Need Help With the Harness

[lplummer52]

Okay, I've got the Harness, but need help. I screwed up first time I tried it and scared Birdie, so I left it for another time. Hopefully, she’s forgotten that experience about six months ago. So what’s the consensus? She is super tame. We can grab her around the middle if we need to put her in her cage or something and she’s not the least perturbed. But she diesn’t Like that harness. I’d love to take her outside and not worry about escape. I tried using treats to make her stick her head thru, but she’s quick to pull back. Harness owners please chime in.

 

[TiredOldMan]

If it is an Aviator harness the first thing you need to get her used to is sticking her head through something. Target training and various size rings or birdy bagels. I have found getting them to except putting something around their head/neck is the hardest part.

I finally got it to the point that I only get bit taking it off.

And no....never force it.

 

[wrench13]

So, find the most favorite treat. Holding the head loop open with 2 fingers put the treat just in front of the harness loop, edge of table works gòod. Do that every nite 2 or 3 times for 2 weeks. Next hold the threat in the other hand and offer it so he j..u..s..t has to put beak in a bit, 2 weeks of that, and just retreat the treat until his head is all the wa u thru and slip it over. I kept it of of a few seconds and longer and longer, and of course treat when he takes his head out. It took me about a year, of every nite training to get Salty comfortable.

 

[KiwiDaConure]

I have a conure too so I know how you feel. They are very stubborn. My conure Kiwi always flies away when I take out the harness. Just get it on quickly (use a glove if needed) and you will be fine. Today I went to a pet store, clothing store, and a walk to a festival and back. Kiwi bit his harness every few minutes but he was fine.

 

[noodles123]

I am fighting the same battle with my cockatoo. She doesn't get it and she isn't that motivated by food either, so I am not sure how to get her to put her head through the loop. Wish I could be of more help! If food works, then the suggestion above (wrench13) is good advice.

 

[April]

Me too ! I have the target training . I am gonna try getting her to stick her head through various things what a great idea. I was gonna drape it over me every time I took her outside but I forgot lol. One time I had my bra on the chair and she was sure it was a harness she didn’t take her eye off it had to remove the offensive item from her sight!

 

[EllenD]

It doesn't matter how "tame" your bird is, or how easily you can handle them one bit when it comes to them accepting and then wearing a harness....Most birds absolutely hate all harnesses (there are exceptions I'm sure, though I've not seen one yet, lol), and just getting it on them is not the battle my friend, not at all...Once you get it on him, which you could force if you really wanted to (don't do this, I'm just trying to make a point by saying this), the problem is getting them to keep the harness on without constantly chewing on it the entire time they have it on...And i mean constantly chewing on it! Doesn't usually matter where you take them or what's going on outside, how exciting it is, etc., once they have that harness on them most birds have only one mission, and that is to get the harness off of them! And they can ignore anything and everything going on around them that you'd think would hold their attention...

The Aviator Harness is by-far the easiest one to get them to accept in my own experience, and it's also the easiest to get on them, and the safest in it's design...However, there is a really good reason that the Aviator Harness comes with that DVD/CD-ROM explaining the "harness-training" process, and if you don't follow it and just try to put it on your bird, it's not going to work, even after you manage to get it on him. So it's very important that you make this process extremely gradual, slow, and at your bird's own pace rather than your pace. And in my experience (I've currently got 3 birds who willingly wear their Aviator Harnesses without a problem, and also got my mom's CAG to accept his) this process can take from months to over a year, to never (I've got a 4 year-old Cockatiel who would sooner chew-off her own wings than keep any type of harness on, and after over a year of the same desensitization process that I've used with my other birds and then also trying other ideas, I finally gave-in and let Duff win)

Usually you really do have to start this process by "desensitizing" your bird to the harness itself. You mentioned how tame your bird is and how easily you can handle him, and I'm sure that this is true, but you have to realize that the harness is not the same as "you", and simply because you're the ones putting the harness on him does not at all mean that your bird is going to think "Oh this thing must be okay and I should like it and accept it just because they are putting it on me". That's not how this is going to work, as you've found out already. So i always start-out by laying the particular harness that is going to belong to that particular bird right next to their cage or wherever they spend a lot of time that the harness can sit in their presence and vision (each of my 3 birds has their own individual Aviator Harness that is a different color from the other's, even though my Quaker and my Green Cheek wear the same size; they need to be desensitized and accepting of their individual harness that they recognize by color, so if you have more than one bird that you want to harness-train, always get each bird their own, individual harnesses and make them all different colors from the other bird's harnesses).

So after a while of allowing the harness to sit near their cage and moving it closer and closer to the bird itself until the point where the harness is actually sitting on their cage and then inside of their cage hanging (don't put it on the bottom of the cage, you don't want them to poop on it), then I start actually playing with the bird with the harness. The idea is you want them to get to the point where they are not at all scared or at all hesitant to go near the harness, touch the harness, play with the harness, carry the harness in their mouth, etc. *The reason you do this isn't so much to get them willing to allow you to put the harness on them, but rather to get them to accept the harness once it's already on them. Getting a bird to allow you to put the harness on them has always been the easy part in my personal experience, as Wrench said, if you are only interested in getting the harness on them then you can simply start-out by using their favorite treat and then slowly put the loop over their head, and reward them, do this over and over, then put the loop over their head and then put one wing in and reward them, and do this over and over until you get the harness completely on them AND they allow you to adjust it .And this is exactly the way I train them to allow me to put the harness on them, which even with treats can take months to over a year.

HOWEVER, if you only focus on training them to allow you to put the harness on them and you don't first train them to accept the harness overall and desensitize them to having the harness near them/on them/touching them First, then what usually happens is that you'll end up with a bird who easily allows you to put the harness on them very quickly, without incident, but then once the harness is on them and it's not taken right back off, they will spend every second that the harness is on them picking at it, chewing on it, pulling on it, and depending on the species of bird they will chew right through it. And this is all totally regardless of where you take them or what they are doing once the harness is on them. Some birds do actually get distracted once they get outside of the house or in the car, or once they go inside of a store or a park, etc., where there are people and new things to see; in my experience though, that isn't usually the case.

*I actually kind of made this mistake with my Green-Cheek Conure, Bowie. I had already Aviator-Trained my Quaker and she was pretty easy, I did it the right way/the long way, and allowed her to spend ample time with the harness outside of her cage, inside of her cage, playing with the harness, etc. for a month or two, until she actually enjoyed playing with the harness and didn't care one bit that the harness was touching her, near her, etc., and THEN i started the totally separate training process of getting her to allow me to put the harness on her, one single step at a time, repetitively, with treats. But with Bowie I got a little cocky or impatient, or both, and since he was easily handled and I could touch him anywhere without a problem, I decided to just start out by training him step-by-step to allow me to put the harness on him, using treats, and this took about 2 months or so to get him to the point where I could put the Aviator Harness on him without any nipping, pulling or tugging on the harness, squawking at me, etc., and I could get the harness on him in a minute or two with no problem.

HOWEVER, once I got the harness on Bowie, that's when the problems began, as Bowie could not at all shift his focus from the fact that the harness was on him, touching him, etc., and that he couldn't get it off. Didn't matter where I took him, outside in the yard, on a walk, in the car for a ride, into a store like Petco, Lowes, Home Depot, etc., I even tried a couple of long hikes in the woods, it didn't matter. Bowie did not hardly lift his head up or remove his beak from the harness the entire time I had it on him, to the point where after a few months of thinking that he would eventually stop it and would start to enjoy just being out and about, Bowie actually chewed a good portion of the way through several spots on the Aviator Harness and I had to throw it away and order him a new one. And once I did that, I started all over again from step #1, where I should have started in the first place, and that was with getting him used to his harness being near him, inside of his cage (his safe place), getting him used to playing with it, having it within his view at all times, no matter where he was (if he was in the living room with me the harness was on the coffee table, if he was in the kitchen on his T-Stand while I was making dinner, his harness was on the counter-top, if he was in my bedroom in his sleeping cage, his harness was hanging inside of his sleeping cage and under the cover, etc.) And this continued for a good 2 months, then I went back through the steps of allowing me to put the harness back on him again, which went very quickly and he was again comfortable with this after a week or two. THEN we tried the whole thing again, and the second time around Bowie left the harness alone and was able to enjoy what was going on and participate in it. And all of these tips about desensitizing your bird to the Aviator Harness are on the DVD that comes with the harness.

**This process is definitely a marathon, it's not in any way a sprint, and it's at your bird's pace, not your pace. And it's going to require your patience, your time, etc. But if you do it the right way, the slow, gradual way, then the end result will be much, much better and come much more quickly. And it's a different process with each individual bird too, so you can't really know or even guess how long it's going to take your individual bird to get through the processes, you just have to let it flow. But once it happens you'll feel it was all worth it for sure, because you absolutely cannot take your bird outside or out and about with you without him either being on a harness or in a carrier/cage of some sort (unless the bird has some type of permanent injury or disability that makes him unable to ever fly again, like my Cockatiel, Duff has). Clipping their wings does not at all prevent them from catching a breeze/wind and taking-off, this is a mistake that many, many people have made and been forever sorry for taking a chance on. So the Aviator Harness is a great peace of mind for you, and enables your bird to go out and see the world beyond the house he lives in. So it's totally worth the effort, time, and patience.

 

[Laurasea]

Excellent info, I plan to start the marthon in the future a d want my GCc and two quakers to be out abd about safely. Will follow all your suggestions and get different colors. Thank you for this info

 

[wrench13]

Ellen you always tke the time to clearly explain things. Brava! Caution to those who would just MAKE the parrot put it on with out lots and lots and lots of the aove. Much blood will be spilled.

Salty actually has stopped completely messing withhis harness he is so used to it now. We are going to a bluegrass jam session later ( outdoors) he'll get lots of sun today for sure. Ellen is so right -it can take months to a year or more but so very worth it.

 

[EllenD]

Ellen you always tke the time to clearly explain things. Brava! Caution to those who would just MAKE the parrot put it on with out lots and lots and lots of the aove. Much blood will be spilled.

Salty actually has stopped completely messing withhis harness he is so used to it now. We are going to a bluegrass jam session later ( outdoors) he'll get lots of sun today for sure. Ellen is so right -it can take months to a year or more but so very worth it.

Very, very true Wrench...MUCH.BLOOD.SPILLED. And that's with an extremely tame, cuddly bird, lol...God be with you if you try to force a harness on a bird that tends to be at all "nippy"

And it is sooooo worth the time, effort, and the wait, as not only is it great for the birds to get out and about, socialize, and get to be a part or your lives outside of the house, but it really is just like a proud parent taking their young kids out in public and showing them off...Nothing better!

And the fact that Salty is a Bluegrass fan just endears him more to me! Kane and I are huge fans of Jerry Garcia's very early banjo and acoustic guitar work with Robert Hunter, as well as the Dead's very first incarnation as Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions....

 

[lplummer52]

Hmmmm. I doubt that I have the patience or stick-to-it type personality for a year of this training. Birdie has an 8' x 36' screened porch personal aviary where she has free range in addition to the house. I have two small dogs that I play with in the back yard every afternoon depending on weather. Birdie gets very jealous when she sees me in the yard with the dogs. I couldn't take her on dog walks. It's hard enough handling the two dogs. I did watch that video and somehow got the idea it took a matter of weeks, not months or years. But you've definitely convinced me this is a marathon. Birdie was perfectly comfortable around the harness. She is fearless....not really afraid of anything. But truth be told, I rushed it for sure. It took no time at all to get her to put her head thru, so I barreled ahead, and got it over one wing when she decided enough was enough and tried to fly, ending in me trying to get it off of a very distressed Birdie. Afterwards, she wouldn't go near the harness. That's when I put it away. I'm not sure all those sunflower seeds (treats) are good for her either. She will do anything for a sunflower seed! I'll think about it. Thanks so much for your insight.

 

[ChristaNL]

LOL, I just did a round of "hey, this here is a harness, and they are supposed to be fun".

Started with the greys - Appie is still way too broody/flirty to be really interested in working, but she is not afraid and usually will coorporate. It's the 'getting used to wearing it' part we were working on with her.
Japie is generally somewhat more "not feeling like it today" but not scared or anything but it is almost impossible to stop him fussing with it once it is on.

Sunny decided some time ago the harness needs to die *period* - but whe she saw the other two getting munchies as a reward for something as silly as sticking their heads through a loop - she decided she also needed to have a go at it.
(tempertantrumstyle)

Great: an overexited macaw running at it and getting herself entagled ...
Well, we do not do "omg, now she is traumatized" in this house - so I got the greys in to help demonstrating how it was done -- and they were getting munchies!
(she is *really* foodorientated, overly so actually - to the point of only focussing on the snack, not the job at hand eh beak)
So she also had some succesfull tries and somewhere in the middle of it all I got a nice chomp on my finger (my bad, I was not paying atention), but she was *so* proud of herself I did a few extra, she just kept on getting less frantic/panicky every time!
(and actually the way she asks for reassurence is *so* cute)

I know you want to start this when they are all focussed and somewhat relaxed... but if a bird tells me "I want to try this, NOW" - why not


... and no (although Ellen has a great point!!), I am not leaving the harness in their cage- or I can start buying them in bulk -> they love to play with them and that means chewing (esp. if you are a macaw)
Also not safe when you are not around to detangle them if something goes wonky.



===

Oke I got totally distracted: just wanted to say:
every bird is different and has its own pace.
Prepare for 5 years of work - then you might be pleasantly surprised- just don't count on a few weeks.


It is like learning to swim - not everyone gets comfortable in the water, but with enough time and encouragement you can be!

 

[EllenD]

Well like I said, getting it on them isn't the difficult part (usually)...Have you ever actually gotten the harness the whole way on him? I'm asking because that's the only way you're going to know how he is going to respond to actually wearing it, because it makes absolutely no difference whether he's scared of it or not when it's not on him as far as him actually wearing it without constantly trying to get it off.

It may not take a year, or even many months with your bird, the point is that you don't know until you try. It certainly would not do any harm to simply put the harness next to his cage or in the sunroom when he's in there, etc. You don't have to do anything then except move the harness closer and closer, hang it from his cage bars, put it inside the cage, etc. as he gets used to it. Then once he's fine with the harness being right next to him and touching him again, that's when you need to start with putting it on him one step at a time...and who said you needed to use only sunflower seeds? lol..

The point is that you'll not know how long it's going to take unless you try, and you're depriving both your bird and yourself of being able to share something very special. It's not a difficult process, it's just not something where you're going to get "immediate gratification"...