Good job with the clicker training It looks like you have the nessasary patience and are quick to click for correct behavior. It is rare for a newbie to be as good at it so fast

If you want Diamond to be more comfortable being closer to you, you might benefit from adding touch/target training as well. You can use a wooden chop stick and his job is to touch it with his beak. This will get him to focus on the chop stick and at the same time get used to you moving your hand towards him. When he gets it, you should let him work a little harder to touch it, so he gets used to voluntarily moving closer to your hand. Touch training can also help you get him to step up, as you in time can ask him to move to the target over your arm

I've just bought this clicker from a well known auction site

Archie has been doing touch/target training for ages using a separate clicker and chopstick. It's fiddly holding both though and this is all in one

I used it yesterday for the first time and he didn't mind the change over - bribed with sunflower seeds




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Thanks for the tips!

Slow going at present. Still making progress it's just sooo sloooooow. I spent maybe the past week just getting him to move around parts of his cage with the touch training. He still doesn't seem comfortable even moving throughout the cage. Even that's taking forever because he'll take a few minutes to go 6 inches onto a new spot, touch the stick and then retreats to a safe spot to take his treat and then move 6 feet back to his comfort zone to eat it. When he does venture over to touch the stick in a new spot I'm wondering if I should only give him the treat at the point where he touches the stick?

Dear Diamond, what's up? Did Great Scott figure out to give the click and treat whenever you do what he wants, like actually touch the stick, and then gradually ask you to do more and more? Or have you trained him to give you a treat whenever you want? Are you going to be a good rain bird and invoke lots of downpours for California, so GS can take you skiing?

Lol. I do usually give him a treat when I first go in but after that he's gotta do something. Here lately the training has been rough. He's gotta be hungry enough to be motivated to train but with the cold I'd rather not make him wait on me to train to get calories he likely needs to keep him warm.

I do have a question. He usually comes over to me when I ask him to but backs off if I act like I want to touch him. When he first got here he did let me touch him and the back of his head felt like a pin cushion and he quickly pulled back and made it clear he did want to be touched. Also, on one of his tail feathers he's had a husk that's away from his body, in one large and smaller section near the end. Is this painful for him? Could this be the main reason he doesn't want to be touched? Should I try to remove the husk from his tail?

If he cannot get the the husks himself, you need to help him. However you should only dehusk the part of the feather, which is ready for dehusking. Usually the husk is dry and flaky, when it's ready to come off. On the tail feathers I can usually see a colour difference from the "not ready" to the ready. The ready part is usually lighter and even whitish/light greyish.

Fortuneately none of my macaws have husks in need of dehusking, but in a few days, Sugar will have some on the back of his neck, which should me ready for dehusking. If you need, I can take photos of the different husks. Please let me know

Pictures would be great. I'm sure they are ready. The top piece is a good 3 inches away from his body.

Oh so happy!

Yesterday I got Diamond to put a foot on me and keep it there for a good 5 minutes. He then ran up to the top of his cage and went nuts. My wife had just walked in the door, heard all the commotion and started to video from inside. Unfortunately you couldn't hear Diamond through the double pane window, the football game on tv, my brothers football commentary, barking dog and my wifes "OH MY GOD"s and "I'm gonna cry" so I deleted the sound. Unfortunately I couldn't delete the oh my god dirty window!

Anyway, Diamond was talking a mile a minute saying "go, go, go. Go Diamond go, Scott, Scott, go, go" with a dozen other phrases I couldn't make out. When he gets excited and starts saying "go" or "get out" I've begun to tell him he needs to step up if he wants to go.

At one point in the video it looks like he's attacking and biting my hand but he's barely touching me. For a couple weeks he's just been testing me to see what my hand is going to do so I've really worked on not reacting when I'm sure he's just testing.

Oh so happy!

Yesterday I got Diamond to put a foot on me and keep it there for a good 5 minutes. He then ran up to the top of his cage and went nuts. My wife had just walked in the door, heard all the commotion and started to video from inside. Unfortunately you couldn't hear Diamond through the double pane window, the football game on tv, my brothers football commentary, barking dog and my wifes "OH MY GOD"s and "I'm gonna cry" so I deleted the sound. Unfortunately I couldn't delete the oh my god dirty window!

Anyway, Diamond was talking a mile a minute saying "go, go, go. Go Diamond go, Scott, Scott, go, go" with a dozen other phrases I couldn't make out. When he gets excited and starts saying "go" or "get out" I've begun to tell him he needs to step up if he wants to go.

At one point in the video it looks like he's attacking and biting my hand but he's barely touching me. For a couple weeks he's just been testing me to see what my hand is going to do so I've really worked on not reacting when I'm sure he's just testing.

Oh my god! I'm going to cry!