I am wishing to harness train, but I can't hold her without her being uncomfy

[worriedcockatielowner]

I can scratch her head just fine, she used to let me touch her beak as well but not anymore. She is uncomfy with me touching her anywhere other than her head. I am finding it hard to train her since she bites/escapes everytime I touch her body, or even slightly hover my hand over her. I know this is a commom issue and I normally wouldn't mind not being able to hold her, but we have an apartment that is full of windows and warmer weathers are approaching. So I am trying to get her used to being in a harness, and to keep her safe.

I've seen some videos explaining how to harness train, but they all say that your bird should be comfy with you touching her back and wings. And advice?

 

[worriedcockatielowner]

btw here is a cute photo of her, very floofy

 

[wrench13]

Oh No ! Do not force anything with parrots. THat breaks her trust with you and can ruin your relationship with her. Getting a parrot to accept putting on and wearing a harness is a gradual process of getting her familiar with it and become OK with putting it on and taking it off. How slow and gradual? TO give you an idea, it took me a whole year of gradually introducing the harness and slowly getting Salty comfortable with wearing it. A whole year, every day, 365 days ( maybe longer) of working with him every training session. And we still practice putting it on and taking it off at least once a week or more.

I can outline the steps in the process.
First you will put the harness near her cage, gradually closer and closer untill its right next to her cage and she is not upset by it.
Next, start to develop a daily schedule of training. at first it is just ptting the harness on the training area, again closer and closer to her.
Next, hold the head loop of the harness open with one hand and offer her her favorite treat with your other hand, at first on her side of the loop and gradually withdraw your hand so she has to put her head thru the head loop. Repeat until she willingly puts her head thru it. Develop verbal commands like ON and OFF to tell her what you want.
Next, with the harness straps open as much as they can, when she puts her head tru the head loop, drape the rest of the harness over her body, loosely. DO not try to put her wings thru the harness at this point.
Next, gradually tighten up the straps so that when you drape it over her body it is fairly close to her body
Next, and this is a important part. At this point she must become OK with you touching her wings and body becasue you will need to manipulate her wings to go thru the body straps. Start with the straps opened up quite a bit and wing by wing put them thru. Slowly tighten up the straps until they fit close to her body. They dont need to be tight or snug - leave a little room for her to move around it a bit.

Each of these steps might take days, weeks or even months to accomplish. Some parrots take to a harness quickly and some become usedd to it VERY slowly ( mine did). You do not want to rush this. With parrots it is all about their trust in humans, which they have no reason to trust. Very important - have lots of her favorite treat close at hand when training, and any progress, even a tiny bit, must be rewarded and use lots of verbal praise too.

There are lots of videos on You tube showing how to put a harness on, I suggest you watch a lot of these. They will make it look easy, but believe me, this is probably the hardest thing to teach your parrot, it's so foreign to their nature. Patience and time are your best approach.

Here is a video of Salty and I training, very early in the above process.

[ame="https://youtu.be/5Fie_9X--wA"]https://youtu.be/5Fie_9X--wA[/ame]

 

[worriedcockatielowner]

Thank you!

 

[chris-md]

Fabulous advice above! I’ll step back one further though: don’t even think about harness training unless you can comfortably manipulate the bird. If the bird hates you touching the wings. Well, you’re in big trouble because you really have to manipulate wings when putting on a harness.

 

[Ijistcantsayno]

I highly recommend watching the videos from aviator harness that are available on the website. The videos tell you what sort of touching the parrot needs to be comfortable with. If you cannot touch or manipulate the wings then you will not be able to get the harness on correctly.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[wrench13]

How much touching you say? OK, this is a video of first how NOT to put a harness on. I get all tangled ul in Saltys wings and legs and have to start over. But the point is yeah, you'll need to at least be able to handle them about this much. If at the end of a year of 365 day training, you cannot hold her, and put the harness on, well maybe she is one of the ones who just will not abide a harness.

[ame="https://youtu.be/iw16lN2T0ik"]https://youtu.be/iw16lN2T0ik[/ame]