Hello!! Glad to have found this place!

[EmCrgle]

Hi! I'm Emily, I live in Texas. I had been wanting a bird for years, and researching and reading everything I could online, and I finally got a bird in February! Merlin is a Congo African Grey. She is about 8 years old we think (or so we have been told) and her previous owner thought she was a boy. I have a lot of work to do with this girl. I found her on Craigslist... I emailed back and forth with the owners and decided to go look at her and see how she was. She was beautiful! I wanted her right away! The owners had not taught her the step up command. I'm not sure what they did with her actually. She talks and says lots of different things, and dances, and swings upside down in her cage. She is slowly getting used to us I guess. She doesn't seem like a very playful bird at all. She just sits in her cage. I never see her play with her toys! She will take treats out of my fingers, and will let me rub her beak through the cage occasionally, but that's it for me. She absolutely loves my husband. He can pet her all over while she is sitting on her cage. She will even kinda snuggle with him by standing really close to his chest and putting her head over his shoulder. She will not let us pick her up, she will bite. Sometimes, she will climb down her cage (or fly off and hit the floor, she's not a good flyer) and walk on the floor in the living room around us, but she doesn't much like to be pet by my husband when she is on the floor. I went and sat on the floor and she walked right up to me and bit my foot! She always looks like she is going to attack me! I'm not sure why... I guess I traumatized her by taking her for a ride in the truck on the way home when I got her, and then taking her to the vet's office in a carrier, where they then proceeded to torture her with a towel and trim her nails and beak! hahaha. I hadn't heard her make so much noise before! I really love her, not sure why she took to my husband so fast, but she does need a lot of work. I am going to get a clicker and a training stick and try training with her in the cage, so I can get her to step up and take her out of the cage on my own. Right now, she just comes out on her own. There is a little flap that folds halfway down at the top of her cage, and she likes to come out and sit on there and just chill. She is deathly afraid of sticks. I thought at one point I might be able to train her to step up onto a stick, but she totally freaked out when I walked toward her cage with it. Paper towel rolls scare her too! I think she might have been abused with them or something.

Anyone else have any experience with a bird like this? It just worries me that she doesn't even play with her toys.

I also have a little lovebird who is 2 months old, his name is Tiko Taco. From the movie, Rio! haha He is a sweet bird. I got him a few weeks ago. Out of his cage he is awesome and will step up, but he's not used to my hand in the cage and he runs all over and I kinda have to grab him and take him out haha. Poor fella.

I'm so glad I found this webpage/s. I absolutely love Michael's videos and articles. I looked all over the internet for training and taming parrots for my Merlin, and he is the only one I found with step by step guide that actually started from getting the bird out of the cage. All the other articles I read assumed you could already touch your bird! lol

Thanks everyone! I'm enjoying reading all the posts!

Emily

[GlassOnion]

Hi and Welcome!

[pennyandrocky]

your the bad guy who took her to the vet.i had the same problem with mya i would put her to bed and tell her no while my boyfriend just gave her a quick pet before he went to work.now we divide if he has the day off he puts her to bed and tells her no so now we are equal to her.

[Shelby]

African Greys are notorious for becoming extremely phobic of everything. After getting her more tame, you should introduce her to one new person or thing a day. I highly recommend Michael's training articles and I'm glad you're planning on using the info in them!

Some parrots get aggressive when they're on the floor. So if she's consistently trying to bite you when she's on the floor, try to not let her get down there.

[terri]

Hi I own a congo grey .Max was the start of my parrot maddness.My guy wanted to get him [he had bit the daughter of the people who he was working for].Max was about 15 we were his 4th home.Max LOVED my guy but not me .I fed and cleaned his cage and he would take treats from me.Also enjoyed my talking to him.But bit me everytime I attempted physical contact[and it hurt] I learned that this was the type of relationship {no touching ] that we would have .Im ok with that. I love him dearly and has opened my world to how wonderful birds are.Moral of my story I have 8 birds and have a different relationship with each one

[EmCrgle]

LOL Thanks for the responses! I'm hoping I can build a good training relationship with Merlin... I hope she's not afraid of the chopstick. lol Tico and I have started training on taking treats from my hands. He'll nibble on it if I get it really close to him, sometimes. But he likes to stay far away from my hand while it's in the cage. Little turd. lol

Thank you for the welcome!

Emily