Hi all,
Bobby has been doing well, though in typical African grey fashion, anything unfamiliar he is scared of.
Though some of his fears seem irrational, as he is essentially scared of things he is confident with otherwise in his cage.
Take his wooden perches for example. He uses all of his wooden perches in his cage, but any perches outside of his cage he is petrified of touching. He has perches on top of his cage so he has something better to grab outside of the narrow bars of the cage roof, but refuses to use them. He will step up onto my hand but refuse to step down onto the offered perch, unless it is one in his cage.
I took out a perch from his cage directly to use also, but the moment it wasn’t in his cage anymore it wasn’t his friend. He refused to touch it.
We have a training stand that we’ve had for almost as long as Bobby, and I’ve not once managed to convince him to touch it. We do touch training now that he’s receptive to to a point - but no amount of luring with his favourite treats or otherwise can get him to approach it. It’s by his cage 24/7 so he has always known it’s there, leaned up against the cage to be used at any time, but without success. I was even advised to place it in the opening of his cage so he has to pass it directly every time he comes out - now he escaped but climbing upside down on the ceiling and scaling out that way to avoid it. It’s a wooden perch - no different from the others he uses.
To counter this point as it being a simple fear of new things, I bought three plastic puzzle toys for him to use to allow him longer foraging time since he usually wolfs down his food - and he played with them all the second I put them in his cage. He loves them. He doesn’t love them outside of his cage though.
Finally, I bought him a Java tree. Super expensive thing, I know it’s cheaper to make but I have no building capabilities so I ended up buying this giant thing. Way bigger than expected too - it’s a size medium, glad I didn’t go for the large.
Obviously, the thing is so big I can’t fit it in the room that Bobby’s in, so it’s in my living room. I thought it’d be a great way to have him in the room with me since I’m not always in my bedroom with him, and so he has other places to safely go that my dogs won’t bother him.
Except, well, you know the drill. Scary thing no touchy. The usual advice being to place by the cage so it’s there every day (that hasn’t worked for us yet) impossible here due to the size of the tree.
So how am I supposed to introduce this to him to use? He won’t accept being placed onto it as he will go immediately into fear flight the moment I bring him anywhere near it. I’m at a loss on how to get him anywhere that isn’t on his cage.
Bobby has been doing well, though in typical African grey fashion, anything unfamiliar he is scared of.
Though some of his fears seem irrational, as he is essentially scared of things he is confident with otherwise in his cage.
Take his wooden perches for example. He uses all of his wooden perches in his cage, but any perches outside of his cage he is petrified of touching. He has perches on top of his cage so he has something better to grab outside of the narrow bars of the cage roof, but refuses to use them. He will step up onto my hand but refuse to step down onto the offered perch, unless it is one in his cage.
I took out a perch from his cage directly to use also, but the moment it wasn’t in his cage anymore it wasn’t his friend. He refused to touch it.
We have a training stand that we’ve had for almost as long as Bobby, and I’ve not once managed to convince him to touch it. We do touch training now that he’s receptive to to a point - but no amount of luring with his favourite treats or otherwise can get him to approach it. It’s by his cage 24/7 so he has always known it’s there, leaned up against the cage to be used at any time, but without success. I was even advised to place it in the opening of his cage so he has to pass it directly every time he comes out - now he escaped but climbing upside down on the ceiling and scaling out that way to avoid it. It’s a wooden perch - no different from the others he uses.
To counter this point as it being a simple fear of new things, I bought three plastic puzzle toys for him to use to allow him longer foraging time since he usually wolfs down his food - and he played with them all the second I put them in his cage. He loves them. He doesn’t love them outside of his cage though.
Finally, I bought him a Java tree. Super expensive thing, I know it’s cheaper to make but I have no building capabilities so I ended up buying this giant thing. Way bigger than expected too - it’s a size medium, glad I didn’t go for the large.
Obviously, the thing is so big I can’t fit it in the room that Bobby’s in, so it’s in my living room. I thought it’d be a great way to have him in the room with me since I’m not always in my bedroom with him, and so he has other places to safely go that my dogs won’t bother him.
Except, well, you know the drill. Scary thing no touchy. The usual advice being to place by the cage so it’s there every day (that hasn’t worked for us yet) impossible here due to the size of the tree.
So how am I supposed to introduce this to him to use? He won’t accept being placed onto it as he will go immediately into fear flight the moment I bring him anywhere near it. I’m at a loss on how to get him anywhere that isn’t on his cage.