Aviator Harness - Blue Gold Macaw

Dear Forum

My Blue and Gold Macaw (3 year old) get very scared from the aviator harness I bought.

whenever sees the harness she jumps and flies away and hides!

She gets so aggressive after see it tries to rip it off, I did force it once on her as she has flown away once when i took her outdoor to the vet. Luckily I got her back fine.

now as I need to take her to the vet again or for a walk, can I force this every time on her or is there any other method you can advise?

regards

Oh No ! Do not force anything with parrots. THat breaks her trust with you and can ruin your relationship with her. Getting a parrot to accept putting on and wearing a harness is a gradual process of getting her familiar with it and become OK with putting it on and taking it off. How slow and gradual? TO give you an idea, it took me a whole year of gradually introducing the harness and slowly getting Salty comfortable with wearing it. A whole year, every day, 365 days ( maybe longer) of working with him every training session. And we still practice putting it on and taking it off at least once a week or more.

I can outline the steps in the process.
First you will put the harness near her cage, gradually closer and closer untill its right next to her cage and she is not upset by it.
Next, start to develop a daily schedule of training. at first it is just ptting the harness on the training area, again closer and closer to her.
Next, hold the head loop of the harness open with one hand and offer her her favorite treat with your other hand, at first on her side of the loop and gradually withdraw your hand so she has to put her head thru the head loop. Repeat until she willingly puts her head thru it. Develop verbal commands like ON and OFF to tell her what you want.
Next, with the harness straps open as much as they can, when she puts her head tru the head loop, drape the rest of the harness over her body, loosely. DO not try to put her wings thru the harness at this point.
Next, gradually tighten up the straps so that when you drape it over her body it is fairly close to her body
Next, and this is a important part. At this point she must become OK with you touching her wings and body becasue you will need to manipulate her wings to go thru the body straps. Start with the straps opened up quite a bit and wing by wing put them thru. Slowly tighten up the straps until they fit close to her body. They dont need to be tight or snug - leave a little room for her to move around it a bit.

Each of these steps might take days, weeks or even months to accomplish. Some parrots take to a harness quickly and some become usedd to it VERY slowly ( mine did). You do not want to rush this. With parrots it is all about their trust in humans, which they have no reason to trust. Very important - have lots of her favorite treat close at hand when training, and any progress, even a tiny bit, must be rewarded and use lots of verbal praise too.

There are lots of videos on You tube showing how to put a harness on, I suggest you watch a lot of these. They will make it look easy, but believe me, this is probably the hardest thing to teach your parrot, it's so foreign to their nature. Patience and time are your best approach.

Here is a video of Salty and I training, very early in the above process.

[ame="https://youtu.be/5Fie_9X--wA"]https://youtu.be/5Fie_9X--wA[/ame]

wrench13 said:

Oh No ! Do not force anything with parrots. THat breaks her trust with you and can ruin your relationship with her. Getting a parrot to accept putting on and wearing a harness is a gradual process of getting her familiar with it and become OK with putting it on and taking it off. How slow and gradual? TO give you an idea, it took me a whole year of gradually introducing the harness and slowly getting Salty comfortable with wearing it. A whole year, every day, 365 days ( maybe longer) of working with him every training session. And we still practice putting it on and taking it off at least once a week or more.

I can outline the steps in the process.
First you will put the harness near her cage, gradually closer and closer untill its right next to her cage and she is not upset by it.
Next, start to develop a daily schedule of training. at first it is just ptting the harness on the training area, again closer and closer to her.
Next, hold the head loop of the harness open with one hand and offer her her favorite treat with your other hand, at first on her side of the loop and gradually withdraw your hand so she has to put her head thru the head loop. Repeat until she willingly puts her head thru it. Develop verbal commands like ON and OFF to tell her what you want.
Next, with the harness straps open as much as they can, when she puts her head tru the head loop, drape the rest of the harness over her body, loosely. DO not try to put her wings thru the harness at this point.
Next, gradually tighten up the straps so that when you drape it over her body it is fairly close to her body
Next, and this is a important part. At this point she must become OK with you touching her wings and body becasue you will need to manipulate her wings to go thru the body straps. Start with the straps opened up quite a bit and wing by wing put them thru. Slowly tighten up the straps until they fit close to her body. They dont need to be tight or snug - leave a little room for her to move around it a bit.

Each of these steps might take days, weeks or even months to accomplish. Some parrots take to a harness quickly and some become usedd to it VERY slowly ( mine did). You do not want to rush this. With parrots it is all about their trust in humans, which they have no reason to trust. Very important - have lots of her favorite treat close at hand when training, and any progress, even a tiny bit, must be rewarded and use lots of verbal praise too.

There are lots of videos on You tube showing how to put a harness on, I suggest you watch a lot of these. They will make it look easy, but believe me, this is probably the hardest thing to teach your parrot, it's so foreign to their nature. Patience and time are your best approach.

Here is a video of Salty and I training, very early in the above process.

https://youtu.be/5Fie_9X--wA

Click to expand...

I really appreciate your reply and the rich information you have provided, Thank you from heart , I will use your steps one by one and be patient