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Harness training and grabbing advice required

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Harness training and grabbing advice required

Postby Cresseliaaaa » Tue Jan 20, 2015 12:47 am

So Sasuke (1 yr old, semi-tame indian ringneck) will willingly (even put) his head through the harness and stay placid for a while before I take it off and treat him. He doesn't chew the material or try to pry it off (unless he is startled).
I'm just not sure how I introduce putting it over his wings?

Also Sasuke is okay with me touching his back a majority of the time during training but sometimes he won't tolerate my hands near him at all. He doesn't let me grab him beyond training time either.

Any suggestions?
Ps. I would upload photos but the image pixel requirement is so small ill be practically giving you guys a thumbnail photo.
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Re: Harness training and grabbing advice required

Postby cml » Tue Jan 20, 2015 9:26 am

Welcome to the forum.

First, I think you should continue as you are with the harness, but do not progress any further atm. This is because it seems to me that you've started harness training before you've done enough basic taming training. To be able to put a harness on a bird, it will need to be comfortable with you both grabbing it, lifting it, and stretching its wings. I suggest you start this process in earnest as soon as you want to. Check out http://trainedparrot.com/taming for a good place to start. More info is available on Michael's blog.

With regards to pictures, its much easier if you upload it somewhere else like flickr or equivalent then link the picture url between [img]your-pic-url-here.jpg[/img]
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Re: Harness training and grabbing advice required

Postby Cresseliaaaa » Tue Jan 20, 2015 5:58 pm

He knows more tricks than letting me handle him. I just didn't want him to get bored with taming so I taught him little things inbetween our hand taming.

I've read Michael's article. I even have his book.
I've been hand taming him since I got him but as Michael says it takes a lot of time. For a short period of time he would let me grab him by the head and move him around. He would just kick a lot, never bite.
He's not hand shy at all, just won't let me interact with him beyond training time.
I'm suspecting it's because my father tends to grab him to manuver him between cages which ruins my training.

I'll view flickr and see what I can do.
I honestly appreciate all your help ((: thank you!!
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Re: Harness training and grabbing advice required

Postby liz » Tue Jan 20, 2015 6:10 pm

WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING. THAT IS A SCARED BABY. WHO EVER TOLD YOU TO GRAB ONE BY THE HEAD. YOU SHOULDN'T TOUCH HIS HEAD UNTIL HE TRUST YOU ENOUGH TO PRESENT IT FOR SCRATCHING. THAT IS ABUSE.

Since you actually said that on the forum I am assuming you know nothing about babies or birds.

Wait and Wolf will explain and I will probably be reprimanded.
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Re: Harness training and grabbing advice required

Postby Wolf » Tue Jan 20, 2015 6:29 pm

I am certain that this is just a misunderstanding resulting from the wording of your post, because grabbing a bird by the head is not a good thing to do and is also dangerous to the bird as their neck is much more fragile than it appears to us.
I don't grab my birds as they are quite good at stepping up for me. I do think that if you are going to use a harness with your bird that you will need to work a bit on getting him to allow you to lift his wings up and extending them so that you can put the harness on him and adjust it as well.
If you re read your post, I think that you will be able to understand why it upset Liz, as it sounds really bad.
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Re: Harness training and grabbing advice required

Postby cml » Wed Jan 21, 2015 8:05 am

I think and hope that when you say lift by head that you mean that you are lifting with your finger and thumb around the neck and the rest of the hand supporting all the weight by being on the parrots back?
I think this is what Liz misunderstood. If you are lifting your parrot only by its head, stop immeadiatly and research how you should do it.

It is also VERY important that you tell your father to STOP just grabbing your bird like that. Tell him either to learn how to get the bird to step up, or to not do anything at all. This is very counterproductive and will not be helping you nor your bird. I understand that he's probably doing it because he doesnt know better, but please, do sit down and have a serious talk with him that it is not only dangerous but also adds mistrust and stress to your poor bird.
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Re: Harness training and grabbing advice required

Postby liz » Wed Jan 21, 2015 11:05 am

The bird did not bite but he was kicking. What does that tell you.
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Re: Harness training and grabbing advice required

Postby cml » Wed Jan 21, 2015 11:13 am

liz wrote:The bird did not bite but he was kicking. What does that tell you.

That she is lifting the bird for too long without it being tame enough, possibly in an incorrect manner. There's no reason to yell at her, but its much better if we help instead. Lets wait for more info.
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Re: Harness training and grabbing advice required

Postby Wolf » Wed Jan 21, 2015 11:53 am

It is obvious that this bird has some trust issues and I have mentioned it a couple of times and have been helping her address some dietary issues, but perhaps it is time to look a bit more closely into why the bird has the trust issues that it does as well as what can be done to alleviate them. I understand, Liz, your concern as well as your emotional response, but like cml, I think that this is the time for clarification of what is happening so that remedies can be suggested. I t is not a time for yelling as that will not help anyone and certainly not the bird. I also like cml was waiting for more information on this matter before saying too much and having to recant what I say. This is like all other things parrot related, it requires some patience and understanding so that the bird does not suffer for our lacks.
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Re: Harness training and grabbing advice required

Postby Pajarita » Wed Jan 21, 2015 12:11 pm

I think that Michael might need to edit his book, to add a better explanation or something because more and more people are misunderstanding and using terribly wrong techniques on their baby birds... I have to admit that I reacted VERY badly to her posting (not that this would be news to anybody on this forum :D) and I certainly hope that we are all wrong because, if we are not and the OP actually meant what she said on her posting (Lord almighty, grabbing a baby bird by the head and 'moving him around' while he kicks his legs!), that is one traumatized little bird!
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