Betrisher
Well-known member
- Jun 3, 2013
- 4,253
- 177
- Parrots
- Dominic: Galah(RIP: 1981-2018); The Lovies: Four Blue Masked Lovebirds; Barney and Madge (The Beaks): Alexandrines; Miss Rosetta Stone: Little Corella
Hm. Well, the good news is that Dom has found his new diet of pellets is better than adequate: he can't get enough of it!
The bad news is that I can't figure out how to stop him from biting. The old fraud will eventually step up on my (covered) arm if I'm patient and wait for him to come to me. But once there, he might at any minute fly into my wrist and sever and artery! He does this completely at random: for the life of me, I can't see a trigger. If I were aware of anyone mistreating him in the past, I'd say he was afraid of hands, but they haven't and he's not. He hops up on men's hands quite happily and *never* bites them. Just me. Sigh.
So this evening, I opened his cage to allow him out if he wanted. He waited for quite a while and I thought he might be afraid, so I made a bridge across from his cage to the table with a broomstick. Dom ventured forth as soon as I offered him a sunflower seed! He came over to the table and played happily among his toys for about an hour. I gave him some paw paw and he pecked at that (didn't eat it, though). Then, he took himself back across his bridge and put himself to bed. The dear old soul. I hope I can help him get over his aggro - he must be having all sorts of conflicting thoughts in his little pink head. I think it's some kind of anxiety he has, so I guess the onus is on me to be more and more and more patient.
Tell ya what, though: his bite hurts, 'cause he's not joking when he does it!
The bad news is that I can't figure out how to stop him from biting. The old fraud will eventually step up on my (covered) arm if I'm patient and wait for him to come to me. But once there, he might at any minute fly into my wrist and sever and artery! He does this completely at random: for the life of me, I can't see a trigger. If I were aware of anyone mistreating him in the past, I'd say he was afraid of hands, but they haven't and he's not. He hops up on men's hands quite happily and *never* bites them. Just me. Sigh.
So this evening, I opened his cage to allow him out if he wanted. He waited for quite a while and I thought he might be afraid, so I made a bridge across from his cage to the table with a broomstick. Dom ventured forth as soon as I offered him a sunflower seed! He came over to the table and played happily among his toys for about an hour. I gave him some paw paw and he pecked at that (didn't eat it, though). Then, he took himself back across his bridge and put himself to bed. The dear old soul. I hope I can help him get over his aggro - he must be having all sorts of conflicting thoughts in his little pink head. I think it's some kind of anxiety he has, so I guess the onus is on me to be more and more and more patient.
Tell ya what, though: his bite hurts, 'cause he's not joking when he does it!
