FINALLY!!! I'm JUMPING for joy!

[GeorgiesMom]

After 2 1/2 months of patience and training, Georgie (my 2 1/2 year old normal grey tiel) let me scratch his head. I was so close to giving up until tonight, thinking he'll always be a "looking" bird not a "touching" bird. When I got him he was cage bound. His previous owner cared very well for him. He had him in a cage fit for an African Grey, with natural wood perches, a swing, toys, you name it. He had converted him to a pellet diet. But since the birth of his son he had not had any time to spend with Georgie and since I had recently lost my cockatiel, he offered him to me. As a result of not being handled much, Georgie was not so much afraid of us....but afraid of our hands. We could stand next to his cage and talk to him and he would watch and not flutter away. If we managed to get him out, he'd sit on shoulders, though nervously. As long as he couldnt see our hands, that is. Once our hands came into view, all bets were off. He was terrified. I was losing hope until I listened to what several tiel owners were telling me.....dont force him out of the cage. Just give him lots of love and see if you can get him used to eating from your hand. He needs to associate hands with positive things and if you chase him around the cage to get him out, that will never happen. So it was killing me to wait but I kept thinking, if he might live 20 years or more, and he's only 2 1/2 now, whats a few more months, or even years? We have plenty of time. So I opened the cage door whenever it was safe to fly (I should say flutter, because his wings are clipped). For about a month he couldnt care less that the door was open. Soon he was sitting at the edge of the cage door looking out. We rigged up a platform for him to step out onto (the door opens sideways, so when the cage door is open there is nothing to stand on outside the door) and put treats on the platform. Soon, not only was he coming out onto the platform willingly to eat his meals, but was climbing all over the cage like a monkey! m-a-j-o-r accomplishment. If he happened to flutter to the floor he would allow me to pick him up. Usually I'd return him to his cage to build trust but once in a while I'd bring him over to sit on the couch with me. Tonight as he was sitting there I started working with him as I'd seen in a parrot training video some time back and within about ten minutes he was allowing me to scratch his head. Now I need to go buy the videos. I'm telling you, it works. I'm going to the website now. Its called birdtricks.com I think. The guys name is Chet Womack. I swear, I'm not affiliated with Chet in any way. In fact, I had little faith in his claims that his techniques could work as fast as they did, and even if they did work that fast, what were we in such a hurry for? Everything in America is rush rush rush and Mr. Womack seemed to be feeding off that which frankly, made me distrust him. But shoot, the first thing I tried work so I might look at his course offerings more closely...but like i said I'm not affilated with him and in fact if you want to know what I did with georgie I'd be glad to tell you! You put your index finger out and approach the bird with it just until you get close enough for the bird to start looking anxious. Then you stop and hold the finger there. hold it very steady and talk to the bird reassuringly. If he bites you, dont react but next time stay a bit further away. The point seems to be to get the finger as close as you can before they feel insecure enough to bite. I held my finger there for about five seconds then removed it and gave him a bit of millet and praised him which, I'm surprised, he seemed to like.. Then I'd do it again. Once he wasnt nervous about that distance, I'd do it a tiny bit closer but never close enough where he felt like he had to bite. In about ten minutes my finger was a millimeter away from his head and he was just looking at me hesitantly, I think he knew what I was gonna do....so I started to lightly touch his head. He immediately figured out I wanted to "preen" him and he put his head down. I scratched him for about half an hour. I actually tired out before he did!!!!

[DynamitePsycho]

That is great to hear! Congratulations!

[Lori~D]

Isnt it great!! Going thru the same here with a grey. Its a great feeling to accomplish. My grey had not been handled in eight years or so and it took me about two. I still cannot "touch" but he will step up and come out to play and even to go to his outdoor cage now. Congratulations!!

[jenseits]

I'm glad you made progress with Georgie.

I think the BirdTrick guys give the technique you describe some sort of fancy name, but it's not a revolutionary method. You can learn all about positive reinforcement (and negative punishment, such as removing disliked stimulus) training methods from folks like Melinda Johnson and Barbara Heidenreich - a lot of materials are available for free and without all the hard-sell, pushy marketing practices you'll encounter from folks trying to rush, rush, rush you into buying their "secret" programs for lots of money.

I really recommend joining Johnson's Bird Click group on Yahoo before you go out and buy any new training materials. There is a lot of great material there for free that will show you how to tame your bird while also always giving them choices. Choice is critical when working with animals to build trust.

Congrats on these first steps. Look forward to hearing about more of your progress.

[MaryG1959]

Congratulations!! Patience "IS" a virtue!! :)

[chapala]

congratulations! I won't repeat the same things, but agree with everything jenseits said above!!

[hsmoscout]

congrats i hope my new cockatiel will let me scratch him!