Retrieve: Part 2

So when I got home from work it was training time! Sid sat in my lap again after a few clicks, was picking up the balls for quite a while. I know with this they are supposded to be putting the ball in your hand but I just don't know how comfy he is with my hands moving all around him. So I offered this small white bowl that he's been around before. After around 3 broken down steps in clicking, he was putting it into the bowl. It was so awesome just watching him thinking about what he was doing, analyzing and problem solving... it was exhilirating and it felt really great. I'll try to get April to take pics at some point, because I certainly couldn't spare a hand.

Gus actually tried fresh food today!!! Which gets us that much closer to doing some real clicking, since prior to this he wanted nothing to do with real food. Just pellets. But we did some targeting and he did a great job!!! We're still working on strengthening our step up, which half of the time, he seems to thinks means "preen mom's hand" time.

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!!!

Day 2 of Trustbuilding with Sid

2pm- Well, last night before putting Sid to bed, April got home from work and went in and sat next to his cage. He was jumping around all over the cage, seemingly excited! Which is like 900X more movement than he did in the 12 hours prior with me! Then, apparently he regurgitated for her. wtf! I have to say I was kinda jealous and slightly depressed. lol

So, as recommended by the clicker forum, I took his food out of his cage before he went to bed to ensure he'd be a bit hungry in the morning. I woke up 30 minutes earlier than usual to start some clicker training.

First off, he slept the entire night upside down, hanging from his cage. That cannot be comfortable! Although I have heard that Senegals have no concept of gravity lol. So anyways, he wanted nothing to do with my training nonsense. He took one piece of apple from me and that was it. He was pretty much in statue bird mode. I did put his potential target stick a little close to him and he wigged out. So I'm thinking about waiting a few more days to where he's more comfy with me before trying targeting again since I don't want to sent him into a phobic meltdown. I really don't know how phobic he is or isn't, I'm only going by what his previous parents said. He doesn't seem to be phobic like I always picture it to be when I think of super phobic African Greys. He's interested in Gus, he's becoming more interested in us, he is not at all scared of either of my dogs... So I don't know.

So when I got home from work today, I opened the cage door and sat on the bed to do some net surfing on my netbook. And within 15 minutes, he was slowly coming out! He is now on top of the cage and looks like he really really wants to come over here and check things out. I'm not going to push anything so I'm just going to continue to relax here and play hard to get and see what happens. I'm in no hurry and I'd really rather go too slow than too fast. The goal is not to cause even a bite attempt. It's not that I'm afraid of being bitten. It's just that I never want him to equate me with biting or for him to ever know that biting me is a possibility.

9pm- I have officially concluded that Gus is not phobic. I'm sure he has a few things he's phobic about, but he doesn't seem to be phobic in the traditional use of the word. Luckily he is much mroe interested in food today. He also got really close to my bowl of brown rice, rice, salsa, and sour cream. Luckily I planned for this, hoping he'd want some, so I brought a plain brown rice. He seemed to like it! But he also didn't freak out when I put the spoon near him- he came closer to it. Didn't come too close but he did a good job.

He's yet to go back in his cage and has not moved away from me when I've walked past the cage several times to get things in the other room.

Now I've gotta figure a way to entice him back into the cage while not actually putting him in there myself, so that I can go pick up April from work. I think I'm going to try putting a big chunk of apple on his perch inside. We'll see...

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!

So it's been a while since I've posted on here. Mostly because I've been busy but most of all because I forgot all about this. ha. I'm now officially a St Louisan, I have a great little place in the city, am playing for the Stunt Devils and the All Stars with the Arch Rival Rollergirls, and am probablly the happiest I've been in many many years.

The biggest news is that I just adopted a Senegal Parrot named Sid! He was living in Irving, Illinois (90 mins outside of stl) with his parents and 2 dogs. Well, apparently one of the dogs wanted to kill Sid. And apparently Sid also wanted to kill his dad. So Sid didn't get out too often so his Mom decided to find him a new home. They were very nice people and I really respect them for making the right decision. I am glad to have Sid as part of the family!!! That's him in the picture there.

Sid is 15 years old, so he's a bit of a senior. You can find different numbers on different sites, but Senegals are expected to live around 30 years in captivity. But frankly, I don't think we know much about anything when it comes to birds, so it could me more, could be less.

Senegals hail from Africa and are of the same parrot species as the well known African Greys. After watching Sid in his home environment, I decided that I would start hin off on clicker training right away. Not only would it help me build trust with him, but show him who rules the roost here, keep his mind occupied, get some excercise, and most imprtantly, it was obvious he needed some re taming! Basically, he would fly around, land on his dad and proceed to run up his shirt and bite him. Or he would haphazardly fly around the room like a little maniac. So that wonb't be happening here. I have clipped his wings slightly so that he cannot get lift. And I will be teaching him manors that I expect him to observe here.

Sid has some fear issues, that is obvious. He's not into new things, he only has one toy that he likes, etc. Honestly, I thought the phobia would be worse but I think once I can give him some confidence and start introducing toys to him through positive methods, I think he'll be much more content.

I'm going to keep a log on here. I have clicker trained before but not with a bird with any sort of behavioral issues. I hope to be able to not only keep track of our progress, but to be able to see where I have made mistakes, and hopefully where I can get some guidance from experienced trainers. So if anyone reading this ever has any advice, criticism, or insight, please feel free to share!!!