A little progress in the harness training department...

[IndySE]

For background info, Kermit and I have had a long and frustrating road with the harness. We started off with some decent progress, she plateaued, then started making some progress, then completely reverted to fearing it and we had to start from scratch. I'm not the world's most consistent parrot training either, and especially with something that obviously frustrated her, we had to just take some breaks from it.

But look at what she can do today. She just made this leap yesterday and I'm so proud of her !
[ame="https://youtu.be/xszj6P4jv1E"]https://youtu.be/xszj6P4jv1E[/ame]

It might not look like much, but she's now very comfortable with letting the collar rest on her back. She's less focussed on getting it off and more concerned about getting her food. This is only the 2nd day she's permitted it, so I'm going to just keep focussing on this behavior to make sure she's truly comfortable with it. Then it's just a matter of getting her used to being handled while she wears it. We'll have to work on her wings and making sure she's okay with it being messed with. It will be slow progress... maybe she'll be ready in another 2 years.

 

[wrench13]

Wow excellent progress. You're using verbal triggers too, right? On\Off?
Probably next is to leave it on for longer and longer periods, and walking around with it on ( lead her with the treat). 2 years? Nah. Work with Kermit every nite and I bet she gets it by X-mas.

 

[Skittys_Daddy]

LOL, this is sooooo funny, I just got an Aviator harness for Skittles and was doing research on it. lol. It'll be interesting to watch Kermit's progress! I'm hoping for similar progress with Skittles. I'm curious though, what do people generally offer for training treats? I normally give Skittles the Harrisons power treats every day (when he behaves, lol).

But I was wondering if I found a treat he REALLY REALLY loved, it'd be a slam dunk. Aside from bread, pizza crust and pasta I can't think of anything he'll go over the moon for and I'm supposed to be cutting those out of his diet.

What do you use for Kermit's training? Treats, I mean.

 

[IndySE]

wrench;; Thank you so much ! No, I don't have a verbal cue for on/off, it didn't occur to me. "Harness" is pretty much my word for stick your head through this small hole. Ordinarily I let her out of the harness when she feels uncomfortable. Now that she's gained comfort, however, I think it is a good idea to add an "off" command so she has a better sense of what I want.

Thank you for their suggestions, I'll have to play around with them Christmas? Well that WOULD be a good Christmas gift for this year (better than last year's anyways, which was a seizure and a trip to the vet's).

Skitty's Dad;
I hope Skitty's progress is a little faster than Kermit's ! 2 years is a lot of waiting. But I'm also not very consistent, which is probably why my timeline is so long. It was a learning curve for both of us.

I use safflower seeds right now and sunflower seeds for an end of training reward or if she makes a good training leap. Safflower seeds are a good size that she can finish them fast enough and overall not too bad considering other unhealthy options. I was training with fresh blueberries for a while, but she would take too long to munch on it for me to really get good progress. Now that I'm asking her to hold with the harness on, though, I might reintroduce them.

 

[wrench13]

I use shelled pine nuts, cut into 1/3 or 1/4 pieces. For Salty's training session that I just posted, we used 2 grams of nuts. He loves walnut pieces more but he really takes his time eating the little pieces of them, savoring them. So thats not a good training treat. Pine nut slivers he gobbles down in seconds and he is ready for more. So they make good training treats - more immediacy.

 

[Skittys_Daddy]

So I could use unsalted peanuts? Skittles LOVES peanuts. If I could find a container of peanuts at the grocery store that ONLY have peanuts in the ingredients, would that work? I know I can't use salted, obviously. I'm not a fan of salt anyways.

 

[wrench13]

I wouldn't use any peanuts. There are so many other choices for treat materials.

 

[IndySE]

Small small update: We're still going strong with harness training. Just a single 10 minute session a day is pretty manageable for both of us. I wouldn't say there's been much in the way of "progress". She's actually gotten a little less comfy from the video since her head snagged a few times in it. But I'm still counting it as progress, because I've always found the day she makes amazing leaps, she'll regress a little. It's just a matter of really solidifying that level of comfort. She'll still stick her head in the hole for me and is always doing much better by the end of the training session than when she starts. Good job Kermit !