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[Michael]

Take the video that came with the harness and throw it in the garbage. Great harness but terrible terrible advice it gives. Everyone who has followed the advice in that video (myself included) has been greatly disappointed. Instead refer to my new method of harness training. Letting the parrot chew up the harness serves no purpose (and if anything could be dangerous). Using positive/negative reinforcement is much better. Do not put the harness on the bird straight out. Instead use my training method to train it to put it on voluntarily.

[Cage Cleaner]

I've read that. It's good advice. I just didn't think she would get to it in 30 minutes. She's fairly hesitant when it comes to new things, so this was pretty odd behavior for her.

However, now that the damage is done, any suggestions?

[Michael]

Depends how bad it is. If it's a little bad but not dangerous, I'd say use this harness for training and get another for outside. If it's really bad you'll just have to either fix it or throw it out and start again. I would not want to hedge my bets on a strongly damaged harness outside though. It's inevitable that the birds will chew the harness some, but if you only let them contact while wearing it and always keep them busy, it shouldn't be too much. So I'm either training my parrot with the harness by taking it on/off, having the parrot do tricks while wearing it, eat a meal while wearing it, or take the bird outside right away. Once outside, there is so much going on that the parrot generally forgets about the harness. The worst possible thing though is a bored parrot + harness = waste of $30+

[Cage Cleaner]

Alright, thanks. It's still strong, but the inside part where the strap attaches to the center of the buckle is frayed since she chewed it. I'm more worried about how it feels against her, and also about the fact that it doesn't slip under the "Y" of the front of the harness due to the fact that it's now frayed than about having it break apart outside.

[Cage Cleaner]

I mounted the lixit water bottle, and the issue that I had with the vertical backbone piece being too short was solved by the fact that it buckles slightly when mounted, making it the ideal size for the bottle. Who would have thought...