Now aggressive to me

[Maryellen]

I took my male 23 yr old poi to the vet a week ago. Due to the vet staff screwing up the vet couldn't do bloodwork .. So no one took him out or touched him in his carrier. I gently placed him in his carrier on a perch so he wouldn't freak out. Well now he is lunging and biting me every chance he gets. He wont come out of his cage and bites me or a different perch when i try so i stopped trying. I leave the door open but he still wont come out.
Others are saying i broke my trust with him by putting him in a carrier and taking him to a strange place. Yet others say once breeding season is over he should be better.
What do i do and believe? I cant even change his food bowls without him holding onto them with hos beak and feet and constantly trying to bite me thru the cage bars. Its a constant battle and I'm not liking this at all....

[Wolf]

Just go back to the things that you originally did to gain his trust to begin with. Talk to him and let the sound of your voice remind him of who you are. I don't know what happened to make this trip so traumatic for him as you really didn't provide any details to go by. Maybe it reminded him of being left at the rescue among all of the strangers and scared him into thinking that it was happening all over again, but that is just speculation. With his eyesight it is perfectly understandable for this to have scared him as birds are very visually oriented. Perhaps the vet would consider that in view of his condition to make a trip to your place to do vet work on him in the future.
Mimi, my 16 year old Amazon was so traumatized when I first got her that she screamed for 2 months the entire time she was awake except while she was eating and drinking. For two years it was one small step forward and three steps back into her private h#$& and even now after almost 2 years she will only come to a perch that I put on her door so that it is outside of the cage when the door is open, which is most of the time. She has voluntarily left the cage on our arm two or three times in all of this time, without regressing.

[Pajarita]

Hmmm, it's most likely a combination of things, Maryellen, but, although he must have been obviously scared when you took him to the vet, I doubt it's the main reason why he is behaving this way - I mean, I've taken countless birds to the vet and none of them got so very traumatized by it that went from 'good' to 'bad' because of it. Parrots are smart and I am sure that, although he might have thought he was going to be rehomed again, he must have realized this was not case as soon as he was back home so he should have been back to normal after 24 hours of his usual routine and schedule. I would go more with the end of the honeymoon period than anything else...

[Maryellen]

He is still acting this way. He bites me and the T perch if i try to take him out of his cage. I leave the door open for hours and he refused to come out so i tried with my perch and hand and he bit each time so i stopped trying.
He wasn't touched or taken out of the carrier, i gently placed him in it with a rope perch . Nothing else was done we drove to vet and then back home. I had him two weeks and was able to pet him now since vet trip i cant . He lunges at the cage when i go to change the food bowls and grabs them . I take the food bowls from the outside doors.
My fiancé can pet his head now and i cant, its like pumpkin switched to liking my fiancé more since the vet visit. So now i just sit next to the cage and talk to him and do my thing to try to get him to stop behaving this way.. So I'm going beyond slow to try to rebuild whatever i lost.

[Maryellen]

There were no details really.. I sang and whistled to him as i told him to step up on the rope perch and gently placed him in his carrier on a perch. Put him in my SUV and drove to vet. Sat in waiting room talking and whistling with him , vet techs said hi to him and he whistled back at them. We walked in exam room with vet and vet didnt touch pumpkin at all. Just looked into carrier and we talked. Then we left and went home. I put him back in bedroom with me so he could have rest of out time and then put him to bed an hour later. He are treats and played with his toys. Put him to bed that night . Next morning he acted differently and kept trying to bite me and lunged at me every chance he could. And been doing that every day since the vet visit...
So the honeymoon is over and this is what he is about???
Well just guess I'm going to be working more to get him to not bite me... And to trust me. I dont expect anything from him . Just to be happy here and let me handle the food bowls,fix toys in crate and take him out of cage to hang out... I have a cockatiel for the cuddly time so I'm fine with pumpkin being not cuddly , but the constant lunging and biting is not nice

[Wolf]

I don't know if anyone can give you an adequate answer as to what is going on in this birds mind. I suppose that it could be as Pajarita suggested that the honeymoon period is over. but even if that is true, there is still a combination of influences that we are unaware of at work here with the visit to the vets office some how being the trigger. The behaviors that you describe are not normal for a parrot, yet he had to have learned them from someplace. They are the actions of a parrot that is obviously fighting for its life out of fear. Or they could be the actions of a parrot that has learned that this is the only way to get what it wants from a human, probably due to the human not listening to the bird. Or at least these are the only two circumstances that I am currently aware of that bring about this type of sustained behavior in a normally social and relatively peaceable bird or other creature.
It is possible that none of us will ever actually know the real reason behind these behaviors, but we can be certain that the bird has a very real and valid reason for them. The only thing that is left other than observation in hopes of understanding the causes is to figure out what can be done to counter the effects so as to restore good behaviors. This may be the end result of a string of events which only time and loving patience can heal. Because of this set of thoughts I would operate on the premise that for whatever reason, the bird is terrified and act accordingly.
Mimi, my 16 year old Amazon was that traumatized when she came to live with me. It has been 2 years of a long slow process of relieving her fears and allowing her to heal. There have been may set backs in this time and for no reason that we could find, there have been times where she would try to take a step out of her fear on her own and right afterwards regress right back and be months before she could pull herself back together. During this whole process I have never pushed her to do anything at all. I still can't show her a nut that she loves, and eagerly devours when placed in her dish, in my hand without her immediately retreating screaming to the back of her cage. At this point in time, I fully expect it to still be years if ever, before she heals from what was done to her, to begin to remotely act like a parrot of her species should act. She is making improvements, but they are so slow in coming that they can't be measured in day or even in weeks but in months at the very least.
Just don't let it get you discouraged, the bird does not want to be this way, it goes against all of its natural instincts and its natural nature and that in itself is a source of stress for him. The only tools that you have that can help him are love, patience and consistency. And time.

[Maryellen]

I think whatever happened in his previous home did this. Even at the rescue he bit one of the volunteers pretty bad , an acted scared the entire time he was there, so whatever happened in his first home set the pattern. He lets my fiancé pet him but will turn and bite him too if he pets him too long. And he is the one who turns his head to you to be pet. I can see he is trying to trust then at the last minute turns and bites.. I have all the time and patience to work with him so thats ok, i am just trying to figure out parrot behavior lol which apparently is very complex lol

[Maryellen]

The tables were turned before the vet visit/ i could pet him and he was good, and he wouldn't let my fiancé near him , now after the vet visit its reversed.
The rescue also commented that i resembled the first owner a bit- i said well that could be a good thing or bad depending on what happened in his only home of 22 years...,

[Wolf]

Since the birds behaviors are now the opposite from what they were between this bird and the people in his life, it sounds like for whatever reason he has switched his allegiances from you to fiancé.
Yes, parrot behavior is very complex and even more so as they can't usually explain them to us. But what the hey, we can't fly!

[Maryellen]

Yep since I took him to the strange vet place he now prefers my fiancé - who doesn't do anything but once a while will throw some attention to him,while i am the one who cleans, feeds and is interacting with him daily.... They are very complex thats for sure. Hecwas supposed to be my bird, i spent a month driving an hour each way to the shelter every week to sit with him for hours getting to bond and now he hates me because i took him out of the house..., lovely...