Ok, so this is my current project and it's not going too well.
I've spoken about Alice's wing clip when I got her a few times recently, but a quick recap: she had all the primaries on one wing cut short with the exception of the first couple 'for show' and the last couple against her body. The result of this was that when she tried to fly when she felt she was in danger she'd get up to head height then lose balance and plummet floorwards. She was definitely winded and scared by the experience and it happened a good few times whilst the clip was growing out.
She's now fully flighted and clearly knows how to fly - if something seriously spooks she'll shoot up in the air, get her barings then either fly to me or back to her cage. So she can do it, definitely.
What I'm now thinking about is wanting to recall train her, which seems like a no brainer in terms of safety for a flighted bird, and wanting her to be able to fly a bit every day for exercise. The trouble is, she won't fly unless she's doing it out of necessity - fleeing from a perceived threat - and I'm convinced she's scared to, that she remembers those painful tumbles but she doesn't know why they happened and is convinced if she stays in the air too long it will happen again.
So, how do I deal with this? So far I've been using her target stick to get her to cross from a chair back to my fore arm, which she's fine with, and I've been trying to increase the distance. If my arm is lower than the chair, she'll pitch forward beak first as long as the distance is reachable. If it's any further she'll just pace up and down working herself into a strop. On the occasions she's managed a big gap with flapping she immediately panics and legs it up to my shoulder so I can't reward her ( she won't take treats if she gets stressed at any point in training). We've been at this a month now and we seem stuck with it.
So any alternative ideas? It's taken us months to master simple tricks before, we're a regular dumb and dumber, but this feels like it runs a bit deeper than her not getting why i want her to turn in a circle or wave a foot in the air.
I've spoken about Alice's wing clip when I got her a few times recently, but a quick recap: she had all the primaries on one wing cut short with the exception of the first couple 'for show' and the last couple against her body. The result of this was that when she tried to fly when she felt she was in danger she'd get up to head height then lose balance and plummet floorwards. She was definitely winded and scared by the experience and it happened a good few times whilst the clip was growing out.
She's now fully flighted and clearly knows how to fly - if something seriously spooks she'll shoot up in the air, get her barings then either fly to me or back to her cage. So she can do it, definitely.
What I'm now thinking about is wanting to recall train her, which seems like a no brainer in terms of safety for a flighted bird, and wanting her to be able to fly a bit every day for exercise. The trouble is, she won't fly unless she's doing it out of necessity - fleeing from a perceived threat - and I'm convinced she's scared to, that she remembers those painful tumbles but she doesn't know why they happened and is convinced if she stays in the air too long it will happen again.
So, how do I deal with this? So far I've been using her target stick to get her to cross from a chair back to my fore arm, which she's fine with, and I've been trying to increase the distance. If my arm is lower than the chair, she'll pitch forward beak first as long as the distance is reachable. If it's any further she'll just pace up and down working herself into a strop. On the occasions she's managed a big gap with flapping she immediately panics and legs it up to my shoulder so I can't reward her ( she won't take treats if she gets stressed at any point in training). We've been at this a month now and we seem stuck with it.
So any alternative ideas? It's taken us months to master simple tricks before, we're a regular dumb and dumber, but this feels like it runs a bit deeper than her not getting why i want her to turn in a circle or wave a foot in the air.