Personality Issues

[alleng8304]

I have talked about Jack my 3 yro QP. or older. I rescued June 17. As I have said before he will eat from my hand, give me a kiss and get on my shoulder. In the morning he is good but as the days goes on he turns into a little monster. He lets me pick him up unless he is on top of the cage. If I try to touch him on top of cage he either takes to flight or holds onto the bars and will not let go. Also becoming more aggressive. When I take him away from the cage, he quiets down, will step up once or twice before he flys back to the cage. I have always been kind to him, taught him a few new words, give him a good diet and plenty of treats when he does what I want and ignore him when he does not. I have a lot of trouble getting him back in the cage when he is out. He seems to be afraid of almost every thing-especially fingers.
He can be stubborn at times and I am losing my patience. I guess some birds have something in their background that does not help unwanted behavior. Forget target behavior, he freaks out at sticks and also likes no one but me. In a way, I feel sorry for him, I am all he's got, but I do not want:31: a bird that does not want companionship. Now what

 

[wrench13]

Gethim away from his cage any time hes out into a neutral room. Quakers are notoriously Cage defenders.

 

[alleng8304]

I agree Thanks. I have been taking him out of the cage and put him on my hand and walk into another room. I can feel him tremble. As I talk to him he calms down and after 10 minutes I bring him back to the cage. Do that about 5 times per day

 

[Laurasea]

I have been working with my rescue quaker Penny with this same issue. I've had success with walking up to get saying her name softly then offering her a saffle seed. Then walk away com back in a few minutes and repeat, many times till she was calm when I approached and then I only gave her a seed when she stepped up, then I out her back on the cage, I did this several times, then let her step up and took her for a walk around the house did chores, then took her back. Started all over again. Then for our first few days together (we are only on day eight) I have had to repeat all these steps again. Penny and I are still working on things. You are so kind to have done a rescue,! Don't give up! Don't take it personally. When you feel frustrated re center yourself before you approach the bird again. They can pick up on all kinds of energy and body language. Hold the thought in your mind that you are shaping positive behavior. Also my Quaker Neptune has times of the day he just doesn't want to intereact. If there is a time if the day that you know Jack is his most receptive work with the most then... Sometimes parrots get bored if you are just getting them out to snuggle, set up an area we're you can work on simple tricks with him, coming when you call, touching different toys when you point at them, picking up a small object, anything simple. Do a short training period. When he is away from his cage in a happy mood gave a family member come over say his name and give him a treat then walk away, repeat over and over. When he does this nicely have them offer the seed when he steps up fir them, then you take him right back, keep repeating. Everything takes time.

 

[EllenD]

Okay, you need to take a deep breath first of all...You've only had him less than 2 months, and you adopted him as an adult, re-homed parrot. You're right about him having things in his past that effect his personality and the way he reacts to things; even simply being taken away from his home and his family and then just plopped-down into another home with a new person or people is enough to traumatize them...You're dealing with a "pet" that has the intelligence of a 4 year-old human child Allen, so you've got to imagine how a 4 year-old human child would react to suddenly being taken away from his parents and then given to new parents...wouldn't go very well at all, right? So even if Jack doesn't have any history of abuse, neglect, etc. in his past, which you'll never know anyway, he was in-fact a re-homed, adult bird. Some birds go through this without an issue, some have initial issues but eventually settle-down and adjust, and some take longer...

***However, that being said, YOU HAVEN'T EVEN HAD JACK FOR 2 MONTHS YET, LOL!!! I'm not trying to "scream at you" by using the caps, lol, but rather trying to impress upon you what your largest issue with Jack is and has been since you brought him home: TIME. You want this process to go at "your pace" instead of at "Jack's pace", and that just isn't going to happen, as you're finding out. I can tell you right now with 100% certainty that this process with Jack is not going to go at your-pace, it's just not going to happen; you cannot force this with him, and if you try to force it you are going to only set yourself back over and over again. So the best thing you can do right at this moment is to tell yourself that you've only had him since June 17th, and it's now August 11. It hasn't even been 2 full months, and in "bird-time" that's more akin to a week or less. You made the statement that you're "running out of patience", yet you've hardly even begun your journey with Jack!!! You're still in the "settling-in and getting-to-know-you" period of bringing a bird into your life and your family. So how can you possibly be "running out of patience" already? (That's a rhetorical question, I hope you get the point I'm trying to make).

Many members have already spoken to you about cage-territoriality, which is extremely common in all species of parrots, specifically Quakers, so I'm not going to go into that again, except to repeat that his cage is his "safe place", and he's going to fiercely protect it, especially right now during this first period of time in his new home. Most-all pet birds express some form of territoriality over whatever "their space" in the home is, and it will likely lessen a bit over-time, but don't be at all surprised if you can't ever reach your hand inside of Jack's cage to get him out, even after he is regularly stepping-up for you.

****This issue with the cage is not a "Jack-problem", it's a "pet bird problem", and applies to all pet birds, especially Quakers. It should make you feel better to know that my blue Quaker, Lita, who I got as a 12 week-old, hand-raised/hand-fed baby, and who is now over 3 years-old, doesn't at all like it when I put my hands in her cage at all. This is a bird that flies to me whenever I call her, no matter where she is in the house, who contact-calls with me all day long, who not only allows me to touch her anywhere on her body but actually begs me to scratch her, who cuddles with me in bed, etc. Yet whenever I open her cage up in the morning, even just her little sleeping-cage that is in my bedroom, I don't ever stick my hand inside of her cage to have her step-up/get her out, because she will first give me a "warning squawk", and if that doesn't get me to remove my hand from inside her cage then she gives me a nip. She has never actually "bitten" me, but she has no problem at all letting me know what she doesn't like, and the only thing that Lita really despises is me putting my hand inside of her cage. So I simply open the door and let her come out. Period. And for you and Jack, this is another opportunity to give him tons of verbal praise and reward him with a treat; when you open up the cage door and take a step back, the second he steps-up out of the cage you start with the "good bird" and the treat. And yes, always get him out of the room his cage is located in for training, as you'll not ever get anywhere if all he is concerned with is getting back to his "safe spot"...See, you have to get him out of his safe-spot in order for him to feel like your entire house is his "safe spot"...

Whether you think so or not, from the descriptions you've given of what has happened so-far with Jack, you're doing really, really well and Jack is ahead of the curve. And this is the bottom-line to your problem, in my opinion anyway. You haven't yet realized how long a process this can actually be, and as a result you feel like you're failing, you feel like it's never going to happen, you're starting to worry constantly that Jack will never be the close, cuddly, friendly, loving companion bird that you want him to be, and you're unfortunately starting to have doubts about adopting him already, simply due to the fact that you just don't understand that you are right on-track with both your bonding and training of Jack...If you could just take a step-back and look at the situation as a whole, and really analyze what you're asking of Jack in the extremely short time-period since he came into your life, you should be able to see that Jack is doing really, really well, and that you're slowly earning Jack's trust, that he is slowly accepting you as his new "person". I mean, this is a tame, adult bird, who has the intelligence of a 4 year-old human child, and who has been literally ripped-away from at least one family, if not multiple families, and simply plopped-down into a new place with new people. Imagine having that happen to you as a child...You need to see that what you are asking of Jack, to have him completely trust you in less than 2 months, is just not realistic.

I've been a worker at an Avian and Reptile Rescue for about 8 years now, and I cannot tell you how many birds are adopted and placed into new homes, homes that we spend an average of 3 months approving, homes with stable, loving people who really want to give a bird in need a really good home and make that bird a part of their family, that are brought back to the Rescue within 3 months after they are adopted. Why? Because "It's not working", "He doesn't like us", "He's never going to love us", "He won't let us hold him", "He's never going to let us cuddle him", "He steps-up for me but he won't let me pet him"...I could go on and on and on, listing hundreds of these statements made by people who bring the adult bird they adopted back within just a couple of months of adopting them....

What you need to take-away from this is that we at the Rescue are able to sit-down and talk with these people who are just like you, they love the bird they have adopted, but they so want the bird to quickly love them back and totally trust them in a certain way, a way that they imagine in their heads should just "happen", that when this doesn't happen within the first month or two of having the bird, they totally lose all patience, so much so that they don't even try to have any patience anymore, and they give-up, not even realizing that haven't even begun...

***And in probably 50% of these people who bring the bird back to the Rescue within the first few months, we are able to talk them off the ledge, and they take their bird back home with them...And I can honestly tell you, as we do a 6-month follow-up visit and a 1-year follow-up visit with everyone who adopts a bird, that in 8 years of doing this I don't remember a single case where someone who tried to bring their bird back to the Rescue after a few months and were talked into sticking it out and taking their bird back home instead of returning them to the Rescue, has not had that bird at the 1-year visit...And i can also tell you that every single one of these people in this situation, the same situation that you are in, has thanked me over and over again for counseling them and talking them out of giving-up on their bird and returning them to the Rescue, because they now have the closest, most loving relationships with their birds, and the bond that they have with their birds is just like the bond that they have with their human children. And they are well aware that they wouldn't have any of this had they given-up on their bird after losing their patience with them in the first few months after bringing them home....That's what you need to take to heart...

 

[GaleriaGila]

What Ellen said!
You're doing well!
Stick with us and keep sharing.

 

[alleng8304]

Thank you for SCREAMING! YOU ARE RIGHT- Take a step back and keep trying

 

[Jen5200]

I don’t have a Quaker, but I do have 4 birds that all came to me as adults. Take heart - you will get there, with patience . All of mine progressed at different speeds, and have their quirks - but I have great bonds with 3 of the 4 (the fourth bonded with my husband and “puts up with” me). There’s some great advice above, so I will just add that I had one that was petrified of a target stick. I didn’t ask her to interact with the target stick right away - I would have the stick sit on the arm of the sofa, sit where she could see it from her cage, I would carry it past her, use it to point at things where she could see me holding it....eventually she got the idea that it wasn’t a threat (it wasn’t overnight) and she targets like a champ now.

Hope you’ll keep at it, and look for ideas when you hit roadblocks in bonding with Jack - there’s lots of great resources here and many who have experienced what you are going through.