The harness is going back

So...
The aviator harness for my little Remi arrived. And...
We tried it on, and it was not a nice experience.
I was so sad to see my poor little bird flapping and trying to fly and landing to the ground. He was pretty upset as well.
We took the harness off and he was very offended. It took several treats and a lot of baby talking to get him back to his normal self. He is sitting on my leg preening and accepting scritches, so it's all right.
I don't think the harness is the right thing for us. I don't want to ruin the trust I have built with the bird.

Sorry to hear that, it takes time and patients and lots of treats .


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I know, it's just that I have spent the past nine months building trust and a good bond, and now to start stressing him out with that. I don't want him to distrust me. I just love him and want him to be happy. It was hard to watch him unhappy...

As always: the drama/ failure is as big as you make it.

I know it is tempting 'to try it on for size" immediately.
That is not how it works!
(maybe with a very very young bird)

Usually you spend weeks just acclamatizing the bird to the concept of an aviator harness.
(That is what the instruction-DVD is there fore/ the DVDcontent is on their yourtube channel as well)


But even if things go wrong... just ignore it and proceed/ start again (like the reset in a game) with the last certain point of success and build it up again.


After a year or so I can -with some cooperation from them- put the harness on my greys and sometimes on the macaw (she started a lot later), but there is no way I can stop them from continuous chewing and pulling yet... that will take a long, long time (if they ever get there). They are all fully mature birds and have not worn a harness before afaik)

He was scared , rightly so. With time and patients he would do fine . Christa is right .

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That's exactly what happened - I had to try it on in case it's too small so I can return it. But apparently, that was wrong.
Now I am put off by it.

Flynhigh said:

He was scared , rightly so. With time and patients he would do fine . Christa is right .

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Click to expand...

You think he would eventually get used to it?

I want to get a harness because if I ever do get my conure to accept wearing it, she will go to all kinds of places with me. For me, it is about the long haul. Right now I am waiting for the conure to complete the first molt and allow me to handle her. Completely handle her with holding wings, etc. Then the plan is to take lots of time getting her to get used to the harness being on its neck for a couple of seconds, work up to minutes. Work to the wings in the harness for a few seconds, etc. I got time to make this happen. I am in no hurry although it will be so fun to just stroll around with her.

Absolutely he would.

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Oh yes.

It really is amazing what they learn to put up with
there is just no time-table for it.
(getting used to it went pretty past here, but the head-in-the-loop really took months and months, after that they could not care less about the manipulation of the wings, but completely freaked at the closing clasp-part.... there is no right/ wrong way...just your birds way )



but...(just awfully curious) did you get the right size?

ChristaNL said:

Oh yes.

It really is amazing what they learn to put up with
there is just no time-table for it.
(getting used to it went pretty past here, but the head-in-the-loop really took months and months, after that they could not care less about the manipulation of the wings, but completely freaked at the closing clasp-part.... there is no right/ wrong way...just your birds way )



but...(just awfully curious) did you get the right size?

Click to expand...

I don't think I got the right size. I went with Petite as suggested on their website, but it seems too small. Maybe that was the problem...

RemiBird said:

So...
The aviator harness for my little Remi arrived. And...
We tried it on, and it was not a nice experience.
I was so sad to see my poor little bird flapping and trying to fly and landing to the ground. He was pretty upset as well.
We took the harness off and he was very offended. It took several treats and a lot of baby talking to get him back to his normal self. He is sitting on my leg preening and accepting scritches, so it's all right.
I don't think the harness is the right thing for us. I don't want to ruin the trust I have built with the bird.

Click to expand...

You have to show your bird the harness and get him to step on it a few times. Then start to attempt to put it on. It takes time and lots of treats. You never want to force him to wear it right away. Get him use to seeing it first and to the point he step on it first. It took my bird a week.

The harness can be loved and adored by parrots. My touch-resistant ekkie loves his harness - he comes running towards it. However, you must go at a parrot's pace!

It's a foreign object, some strange vice-looking contraption. If you were him, you'd be scared just looking at it too! So your role is to create positive associations, not shove a scary new thing at him.

Show him the harness and give a treat. Keep this up several times a day. Then when he steps towards the harness, give another treat. Build up these kinds of positive associations.

Eventually you can move to feeding him treats through the head loop. I've written extensively on different threads about how we did harness training.

But you cannot judge a parrot by human standards. Just because humans can put on new clothes, get into bungy jumping harnesses the first time, doesn't mean that parrots are able to understand a harness the same way.

It took me almost a year to get Salty used to the harness, and yeah, the putting is head thru the loop is the hardest part. Now we do the exercise shown in the video ( link below) every single night, so he remembers how it's done and to let him be familiar with the weight of the harness. If I had to give the steps it would be:

1. Make sure you can handle your parrot, like manipulating his wings holding him, etc.
He needs to be very comfortable with that.
2. Introduce the harness as described above. Let him walk on it, leave it by his cage etc.
3. On a flat surface ( coffee table works great) start nightly training , using the technique shown in the video below. Lots and lots of his favorite treat at each step .
4 Once he will willingly put his head through the head loop, its time for the real deal.

I took me a year doing the above steps, training every night religiously . I suggest you start over and hit the reset button.

http://www.parrotforums.com/general-parrot-information/79733-harness-training-salty.html

Or https://www.dropbox.com/sh/oyllpc4zt3jmd67/AAAlp7Gtpa6jU4LFoMZa4osXa/20190313_205431.mp4?dl=0

Well you typically can't do it that way, as Christa said...it usually takes months and months to get an adult bird to accept even putting the loop over their head...So I'm not at all surprised he responded the way that he did for you. But I wouldn't just send it back and quit on it, because it is a wonderful thing to be able to take them out on their Harness, and they do learn to absolutely love it, but they have to associate wearing the Harness with going outside!!! Once that happens they actually want to put it on because they know that they're going to get to go out!

Did you get the instruction DVD with the Harness? You can also watch it on YouTube, it's a great tutorial on how to slowly, OVER-TIME teach them to accept putting the Harness on in steps. First you simply hang the Harness in/on their cage or stand, wherever they spend a lot of time, so that they get used to seeing it and having it around, and are not afraid of it being near them, which can take a few weeks. Then the first step to putting it on them is to practice putting just the loop over their head, and that typically takes a couple of weeks. And once they accept putting the loop over their head, then the next is the loop over their head and one wing in, then the next wing, etc., rewarding them with treats and verbal praise every step along the way, until they finally accept having the harness on them...Then you take them outside immediately and reward them/praise them, so they start to associate the harness with going outside, in the car, to stores, on hikes/walks, etc. IT'S A LONG PROCESS BUT IT'S TOTALLY 100% WORTH IT, FOR BOTH YOU AND FOR THEM!!!

Don't give-up on it because of how he reacted to putting the entire thing on the first time he saw it, that's a totally normal reaction. If you do it the proper way in steps, gradually over time (and allow him time to get used the harness just being around them and not hurting them), then it's not at all scary or alarming to them, and it certainly won't hurt your bond or trust with him at all...

Ok, maybe we'll try and take a step back...
I think we'll probably keep the leash and start over like you all suggested.
I was just really upset seeing him frightened like that.