GCC trouble

[conurekid33]

I have had my GCC for about 2 months now. He is very very very bitey with me. Whenever I come near him he will snap and bite at me. I don't know what to do and I am getting very discouraged. I have tried different methods but nothing seems to work with him. He spends about 2-4 hours a day out of the cage. The only way I can get him out of the cage, is either let him go on his own or i use a perch to get him on that. That is also how I put him away. Also, people have told me to put my fingers closer to the perch when I put him away or get him out, but he always notices and is ripping my fingers to shreds. So please any advice is great advice for me.

 

[DebsFlock]

Well, it sounds as if you have established a pattern now, which will make it a bit more difficult. There are a quite a few threads here on training and on biting, so the first thing I'd suggest is to read them. But basically I think you need to change the pattern and do some training.

In this situation, my goal would be to to encourage him to WANT to be with me, not "make him be obedient".

For now, I would go ahead and use the perch to move him around as needed, but be gentle about it, and be sure to praise and reward him for stepping onto the stick. I'd start by just offering him treats and talking to him, I wouldn't try to handle him hands on. I might try some target training (you can google it) both to get him accustomed to training and to have another tool to get him to move from place to place.

I'd avoid being bitten as much as possible. Biting tends to be a self-reinforcing thing in the sense that it almost always gets some kind of reaction and they learn quickly that if they want that reaction (the person either going away, or providing some drama) they just need to bite. If you are VERY stoic you may be able to just tough it out and be absolutely unmoved by the bites, but that doesn't work very well for me, personally.

I'd probably first teach the verbal command to step up with perch, rewarding amply. Then I'd work at being able to get my extended finger closer (maybe only an inch at a time) without him offering to bite. I'd reward basically anything except agressive stance. Finally, when I could get my hand within stepping distance without any move to bite, I'd put it together into a step up.

IMO it is ALWAYS easier to teach them TO DO something than to try to teach them not to do something. When you think about it that way, it's much less frustrating, too.