Sid Training- Day 1/2 - Day 1

Day ½- January 2, 2010

We got Sid home at about 9pm after our 90 minute drive from Irving, Ill. He hung in Gus’s travel cage- was obviously super stressed but did come to the bar openings for a head rub several times. When we got home, it was a little chaotic for him as we got his cage set up in the bedroom. When I was letting him out to go to his cage, he flew around the room pretty clumsily. I picked him up and he ran up to cuddle under my chin. I put my hand over his head which immediately seemed to calm him. I took the opportunity to clip his wings a bit since he couldn’t see the scissors. He didn’t even know I did it, which is GREAT since I was really concerned about traumatizing him in the first few weeks of our relationship. I go back and forth on my beliefs on clipping. But I watched him fly around his previous owner’s house, attacking his person’s husband. So I knew that, at least for a while, he’d need to be clipped. I left him in the room for an hour by himself to settle down. When I came back in, his signs of distress had stopped. He took a small piece of apple from me an a bit of carrot. I really wanted to get a little something in him because I was unsure how much he’d be eating the next day.

Day 1

Since I’m off today, I’m taking the day to just hang out quietly in the bedroom so he can get used to my presence. I also brought some of his supposed favorite treats in and figured I’d doing some clicker priming throughout the day. From the looks of his cage paper, he did come down for a bit of food and water while I was sleeping, so that’s a good sign.

In the morning he wasn't interested in apple, carrot, Gus’ pellets, millet, nuts, or seed. He was, however, taking some 12 grain toast, which is the only thing that Gus will ever eat as a treat. I’m going to get some Ezekial bread this week for sure.

For every hour that I spent in the room, I would have his cage door open. He expressed no interest in coming out, which is totally fine. I’ve been clicking and treating him through the cage bars. He's been taking the treats most of the time, and always does so gently and politely. He is, however, growling at me a little. I’ll click, put the treat up to the bars near him, he’ll growl, and then take the treat. Having no experience with Poicephalus, I’m not used to this growling but have been told that indicates fear, aggression, or warning. Wendy from the forum suggests just moving on to targeting to avoid the risk of reinforcing the growling. Unfortunately, Sid is no longer interested in treats so I’ll try again in a few hours, otherwise Ill take his food out before bed and work with him in the morning.

We made a little breakthrough. Sid’s cage door was open whenever I was in the room. Something must have spooked him and he kind of half flew out and landed on the bedroom floor. He stepped up for me and I put him on the top of his cage. He hung out there for a good hour while I sat ont the bed reading. Then he and I started making some clicking and whistling noises back and forth, which is really the first time he interacted with me actively. So yay for that! He also stepped up and we did about 10 step ups. He did break me a little bit once but it definitely wasn’t a real bite. I will try to avoid that in the future, however. I’m giving him some alone time in the room now.

Went back in after an hour. He let me scratch his head through the bars a few times, and took 3 r 4 treats from me without growling. I put the stick I plan to use for targeting near his cage and it didn’t seem to bother him. So hopefully when we start targeting, he’ll be cool.

As the evening has progressed, he moved to a closer to the front perch and was much more talkative and interactive with me. He did come down to his front most perch that is literally 3 feet from me, stood there for about 5 seconds, I praised him, then he went back up to the second closest branch. But that was definitely an improvement. I also asked to scratch his head through the bars and he came over for scratches several times. I also asked him about his pretty toes and he gave me his foot twice. He also let me give him a slice of apple in his cage, not just through the bars! Oh and he also kinda parrot tongue me twice through the bars very gently and nicely. I think this is great progress!!!!

This has also motivated me to retry Gus with clicker. So we did a little target training today and he did well. He can only go for a couple of minutes and then he's bored so I'm going to shorter training sessions. He's not very treat motivated- he really only likes toast and crackers. I'm thinking of making a really healthy birdy bread and toast that. At least he won't just be eating empty junk then.

This is all very exciting!