Harness & Quaker

[Cpoppy]

Hi everyone,
I am getting a baby Quaker in a week, and was wondering if anyone on here has successfully trained their Quaker to wear an aviator harness. Yea, I know this will be a challenge however, I would love to take him on walks with me and my dog or just sit outside with him. If you had success can you give me some ideas on how to go about getting this done. I know it will be baby steps. However, I want to start the training as soon as possible.
Thank you in advance.

 

[wrench13]

Not a Quaker, but a yellow shoulder amazon, who is about 1/2 again larger then a Quaker. Start immediately with getting him desensitized to the harness. Color you choose can be important, I've read several times that if the color is one of the birds flash colors ,they are very afraid of the harness. Black is a good choice. Put it near his cage for a few weeks, really close. And then the fun begins, trying to get him to put his head thru the head loop, easily the hardest part. Tempt him with his favorite treat. Once he does that willingly, start draping the harness over him, dont put the wings thru just yet, DO this for awhile, a few weeks. In the mean time start getting him used to you holding him and touching his wings - they will need to be sread out a bit to fully put the harness on. BY now he will be pretty comfortable with the harness. Make the wing loops LARGE, put his head thru the head loop and put each wing thru the respective loops, and tighten up the excess. NOT TOO TIGHT! A constant stream of treats will assure that he starts to look forward to putting it on.

BE PATIENT - it took me almost full tear of working with the harness and with Salty to the point where he is very OK with putting it on, training every single night.

Harness training with Salty