I think she is learning to enjoy the company for sure. She will sometimes "squawk" when I am not in the room, but have never heard her do it when I am; or when I'm sitting at my desk next to her. Unsure if she's just trying to see if I'm in earshot or just being vocal.
She's eating and drinking sometimes when she sees me doing it, so I'm taking that as a good thing. Lol. Still will not go near the chop diet, but I will keep trying there.
Will do more perch work today and seeing about getting her to step up, but it will definitely take awhile. She either just chews / bites on the perch or doesn't trust stepping on it. Limited on what I can work on with her, learning wise; since I cannot get her on a perch or out of the cage yet. Figured I might skip the perch, and try to work towards maybe stepping up onto my arm or hand, if the perch is too much of a chewing distraction. She usually tries chewing on me as well, so it may not actually benefit anything lol.
Working on getting her use to my hand being either right next to her / by her, and touching her feet. Figure if I start there, she might come around to stepping up on me rather than a perch.
Congratulations, you have earned her trust. It's wonderful that she talks to you and eat while you eat. With out feeling safe, bird keeps quiet and hide. So I am sure she called you when you are in another room. Meaning when she can't see you, she wants to know where you are. I am so happy. So many excellent signs, she will follow you if she can fly. Bravo, you are now, her flock leader.
My Emerald do this too. From another room, she called. And I answer yes yes, then she went about playing. She doesn't call out to Stanger. When a visitor comes she became quiet.
She is eating when she see you eat too. So it will be very soon to have her step up on your hand now, despite past trauma. With a few good commands and we are good to go on to introduce food to build trust lessons.
From current breakthroughs, she will be observing you closer and learning every thing from you. At this young age, she will be obedience and Learning fast.
(During puberty, she will start to test....what happens if I don't do it. When she knows that it is ok to disobey but she will not be praised. She will, then, returned to obedience again. It feels good to not force her. To give her freedom of choice. And have her love us anyway. But this is for months to come.)
Ready with tasty treats? (As long as her treats is not more than 15% of her daily diet, and she is not overweight, we should be fine.) Here we come.
We will be consistently repeating the same short words to command and communicate with her. Since she is learning to socialize as you teach her to, let's list out what to teach her in groups.....
A) What get praised
I tought Emerald, simple commands for common understanding. Every one in the family use the same set of commands.
I use "good girl" for taking a shower and tricks done well
B) What is acceptable
"It's ok"
I say this when introducing new food or new toys. I also say this when I give her my unsalted omelet. I will explain why in C
C) What you don’t want her to do
"Give me"
....to take unedible things from her strong steel beak
"Hot"
...she rush to eat food from my plate when I say hot, she waits.
We got this through by an accident. Someone let Emerald out to play. But she got her eyes on omelet and land on our breakfast table. As she hear me shout Hotttt, she already knew what hot means. Happened only once but it worked on any item, you don't want her to eat since then. Clever girl.
"Ouchhhh"
...When she nibble too hard on your skin, hand, arm, neck, cheek, ear....
I have tried showing nothing when it hurts, but then Emerald bite harder every time. She also tries her biting scale from lighter to harder on different places as if she is conducting an experiment. It is as if she is testing her theory by biting at a different strength and observing my reaction.
So I decided to be frank. If it hurts, I let her know with lounder and sometimes act like it hurted bad with face expression too. Now, her bite never get beyond allowed Ouchhhh. Finally, I trust her bites. Now that I know I can tell her that it hurts. She had learned to be gentle. This is how she earned her place on my shoulder. Shoulder perching is a privilege for gentle and good manner free will bird only.
D) What is safe
We can teach her to feel safe.
Introduce sounds of hair dryer and electric nail grinder, little by little. That is, small volume from far away, every day. And then closer and lounder in the next week or month. At younger age and with her in the safety of her cage this tolerance will be useful. Later on, you can blow her dry after she showers on cold days. Nail grinding can be done at home with out any stress from strangers too.
This video does it best.
