Fear of flying

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.

Jayyj said:

Ok, so this is my current project and it's not going too well.



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.

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Well, im not an expert on recall training, im just beginning to dabble in it myself, but IMO if she gets frightened and flys to your shoulder, id treat her regardless, because if your outside and she gets spooked or gets spooked with a door open, she will fly to you knowing its a good place to be. For safety. Just My opinion.

Kiwi had a similar reaction to "flight training" when we let his wings grow out He had no natural inkling or desire for flying. I'm not much help on how to overcome it because I called it quits because it was too traumatizing and definitely NOT enriching his life. It actually began breaking trust. We clipped him again for his own safety and focused on bigger and better things he enjoyed. If the day ever comes he wants to try, I'd probably cry tears of joy, but that isn't going to happen in reality.

I would continue to work with Alice and definitely give her the chance and opportunity, but don't be afraid or ashamed to put a halt on it if she is becoming traumatized and regressing in other ways. One other thing is have you worked with her on flapping exercises to build up her chest and back muscles? Birds who haven't flown have underdeveloped flight muscles and it makes it very difficult. Imagine having never worked out and being expected to lift a 50lb weight. Sure, lots of people can pick up a 50lb weight, but they've all done training before they were able to do that. Even though Kiwi hangs on for dear life, we "flap" him around all the time for exercise (which he enjoys) and did so before we tried flight so he'd have the necessary muscles.

Timothy said:

Well, im not an expert on recall training, im just beginning to dabble in it myself, but IMO if she gets frightened and flys to your shoulder, id treat her regardless, because if your outside and she gets spooked or gets spooked with a door open, she will fly to you knowing its a good place to be. For safety. Just My opinion.

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Fortunately she runs to me any time she's nervous anyway - usually on foot like a little pink pigeon, but she'll fly to me if she has to. The other night she fell off the java tree in the bathroom while I was in the bath and flew over to land on my head - and stark naked and dripping wet, trying to reach for a towel without unbalancing the scared bird on my head is not a good look! Unfortunately treating when she's afraid of something doesn't work as she just drops it, although I always praise her if she flies anywhere.

But the fear of her getting outside and ending up in a tree too scared to come down is the main thing that I worry about - so that's the goal really. I'm not interested in free flight particularly - there are sparrowhawks and peregines locally that scare me too much to risk her out of reach - just safety issues really.

Thanks Kiwi - one of the reasons training takes so long wirh Alice is recognising when she's getting stressed and not forcing her, so she never seems particularly affected by training after the fact. I've tried the flapping thing - she'll allow a few bounces but then makes a break for my shoulder. She can do a lap of the front room without seeming out of breath so she must have some muscle strength still. I can try to make flapping a regular thing though.

Kiwi "flaps" most places he goes now, just like a flighted bird would Plus, he LOVES flapping around outside. We encourage it with lots of happy, boisterous verbal reinforcement and kisses (his preferred reward) at the end. He doesn't ever flap his wings unless he's on our hands though. He seems to like the security I guess (?).

I think if Alice seems to be leaning towards flying, it may increase her confidence to flap her wings more and become accustomed to the idea that she can go "far" by flying and not crash. Kind of like putting training wheels on a bike for a little kid

Are there certain things which she finds irresistible to attack? Such as clicker, jingle toys, phone, remote control, whatever? Those things which she must attack can be a huge incentive to fly. As can flat-out running away from her if she's a Velcro bird.

Kalidasa said:

Are there certain things which she finds irresistible to attack? Such as clicker, jingle toys, phone, remote control, whatever? Those things which she must attack can be a huge incentive to fly. As can flat-out running away from her if she's a Velcro bird.

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Unfortunately no, she's very much geared towards running away rather than attacking. She didn't know how to play with toys when I got her and we've fixed that for the most part but she tends to sidle up to them an nudge them a few times to make sure they're not going to rear up and strike her first. The cat's tail is the one thing she goes for on a regular basis, but I can see potential issues in trying to incorporate that into training...

In as far as her following me if I run away from her, she'll alarm call after me and when I go back beg to be picked up wings held up and quivering, but she doesn't actually have the courage to take off - that's been the case for months. She also has a tendency to react to stress by fluffing up and staring into the middle distance, ignoring treats and flinching if I try to pet her: for our first six months together she did this a lot but it's more or less extinguished except in training situations where she doesn't like what I'm trying to teach her. I just mention it because it tends to be her reaction if I try things like running away or putting her somewhere she doesn't really want to be left and encouraging her to fly back to me.

yes I suppose the cats tail wouldn't be a safe motivator.
How old is she anyway?

She was born in 2005, and I've had her 16 months. I'm pretty sure she spent most of her previous life in a small cage: certainly she'd been in the shop I bought her from for at least six months, possibly a lot longer and they had to literally pry her off the bars the couple of times I saw them take her out so I doubt they gave her much out of cage time there, and I believe her previous owners were an elderly couple who didn't handle her much. Strangely she's very sociable and happy to meet new people - it's the environment that scares her unless she has the bars or my company for safety.

She's come a very long way in the time I've had her and she generally seems pretty happy in her current situation - it's just whenever I want to introduce her to something new, often that would enrich her life further if she gave it a chance, she gets stressed and reverts to the old wilting flower personality. I think she probably will continue to improve but I'm very conscious of my own lack of experience when it comes to a bird with issues and it's always a worry that I'm getting things wrong.

Wanted to update this - we're making progress, very slowly but it is there. I'm having success getting her to jump onto my forearm, the gap where she's comfortable crossing now being about 8", just enough that she needs a wing flutter to help her across. And although she doesn't much like my attempts to get her to flap on my fist, she's started showing her objection by flying onto an object that isn't bouncing erratically up and down - and each time she does that she seems less stressed when she lands.

I still don't think I'm going to have her flying to me on command any time soon, but her confidence is definitely building and seeing some semblance of a result is enough to reassure me that we're going to get somewhere eventually!