why it's hard not to react when she bites.

It was easy to teach her to step onto the dowel and she will always step up onto it whenever it is offered, so it shouldn't be hard to target train her. I will pull out a heavy sweat shirt and a baseball cap and find a longish target stick for her. Then we'll get started and see what happens. Thank you.

[liz]

If Myrtle gets too rough I use an open hand to push her off me. I spread my fingers and tell her "no - fly". An open hand means I am going to grab you. Now all I have to do is use an open hand across a room and tell her "no'' when she is into something.