hiriki
Well-known member
- Oct 19, 2014
- 538
- 743
- Parrots
- (Birdie - Jenday Conure)
(Kiwi - Green Cheek Conure)
(Elby - Lovebird)
(Gorou - Ringneck Dove)
Hi all! Been a while. I'm back to ask for advice 
My green cheek, Kiwi, is about a year and a half old. He's probably going through puberty, at this point, though (knock on wood), he's certainly not a menace about it, at least to me. He becomes absolutely feral if I drink from a glass of water in his presence but otherwise really only play bites, and has very appropriate bite pressure. A polite boy... mostly.
When my wife enters the room though, he becomes less polite. He loves her, and wants to be around her, but seems to have concluded that she is really fun to mess with. He will bite her and giggle!! This is upsetting to her, because SHE was the one who asked that we get a green cheek... the birds are and have always been my pets, but I got this bird thinking she could bond with him too, and I really do think he does like her but he always wants to play with her and she doesn't like how he plays.
I think that he's feeding off of her lack of confidence. She's too afraid to ask him to step up, and will instead offer her finger for scritches while he's standing on a table or whatever, so he'll just go dinosaur mode and act like he's going to bite her. And honestly, I don't think she should be coming at him from above the way that she does, but when I try to explain these little things she just says she's afraid to come at him any other way because he's such a biter.
And sometimes he'll fly to her shoulder and she'll flinch--which seems to be a major trigger that sends him into dino mode!! In these cases sometimes he'll bite her face, which is obviously upsetting.
So I'm hoping someone has advice to me that I can relay to my wife. I'm sure there is training we can do together to work on his behavior but unfortunately I think that some of this will be training my wife to react to him differently too and that seems to be a big task when she's just reacting on instinct. Thanks in advance for your time.
My green cheek, Kiwi, is about a year and a half old. He's probably going through puberty, at this point, though (knock on wood), he's certainly not a menace about it, at least to me. He becomes absolutely feral if I drink from a glass of water in his presence but otherwise really only play bites, and has very appropriate bite pressure. A polite boy... mostly.
When my wife enters the room though, he becomes less polite. He loves her, and wants to be around her, but seems to have concluded that she is really fun to mess with. He will bite her and giggle!! This is upsetting to her, because SHE was the one who asked that we get a green cheek... the birds are and have always been my pets, but I got this bird thinking she could bond with him too, and I really do think he does like her but he always wants to play with her and she doesn't like how he plays.
I think that he's feeding off of her lack of confidence. She's too afraid to ask him to step up, and will instead offer her finger for scritches while he's standing on a table or whatever, so he'll just go dinosaur mode and act like he's going to bite her. And honestly, I don't think she should be coming at him from above the way that she does, but when I try to explain these little things she just says she's afraid to come at him any other way because he's such a biter.
And sometimes he'll fly to her shoulder and she'll flinch--which seems to be a major trigger that sends him into dino mode!! In these cases sometimes he'll bite her face, which is obviously upsetting.
So I'm hoping someone has advice to me that I can relay to my wife. I'm sure there is training we can do together to work on his behavior but unfortunately I think that some of this will be training my wife to react to him differently too and that seems to be a big task when she's just reacting on instinct. Thanks in advance for your time.
