Lunging little horror

Hi everyone!

So for the past week or so, Charlie has been pushing his luck, boundaries and my patience by lunging at me every time I go to get him from his cage.

The little horror would try so hard to get at me he would even loose his balance in his efforts to do do. Needless to say he actually scared the daylights out of me as I knew this is going to hurt, Lol.

In the week before I could bribe him with a treat to step up, but suddenly he wanted none of that. He lunged at the hand with the treat, then at the one held up for him to step up.

So last night I spend the evening trying to find a solution, and came upon this video:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GnnwZqCfe_Y

Tried the back of the hand trick on him this morning, and let him go to town trying to get a grip. He tried hard a couple of times, then I could see he was becoming a bit more uncertain as the hand was not going away, took a step back, looked at me, and stepped up!

Since then he has not even tried lunging at me the whole day, stepped up every single time.

I assume he was trying to test dominance, Lol. Just glad this worked so well. Today, anyway.

On a different note, a friend dropped her fid, Ziggy, off with me to babysit while they are on holiday. So I have all three cages set up in my lounge. This afternoon I am sitting on the sofa with Milo on my shoulder, when Ziggy starts imitating coughing, then Charlie answered with his cough, followed by Ziggie, then Charlie, etc. This was so funny! Of course I started laughing at the two silly birds, just to have Milo fall in with my laughing at them. My day was made!

That seems like a REALLY good way to deal with this, and a really good analysis of the bird's thought process! Thanks for posting this!!

I am going to have to build up the nerve to try this with Kooka my 15 year old CAG....he is an absolute doll when he is out of his cage...but good lord he's a monster bird on or in his cage...puffs up all crazy and lunges at everyone. He lunges so hard sometimes I worry he's going to go flying off into the floor!

Charlie's lunging has dramatically reduced over the last couple of days. Don't make any mistake, Lol, he still tries every now and again, but definitely a a lot less.

Let us know if it works for you!