Need some advice and help, please.

I've had my adopted 10 yr old female eclectus for about 2 months. She was in a pet store and was cage bound. She is very aggressive but I've stick trained her. She is very protective of everything. She growls any time I approach, and lunges to bite. She will bite my shoes if she hops off her cage. She takes treats from me now but I have to always be aware of her or she will attack. I would love some advice from experienced owners. My male is a sweetheart. Thank you, Phyllis

It took us a solid six months to be able to touch our greenwing after she arrived. Same behaviors you are describing. Lunging, biting (for blood if she could get it). It drove me batty because I wanted a relationship with her so much it hurt my feelings. I didn't understand how long it would take, and thought it would never happen. After months of handing treats and working with her with a clicker/pointer stick to target train her she finally let me start touching her a little but it was very iffy if I would get bit or not when I did. I still felt like I would never have her affection. At some point I accepted that and let go of trying so hard. Then everything changed. It was as if my trying so hard to win her over was what put her off me. When I relaxed and let go so did she. We're getting better daily. Yesterday I was petting her and playing with her and she started trying to regurgitate for me and making bird love sounds. She usually reserves that for my son because she loves him. To have her do it for me is a real moment (not that I want any bird throw up, but I do know it means she loves me The moral of this story is be calm, be patient (many months worth of patient) and keep handing those treats. Target training her is really helpful because they really enjoy the brain stimulation of having to work for treats. My birds go crazy when they see the clicker/stick come out because they love training. Even the little conure starts bouncing up and down and chirping in excitement. They just find it fun and they love the special "training time only" treats they get during a session.

Thank you for the quick advice. I have never seen such an out of control bird. LOL She charges at me whenever she can. I'm only allowed in her cage to add food. I move her all over with a stick.

I wasn't even allowed in for that If she was clear across the enclosure from me, she'd race over to her bowls as fast as she could to defend them. After so long I took her out and put her on a playstand so I could clean the cage and change her bowls. That became a hassle because she resisted being taken out (knowing full well what I was trying to do-smartie brat), so my husband had the idea to get a blinky lighted wand from the dollar store because she really didn't like lighted toys. I'd take that in with me to change her bowls in the morning and it distracted her long enough that I could get the bowls out. Still to this day when I return the bowls she's waiting there to attack them as they fall into place (we have food cup holders). Usually some food gets grabbed in the process and dropped on the floor. Now she'll all bluster, but back then she was very serious about trying to get a hold of me. The stick was how we moved her back then. Now we have no problem. You will get through this if you wait it out and keep trying. Here is an excellent set of dvd's to get you started on training:
Basics of Parrot Training by Barbara Heidenreich 3 DVD Set Good Bird Inc | eBay

You have given me hope! LOL I will take a look at those DVD's. I was looking at a set by "BirdTrick". I even looked up bird trainers but I live in a very rural area. I've even put off a vet check because I know it will be a disaster. I just walk away when she's trying to attack and I put her on a playstand to clean her cage. When she stalks me too much, I put her back in her cage for 5 -10 minutes. She is so beautiful but definitely a handful. She's worse than all my birds put together. LOL I won't give up on her.

I would definitely recommend avoiding Bird Tricks and The Parrot Wizard!


Anything by Barbara Heidenreich, Lara Joseph, Pamela Clark, Chris Shank, Hillary Hankey, Susan Friedman, Melinda Johnson, Karen Pryor.... all of them have great information!


If she's lunging, can you try moving by slower? Maybe talking to her before entering her field of vision? Any time you go by the cage, dropping in a special treat?

Thank you for the author suggestions. She does a lot of growling also. I don't know how long she was cage bound and I don't think she was treated kindly.

Phyllis,

I've delayed a response as your circumstances is different to mine, my adopted female Pebbles, came to me very scared, and she would freak out if approached. I just wanted to agree that things can take a long time, Pebbles certainly took a long time to build trust.

I also wanted to share one thing I have been trying with Gizmo (my male eclectus), again different circumstances, but perhaps a technique you could use, especially if your girl loves food like Pebbles does.

He has a nasty habit of biting if you try to touch him. I really should have worked with him on this problem early on, but I went with the idea that if he doesn't like it, then fair enough. My opinion changed a few months back, when he got caught in my wife's hair, and as I tried to help him untangle his foot, he grabbed my finger near the nail and took some skin (that really hurt....lol).

So I have been giving him treats (something that takes time to eat), and then while he is eating I will touch his foot, chest, wing, back of the neck, etc. It has taken some time, but I can now do this without food, well as long as I don't hang around too long , and with food he will let me touch him pretty much without resistance (although I am yet to try opening a wing, I want to move on gradually).

Now I realise your circumstance is a lot different, but the idea is a bit reverse to the norm (treat after desired behaviour). It's more about gradually switching off the standard reaction response. With Gizmo the success wasn't really about being able to touch him when he had a treat in his mouth (I could do that on day one), it was about changing the standard reaction of being touched without a treat in his mouth from being bite said finger.

Anyway, perhaps that might be of some use in the toolbox of training.

Best of luck and keep us updated.

Cheers,

Cameron

pdohmyer, many birds may react negatively even if they have never been handled or abused in any way. Although it may be nice to know why a bird reacts the way they do, with the right kind of training, it honestly doesn't matter! In fact, it might even be better to *NOT* know, so you can't judge the bird prior to really interacting with them. Instead, you deal with the behavior that you see in front of you and work from there.

Barbara Heidenreich once mentioned how she was holding a workshop and a guy brings in a cockatoo. Barbara started out the training session with the cockatoo as she does any other bird - allows the bird to first get comfortable in a new environment, observe the bird but don't physically interact (or verbally) with the bird before going over and start feeding him treats - finding out what he likes and what he would work for. Then she started to teach him behaviors. After working with the cockatoo and teaching a new behavior, she later found out that the cockatoo supposedly hates women. The cockatoo never showed any aggression towards her.


Camo, sounds like you were using a form of systematic desensitization, which is a part of positive reinforcement training! When paired with classical conditioning, it becomes a great tool!

Thank you for all the wonderful advice. There is so much to learn and to try. I've done dog rescue for many years and bird training is VERY different. LOL
:09:

That depends on the type of training you've done with dogs!



Let us know if you make any progress or figure out a way to work with her in a manner that causes the least amount of stress towards her!