Feu
New member
I'm trying to find a good way to teach my caique to be nice to a certain group of people he dislikes, but there's a bit of back story, so here it is:
When Huginn was about 6 months old we had some friends over. This is a regular thing, and most of our friends are good with animals. Everyone knew to have us take him out, to not grab for him, and to let him get comfortable with them. Now we had one acquaintance we'll call Bob. Bob has a history of not being good with animals but thinks he is, so we told him the same rules. While friends were over, Bob went into the bedroom, opened Huginn's cage, and quickly grabbed him out palm first. He'd do this without us knowing and generally be aggressive until we realized and told him to stay away from the bird entirely. He'd still go up and try to stick his fingers in the cage and generally terrorize Huginn, insisting he wasn't doing anything and there was no problem. It got so bad that at one point I had to physically stand between him and Huginn's cage and he stormed out of the apartment. Needless to say, for this and many other reasons, we no longer have anything to do with Bob and he is under no circumstances allowed in our home.
Unfortunately, the damage was already done and Huginn is aggressive toward anyone he associates with that time. When introducing him to someone new, we take him outside to meet them first or else he'll become territorial. The biggest issue is that one of our close friends is going to be staying with us for a while, and Huginn associates her with Bob. He was comfortable with her before then, but now he'll attack her. We've tried feeding him his favourite treats only when she's around, but that didn't do anything. Do you have any ideas on how to change his mind about her?
When Huginn was about 6 months old we had some friends over. This is a regular thing, and most of our friends are good with animals. Everyone knew to have us take him out, to not grab for him, and to let him get comfortable with them. Now we had one acquaintance we'll call Bob. Bob has a history of not being good with animals but thinks he is, so we told him the same rules. While friends were over, Bob went into the bedroom, opened Huginn's cage, and quickly grabbed him out palm first. He'd do this without us knowing and generally be aggressive until we realized and told him to stay away from the bird entirely. He'd still go up and try to stick his fingers in the cage and generally terrorize Huginn, insisting he wasn't doing anything and there was no problem. It got so bad that at one point I had to physically stand between him and Huginn's cage and he stormed out of the apartment. Needless to say, for this and many other reasons, we no longer have anything to do with Bob and he is under no circumstances allowed in our home.
Unfortunately, the damage was already done and Huginn is aggressive toward anyone he associates with that time. When introducing him to someone new, we take him outside to meet them first or else he'll become territorial. The biggest issue is that one of our close friends is going to be staying with us for a while, and Huginn associates her with Bob. He was comfortable with her before then, but now he'll attack her. We've tried feeding him his favourite treats only when she's around, but that didn't do anything. Do you have any ideas on how to change his mind about her?
