GCC Harness Training, Impossible to put wings through...

So this is my first post here. I have exhausted any ideas I have or anything I could research online so I decided it would probably be best to ask others! I have been training my one year old, greencheek conure, Gordi, to wear an aviator harness for almost 3 months now. At this point, my green cheek conure will successfully approach the harness on his own, and put his head through the headhole, and remain calm for up to two minutes (as long as there are treats around, basically). He also is pretty good about taking it off. However, I have been stuck at this step for weeks.

At first, while distracting him with a treat, I tried to put one of his wings through the wing hole. He didn't notice it very much at first, but once I had to take off the harness he freaked. I didn't try it again for the rest of the training session. In one of the next couple of training sessions, I tried doing this again except this time he freaked out and ended up getting himself tangled in the harness. This scared him for a bit, but I got him back to the point he was originally at (putting his head through the headhole and staying like that for at least a minute) with a little bit of coaxing and treats. Today, I tried a third time, but he was just not having it.

A couple of other things you should now about Gordi: He is totally fine with being touched and me lifting up his wings. He also knows how to follow a target.

I really don't want to give up especially since I feel like I am so close...Does anyone have any suggestions of how I should move forward? I would really appreciate it!

Sounds like your little guy is quite different from ours. But perhaps I'll share with you some of Cairo's concerns and you can see if those might potentially be triggers for your little one.

Cairo is touch-phobic (unlike yours), so I had to train cue words for whenever I needed to touch his wings or his body. Perhaps a cue word when you're putting the harness around his wings might help forewarn him to relax and not panic.

Cairo also HATES the harness jostling his feathers around. When I move the waist strap around his body to adjust and/or tighten it, I have to make sure my finger is in between to prevent it from catching on any feathers (whether wing feathers or body feathers).

Another element is the getting tangled up part. We trained (and still use) his training perch. It's not very long (he can take may 3-5 steps across), and he doesn't feel the need to walk so much. The other part to that is I never lose contact with the harness when training (Cairo's so comfortable with it now after 9 months, so I occasionally break our rules).

For us, to get to the wings part started slow, but ended fast:

• head through the loop, let the waist band rest over his wings, give cue word as you touch above and under their wings and shift the wings as if you're putting it on and taking it off (but don't put the wings through). It was the exact movement and order we would do if we were to really put it on and off.

We did the above several times a day to make sure he felt comfortable and didn't feel the need to fidget.

Cairo got the hang of this. And I knew getting tangled up is a big stressor. Based on Cairo's body language, he was calm and attentive (not freezing in fear), so I gave the whole thing a try in one go.

• Same as above, identical in fact, just we actually put his wings through (both of them). Immediately after, we gave a bunch of treats, distracting him. Then we removed the harness with the same steps and cue words we had practiced earlier.

Because we had practiced the dry run so often, putting it on and taking it off was nothing new to him at that point. I had touched every area the harness might brush up against and every area I needed to move and adjust, and I gave him a verbal warning throughout the process and gave him treats for positive association.

Thank you for the response!

I feel like this is a great starting point, I hadn't thought about it! So, I took your advice of using a trigger word when I touch Gordi's wings to have him lift, but then not actually put the wings through the holes just yet. I noticed that when I did this Gordi would give me a tiny "yip" cry, and proceed to give me the signal to take the harness off, but then I could simply slide the harness through his head quickly without freaking him out. After doing this about three times, he stopped yipping which means that I think this might be a good way to desensitize him!

I am going to continue doing this for the next days. Until, he looks completely comfortable with lifting his wings in the harness (without putting the wings through just yet). I'll keep posting updates here with the progress on that!

It too me a solid year of training every nite ( 365 times !! ) to get Salty to the point where he is comfortable wearing his harness. 3 months Pffft - your just getting started. Try nightly just draping the harness over your bird, so heis comfortableith the weight and feel of the harness. If heputts his head thru the head loop already, thats the next step. Keep at it, we just had dinner at a joint that has outdoor seating, and Salty loved it.