Would wing clipping in our living situation benefit Kyo?

[Kyoto]

Hi everyone,
The past few months with Kyo has been pretty amazing, to say the least. She is funny, naughty, loving, and mostly quiet. Other than not being very nice to my husband, she is everything I could have asked for in a companion.

My only regret with getting her is that I am feeling like the days we go to our studio after I work, and days at the studio on my days off, she does not get enough attention. I think the obvious answer is to bring her with us! However, there are some risks involved with this.

She is fully flighted and it is definitely not a safe place for her to be without being in a harness or a cage. With 20 foot ceilings and lots of places for her to hide, she would definitely need to stay in a cage, but at least she would be with us. Now, I can simply cage her, but I am super nervous about getting her from her carrier to the cage without her escaping, and vice versa to go home!

I was thinking that maybe on top of harness training (a WIP), if we got her partially clipped this may ease that worry in my mind. This said, I have other concerns with clipping her. First of all, we have cats. Although we do not let the two species anywhere near each other, I worry about if they somehow get into her room and she has gotten out if she has a clip she won't stand a chance.

What do you guys think?! I talked to the vet about it a bit, and with the cats around he was very iffy about it... he is very pro training and takes his little conure with him everywhere (she stays in her own room at the vet while he works) and he would really like to see the same for Kyo too. He was happy to hear us working on harness training.

Anyways, hopefully some of you really experienced folks can weigh in with your suggestions and your own experiences! I am really thinking that any way we can make it possible to take her with us would be the best case scenario.

 

[Dinosrawr]

I'm pretty pro training in this scenario, too. Recall training and training her to fly down would solve any problems with her going too high or somewhere she's not supposed to be. Once you have her reliably trained, then I'd start bringing her. You could always harness train her, too. Either avenue is fine, just depends on how much freedom you want her to have. [emoji4]

Personally I wouldn't clip in this situation. Not when it's a trainable behaviour. She would so enjoy that, too, so I think clipping may upset her more than simply offering her the choice to come.