Seeing your FID change before your eyes

[DRB]

Perjo is changing before my eyes, in a good way. She's never been extremely affectionate in terms of letting my hands touch her whenever I want or how I want. She usually was cautious and rather put off if I reached for her and she didn't want to be touched. But when she wanted touched she was fine.

The past few weeks she has really taken to me handling her more often and how I want. She likes playing with my hands now when my hands are nearby. She gently grabs on to them and an plays with them, taking playful nibbles on them. She makes all sorts of little noises when doing so, so I know she's in a good mood while taking a nip at my hand. When I stand close to her she rubs her beak on my shoulder or tries to touch my ear or nose, usually when I clean her cage.

She's even taking to new toys a bit quicker than she used to. She'll be 17 mos next week.

Sadly her wing feathers are still an issue, she struggles to fly, and she is molting and I see no sight of new flight feathers. Trip to the vet soon if this molt ends and she's free of important feathers.

 

[Birdman666]

CAGS go at their own pace.

And once they do it a few times, and open up to you, "you're in." Then it's a matter of expanding what they will accept.

With a CAG, training is the opposite of MOST parrots.

With amazons, macaws, and cockatoos, and (really sennies, caiques, and conures...) you set boundaries, and reign in the bad behaviors.

With a CAG the bird sets the boundaries, and you gradually, over time, expand what the bird will accept.

Once they do it a few times, they generally accept it. It's getting past that Stubborn streak and getting them to actually TRY IT... (STOP GIVING ME ATTITUDE AND JUST TRY IT FOR ONCE!!!) that tends to be the struggle with these guys.

 

[DRB]

Perjo has continued to progress in her behavior and what I can only call maturity. She has always been a good little young CAG, but has had her minor moments. It what it is. She's taken a few sharp stabs at me, got me twice pretty good that I can recall. But in the past month almost two months she has not taken any serious nips at me, and certainly has not tried to really bite me for the sake of her protection or b/c of her mood.

I think it is silly to try to over analyze this transformation and it is probably just the natural progression of trust that we have always had a solid foundation of. She really enjoys play time and games like "get your beak" with my hand. When it's time for bed she seems reluctant to go down, but in a good way, she seems to not want the day to end and wants to keep playing with me.

I think my next step is to introduce more people into her life. We haven't had a visitor in weeks other than the stranger than fixed the AC issue we had.

 

[AmyMyBlueFront]

Greys are complicated..I knew Smokes loved me. If she was on her roof top while I was replacing her bowls,she'd run across the roof,and as I bent over,she'd bang on my forehead with her beak and make gurgling sounds. She "Woo'd" loudly when I came in the room. We could "beak wrestle" sometime,I'd grab it with my thumb and forfinger and give a shake.But she would not allow being touched.No skritches, no head rubs,and would NEVER step up on my hand on her own,unless it was her only option.
My shoulder was totally different. She'd sit there for hours and nibble my ear and gurgle and chatter away...



Jim

 

[GaleriaGila]

I'm so happy for you!!!
Maybe the Rb will cone around someday soon . He's only about 400 months old...
I'm happy for you!!!