Step Up

[NewQuakerMom]

So my new quaker friend doesn't like to step up. My kid used the clicker-touch training to get him to now at least 50% of the time step up on a wooden perch, but he bites the daylights out of the perch before he gets up every time. Will he eventually stop doing that, do you suppose? Or is there something we should to to discourage it? Eventually we'd like him to 'step up' on to hands, and I think it'd be good to wait till he's not biting the perch before we try, lol!
Thank you!

 

[Laurasea]

Parrots can develop fear if hands pretty easy. To over come get I feed treats by hands a bunch of times a day.

I'm not a fan of clicker training. For me I say good bird instead of clicker, ssn thing, easier to to do. You can start by saying good bird everytime you hand feed a treat, as soon as they touch the treat say good bird.

If he is biting the stick, you've rushed him, andvir forcing him, and haven't done the positive association with the stick. I would restart. When he see the stick he gets a treat, when he comes near the stick he gets a treat. When he touches but not bites the stick he gets a treat, touch with beak us ok. If you are sticking the stick inside the the cage, then he is biting it because it's inside the cage. You need to hsv s perch in the door do when it swings open the perch is outside if the cage. Or you need a perch just outside of the door on the outside of cage. And teach him to go to that spot before you work on step up.

Birfsvresd your body language, pupils, they are very good at this. So you need to be very positive , relaxed, when you work with me them. If you get frustrated, nervous, stop, get yourself in a good head space. Also Quakers are very smart, but they don't like getting bossed around and told over and over to step up. They get bored with the gst pretty quickly. To keep them motivated you got make a big deal about how happy you are, and have yummy snack treat. When he steps up praise treat, happy party dance, then move him to s play area, when he steps to that new play area perch praise treat happy dance, let him hang out then after several minutes have him step and praise treat happy dance take him to a new place.

For me and all the parrots I've worked with, it took a few trys, then they got it, we moved on, I didn't msk them repeat over and over. Instead I show them that step up leads to fun stuff. Also o allow refusal , if some reason one of my birds isn't feeling like it, I allow them that choice. Then I come back s little later. It's beyond rare for me to have a refusal at all. It's not forcing them to step up it's asking them. You are not going to train them like a dog. It's more like asking an intelligent being to work with you, and giving them tools that make life with you easier on them. You can teach tricks and a lot of things, but it's becy they are smart and want to play and are motivated by positive. I'm trying to get across that they aren't like any other creatures humans interact with. They are living dinosaurs, billions of years of different/ divergent evolution than the rest of life. They have ingrained instincts, and an amazing intelligence. The more I learn, the more science I read on them , the more I am amazed by our wonderful parrots.

I and many if our members look at bites as our fault, never the parrots fault. We are misunderstanding and pushing them .
If you work from home that mindset , it helps you fix the problems quickly.

At the top of the Amazon forum is a blue sticky thread label I Love Amazon. It's worthy read , lots if insight on parrots, yes Amazon have their own unique quirks, but most all of that thread I found helpful with my quakers.

Also under general Parrot forum I have a thread called Ornithology, lots if great stuff in that thread, page 10 I have lots if links on behavior. On page 2 I hsv a link on stress in parrots, that is a fantastic article, regardless if if you think your parrot is stressed. It talks about rituals, abrcdo many great things , the author understands parrots very well.

I hope done if this helps you !

 

[NewQuakerMom]

Thank you! The way I've kind of been looking at is - we're not training him to do anything, what we're doing him is teaching him what we mean when we say xyz, or what we want when we say xyz. Then he can decide if he wants to or not, lol. He doesn't seem to be afraid of hands, as he takes food from our fingers readily, and lets us pet his beak and rub the back of his head. But he doesn't like ANYTHING approaching him from the front, or in front of him as an obstacle. I thought it was maybe just that we were moving the perch to him, so I put it on top of his cage and we tried to direct him to it with the clicker etc but when he got close he bit the heck out of the perch again, lol! I don't know if he had a bad experience at some point, and he's testing to see if it'll happen again, or what. But we've got all the time in the world to figure it out. Excellent idea for bringing him to the perch and praising him (with treats) for touching it, etc. We'll have to try it like that!! I had my chair next to his cage today, and he climbed down and grabbed the side of my recliner and pulled himself over, and came up by my lap to visit me. I rubbed his beak, and he looked at me, tried to murder my leggings, and then kind of open/shut his beak against my leg. Not biting, but just opening and shutting it against my leg- if that description makes sense. I laughed, and said "That tickles!" and he looked at me, then moved down to my feet and did the same thing. I kept laughing and moving my feet away, and he'd chase my foot and do it again. No biting, just open/close of beak. It was hilarious - he's such a funny little guy! I think my point is, he's not afraid of me, he just doesn't like getting up on a perch if it wasn't his idea, haah!! I think, using your tips, we can convince him that perching is a good thing, and then we can get him onto one of the cool play areas, and off his cage! Thanks so much!
Note - he has nipped a few times. Little pinches. Once when we had just gotten him, and I tried to get him to step up with my hand, it was clearly a warning. Another time when I had food in my hand and I offered it open-palm instead of in between 2 fingers, and he didn't like the way my big old hand was out there! When we're doing something he doesn't like, he opens his beak and slicks back his feathers, and we say 'what are we doing?' and figure out what we're doing that is scaring/annoying him, and stop. Typically it's wanting to pet him when he doesn't want to be pet, although he has a real grudge against his water dish some days and just bites it like crazy. Then gets a drink and moves on with life. LOL! Thank you - I'll read those other threads, sounds like good info!!!

 

[Laurasea]

You've really made amazing progress, very quickly, you should be proud. I'm so glad this guy or gal is with you!

 

[OzBlue]

Really interested in this thread, just posted something in training on the same thing. It's interesting that your lil quaker friend isn't keen on stepping up depending on the positioning of the fingers despite liking all the head scratches etc...Is it a height thing? Could you try holding a treat just out of reach for him at a height it would need to step up to get on your hand? It sounds like he really trusts you if he's letting you give him head rubs so maybe it's just about changing how you're setting up the interaction.

I've been wondering lately if birds have any concept of a bodypart belonging to the same thing it views us as. Our quaker really likes to interact with our faces. Using that we were able to get it onto our shoulders with it's attention on our face and voice. But hands seem to be something completely different for it like it's not us. Having said that it's a lot calmer around our hands when we feed it.

 

[NewQuakerMom]

Really interested in this thread, just posted something in training on the same thing. It's interesting that your lil quaker friend isn't keen on stepping up depending on the positioning of the fingers despite liking all the head scratches etc...Is it a height thing? Could you try holding a treat just out of reach for him at a height it would need to step up to get on your hand? It sounds like he really trusts you if he's letting you give him head rubs so maybe it's just about changing how you're setting up the interaction.

I've been wondering lately if birds have any concept of a bodypart belonging to the same thing it views us as. Our quaker really likes to interact with our faces. Using that we were able to get it onto our shoulders with it's attention on our face and voice. But hands seem to be something completely different for it like it's not us. Having said that it's a lot calmer around our hands when we feed it.

It is odd - he's super unhappy about anything being in front of him - no matter the height or angle, if we put it there, he doesn't like it. We've been changing up perches, putting tons of perches on the outside of his cage, etc to see if we can get him used to the idea of being on different perches at different times, which seems to be fine with him.
Ours really likes our faces too! His favorite thing is to have someone's face just a few inches away from his, talking or singing to him in a low voice, it's adorable. Last night, I had a long perch sticking out of his cage over to my shoulder area, and he came down the perch, and sat about 6 inches away from my head, and preened and 'talked' to me in the muttery not really saying words but just making those little conversational muttery noises - it was so cute! He stayed there until my kid came in the house, and then when he heard her rattling around in the kitchen he started yelling at her (he calls her by our dog's name haah!!) until she came in & then he ran over to the perch by HER chair, lol!

Just to add, on the head rubs - when my kid rubs the back of his head, he closes his eyes, and his whole head poofs up - it's the most adorable thing I've ever seen!

 

[OzBlue]

Hey we've been making a lot of progress with Blue, also realising a few things about her. First step up has been going well. She's bighting a lot less during the training and with less pressure. In every instance we never came to her directly, she always had to walk over to our hand. Instead of holding her food directly infront of her to feed her, we were curling our hands in a way that would position the food towards us so she had to reach over our fingers to get it. She could still see it though so would focus on that more. Eventually we started to pinch the food between our middle finger and thumbs with our index pointed out more and more like a perch. We got the most bites during this portion of training, but whenever she'd bite i'd slowly push the finger towards her and she'd back away, we'd reset and try again. She would eventually put up a leg on our finger. At this point it took a lot more training sessions to get her to put both feet up and often it would happen by accident but we made a big deal about praising her when she did that. At this point we can just hold our finger out as long as she can see the reward there and often she'll step up. Still have a long way to go but pretty excited about the progress we've made. It was really just incremental steps to get her used to our hands which she really hated.


A side note we noticed is that she was trying to form a "mating" relationship with us so we had to cease all opportunities she had to enforce that relationship. Basically we had to cut out kisses, shoulder rides (she'd always try and steal kisses and do some mating like behaviour on our shoulders) and reposition some of her toys. Didn't think this could happen at about 8 months but we were finding it hard to get her back in her cage as she would perch up in high ceiling corners to roost. We had to stuff a few towels in those corners to disuade her from trying to make a nest there.

ALSO had to make a pull string attached to her door to essentially trap her in her cage when she went in for some food or water after mid day. She's out about 5+ hours daily and as soon as we approach her cage with her in there she darts for it if she sees us move towards it with her in there. The string lets us close the cage on her in a less stressful way. I've had to catch her with a towel a few times which sucked. I'm now working on an electronic device that can sense when she's in her cage and it will close it once we've "armed it". This is only supplemental until we can get a bit more trust with her and our hands so we can do more training around the cage.

 

[NewQuakerMom]

That's a great idea!!! I'm going to try that!!! (holding the treat FACING us)
I'm totally ignorant on the 'mating' behavior. LOL - poor QP, I wouldn't know if he WAS trying to do something inappropriate! LOL !

 

[OzBlue]

Yeah i thought it was cute at first but then the roosting happened and getting her in the cage was that much harder! She's screaming a lot less now too and it's become more pleasant noises.
https://threebirdsandacloud.wordpress.com/2014/01/19/cuddles-mean-sex/
This article goes through a lot of good advice regarding "mating" behavior. Best of luck with step up!

 

[NewQuakerMom]

Thank you on both counts!
Our little guy actually stepped up onto a perch the other day without protest, so I think we're making progress!!!

 

[NewQuakerMom]

Update: He will now willingly step up onto a perch!! We're trying to get him to associate it with the 'Step up' command, but at this point it's pretty much bc someone is holding a perch and has a treat in their hand, and with the targeting he figured out that when we're holding a perch, and have a treat, we want him to step onto the perch, haha! We're working on getting him used to the perch moving around now, as well - but we're making good progress!
I have to admit that I'm a little leery of the move from perch to hands. He has never nipped my daughter, but has nipped me a few times. Last time was when I offered him a bit of lettuce instead of the turkey that was on my plate. He was clearly insulted and annoyed that I offered him the boring old green stuff when he wanted some of my turkey. Just a little nip to let me know he was displeased, but enough to pinch. I taught my kids to use words not hands, lol, so I'm at a bit of a loss of how to handle a 'kid' who uses his beak to express displeasure. (And oh my gosh is he just like a 2-3 year old kid)

 

[OzBlue]

Ey congrats on this good news! You've come so far Baby steps!

 

[NewQuakerMom]

Thank you!!!