New member

[Lori]

Hello
I was looking for Harness training and found this board so thought I would join in.
My name is Lori and I have a lesser Sulpher crest cockatoo. My too and I have been together for 30 years....its been good and not so good but like all loooong term relationships we have worked it out, mostly.
My husband and I have recently retired and are looking forward to traveling and camping and I need to get Scooter used to it, hence getting her into a harness. I KNOW this is not going to be easy, as Scooter goes outside with me all the time and I just hold her toes. She is good with it but in new areas she is Nervous...scared of new things she has not seen in our backyard. But she definitely wants to be apart of most of it, she just want to sit on my shoulder, and since she has done this for 30 years she sees no reason to change it.....sigh, too logic. But for safety reason I think we better use a harness, so we have bought the DVD
well thats all for now
thanks

[Jhaynes1230]

Welcome to the forum Lori and a VERY BIG CONGRATS for devoting 30 years of your life to a Too. That is one lucky bird.

Let us know how the harness works out. We bought one for our ARB, but he's only been with us for 6 weeks and not yet trusting enough to think about putting it on him yet.

Again, welcome,

Jeff

[Roonil Wazlib]

Welcome gooduck to you and scooter, hope it goes well

[Lori]

Thanks for the welcome.
The harness has arrived, right now i'm just wearing it around my neck and touching her all over with it. I am going to take this very slow because I really want success with it. Next week I think I will start playing with it while putting it over her head, kinda an off and on thing.

[Pajarita]

Welcome, Lori and Scooter (I have a finch named Scooter). Good idea on the harness! You've been taking a huge risk thinking that holding to his toes is enough and I am glad you are now going to use a harness on him.

[Harpmaker]

Good luck with your harness training. The problem I have the most trouble with is getting the harness OFF once it goes over my bird's head. It gets caught on her feathers, and she panics. All I have found to do is keep desensitizing her to it.

[Lori]

Hello
Thought I would give an update on how were doing with our harness. ...Lets see I don't think you could possible take this any slower than what I have done, touch her with it was our first, putting it on and off her head, and yep its the taking it off that seems to be very upsetting, but teaching her the word "off' as I take it off seems to help, I guess its letting her know I'm AM taking it off now. We did one wing at a time, then both wings just hanging it on her. Now each time I do this she only has the harness touching her for just a few minutes and she is applauded each time, she loves that. Now I thought I have to go for this pretty soon. So I put the harness on her and cinched it up then I RAN out side with her, LOL Remember Scooter is used to going outside so I new this wasn't going to be interesting enough to keep her from trying to take the harness off, so I RAN around my house with her LOL she was so busing bouncing around she had no time to flip out about the harness! Ran to my neighbor who new what was going on and she applauded Scooter lots Yeas! then we RAN back into the house and took it off. LOL I have to say it went very well. I know there has to be many more trials but the first one was fun and for cockatoos its all about how much fun it is. Whew!

[Wolf]

Great job !

[Pajarita]

Yes, indeed, GREAT JOB!!!

[Jhaynes1230]

Very good! Well done to you.