osnyder
New member
Hello to all.
As some of you know we've had Stitch home only about a week and a half. All things considered, things are going in a good direction. I ordered some training tools (a small table perch and clickers) but they have not arrived.
In the mean time, Stitchy will get ornery and start to scream whilst on his cage or his perch. It seems to be for different reasons, and sometimes it has a quick and easy solution. Other times it doesn't, and it's just to get attention or cause drama, and in this case it needs to be ignored, and he needs to be put in his cage.
The problem is that I cannot get him to step up without being mauled, so I need to towel him to move him bodily (I actually should say "tshirt" him, as that's what I use). So I very calmly and without force pick him up in the tshirt and return him to the cage, calmly and firmly say "no screaming Stitch" and walk away. Is this OK? I want to make sure I'm not psychically scarring him. He seems fine-- doesn't seem spazzed by the process. He bites at the cloth but I don't get the sense that he's terribly stressed by it (unlike Geordi, who acts like we're killing him if we have to towel him).
Advice? I plan to immediately start clicker training him ASAP, with step-up w/o biting me the primary goal. Is what I'm doing in the mean time ok?
Thank you!
As some of you know we've had Stitch home only about a week and a half. All things considered, things are going in a good direction. I ordered some training tools (a small table perch and clickers) but they have not arrived.
In the mean time, Stitchy will get ornery and start to scream whilst on his cage or his perch. It seems to be for different reasons, and sometimes it has a quick and easy solution. Other times it doesn't, and it's just to get attention or cause drama, and in this case it needs to be ignored, and he needs to be put in his cage.
The problem is that I cannot get him to step up without being mauled, so I need to towel him to move him bodily (I actually should say "tshirt" him, as that's what I use). So I very calmly and without force pick him up in the tshirt and return him to the cage, calmly and firmly say "no screaming Stitch" and walk away. Is this OK? I want to make sure I'm not psychically scarring him. He seems fine-- doesn't seem spazzed by the process. He bites at the cloth but I don't get the sense that he's terribly stressed by it (unlike Geordi, who acts like we're killing him if we have to towel him).
Advice? I plan to immediately start clicker training him ASAP, with step-up w/o biting me the primary goal. Is what I'm doing in the mean time ok?
Thank you!