Week 2- Sid Vicious

Alright so I'm trying to post more but I always forget. So we're been working on trustbuilding with Sid. He's been doing quite well with target training. He's not in a huge rush to get to the target, but he will take up to 10 or so steps to get to the target. He won't climb around on his cage to get to it, but he also won't climb on his cage to get to food, so I just think he hasn't had the chance to climb around on the outside of his cage much.

We've also been working alot on stepping up. He knew the word from his last home but he would only offer them when he wanted, which was rare. I didn't push him, he's entitled to not want to come to me. The trick is to get him to eventually think that my hand is the best place on the earth to be, so he'll (ideally) always want to be on my hand when it's offered. Part of this process is also gaining trust with Sid. Sid has no reason to trust me. All he knows is that I appeared, took him away from all he knew, and took him to a new scarey place.

So target training makes hand taming a much smoother process and helps to avoid recieving a bite. One of my biggest goals through this taming process has been... not to get bitten. Not because I was scared to get bitten, but more because I didn't want him to ever associate my hand with biting. I just never wanted to have that kind of precidence.

Well for whatever reason, last night, Sid finally started to trust me. And I got proof on camera!! Drum roll please....

I just couldn't believe this. He let me touch every part of his body. He even let me clean up his beak a little (it's been driving me nuts- his beak has been so messy!)!! I am so proud of his breakthrough. It's amazing how far animals can come in such a short time with a little love and patience. It's funny because Gus is my little lover but it took me months to get to this point with him. Sid gets here in a little over a week!

Now, just because we had this breakthrough doesn't mean we stop working. This is just the beginning because now we've started to move past any fear or hesitation from just being around a new person, now we just keep learning more together!

Now we really get into the nitty gritty. Now if I could only find a ball that he doesn't run from, we can start working on retrieve!!!