Stubborn, opinionated African Grey

[Christina]

I am new at posting on things like this, so I'm learning as I go along. Please forgive any faux pas. My 3 year old African Grey male absolutely refuses to step up unless he feels like it, which is only at 'go to the cage and get a treat' time. He will step onto a stick, sometimes after knocking it away for awhile. He can step up onto my hand, he just refuses to do so. My eclectus hops right up when it's offered, even when he doesn't feel like it.

How can I get more cooperation from my grey (Bela)? Sometimes you just gotta do what Mom says, whether you want to or not, but he won't.

[Michael]

Hello and welcome to the Parrot Forum. It's pretty funny to me that you're going through this with a 3 year old Grey because I'm having some similar (in mindset more so than situation) things going on with my 3 year old Cape. In your case lack of training is probably more to blame than just hormones/age. However, that testy, moody, demanding, stubbornness is partly a trait of the species (and likewise Capes) but also exacerbated by the adolescent age. In other words, training will eventually solve it but at this age it's much harder to achieve.

Here's a free article on the subject of training step-up: http://TrainedParrot.com/Taming

But also here's my book which is more of a complete approach to parrot keeping toward eliciting the good behavior you'd expect of a pet parrot: http://ParrotWizard.com/Book

Whenever I have too much trouble with my Cape Parrot (due to this age and overall personality), I go back to the techniques I recommend in my book and they are sure to help. You can't take past history/success for granted and have to keep earning and reearning trust and motivation. Enjoy.