Nir wrote:can you eloboarate on this a bit. How often did you interact with him during the life circumstances ? How often did you spend time with him during those times?
The 'life circumstances' are still sort of going on to this day, but my situation has improved quite bit from how it used to be several years back. I am home a lot of the time. I had gone from spending a little over half the day with Cody outside his cage. I was interacting with him quite a bit back then, like, socializing him with everyone I knew, we could actually cuddle a little bit back then too. I didn't think of the training, but I would just be consistent every day with handling him outside the cage whenever possible.
And then, it went downhill when other things came up in my life that I had to deal with that took my focus away from my Senegal. I would take him out of his cage, but I would let him entertain himself the majority of the time. I would only interact with him for roughly 25-30min split up throughout the day. I didn't feel like I was able to train and socialize him on a daily basis since I was not in the right mindset at the time.
He flipped favourite people and his wings had been clipped during that time as well.
Now he gets out for at least two hours every other day in total. An hour and a half in the morning and an hour in the evening. If I am lucky I will be able to take him out for a couple of hours during the day as well. I try to tame and train him for as long as he will allow it, which is roughly 10min(15 is stretching it for him). I don't have a set schedule as to when I do these things with him. I make sure he gets some flying time to stretch his wings. I keep him flighted now. Otherwise he stays in his cage more. I have two cages for him that he alternates being in. His original cage is his sleep cage and I got him a larger cage that he can be in during the daytime since I am not able to take him out when I would like to work with him more. I do most of the taming and training sessions while he is in this cage. The biting is the main reason why I do it this way because my family is afraid of him flying and attacking them. Otherwise I would do it more often outside the cage.
So, what happened was around the time things went downhill was also the time when Cody was in his terrible two's stage, unfortunately. No one had taken the time to work with the bird through this stage and I regrettably have a lot of undoing to do because of it. Cody lost trust in me and I have to build that trust with him again. He will let me pet him and help him with his pinfeathers, but only for brief time. His favourite person who is my father hasn't been very supportive with me in working through the biting issue. Cody is mine, but he is also a family pet and I have accepted the fact that I am not his favourite person despite actively trying to improve the situation with him. I have no choice but to tackle all of this by myself. A good chunk of not getting past it is from we just haven't been able to read his body language very well. I think if I had a visual of that years ago, maybe things would have been different. I have a hard time reading my Senegal unless he is obviously showing signs of aggression or discomfort.
It is a work in progress and it has been a very gradual progression over time, but there is still lots to work on in regards to the aggression and territorial behavior he has right now. Oh and I talk to my Senegal and tell him what I am going to do and it seems to have helped a little bit, at least has helped him not be so fearful of new things.