Flying problems

[pacoparrot]

How exactly does one live with a flighted parrot? Elsa is being really difficult right now. She decided my mom is her new favorite person and my mom does NOT want the bird on her. I also would rather if she liked me best instead of someone who doesn't like her very much. Elsa flies to my mom over and over again every time I take her out to the point that my mom either wants the bird trained or I need to clip her wings. She also lands on people that are afraid of birds, like house guests. I really want her to be able to fly but I wish she'd refrain from landing on other people. Is there anything me or my mom can do to keep her from flying on her? Sometimes I can get her to come back if I yell before she gets to far from me but it doesn't usually work.

 

[clawnz]

Clicker training and stationing, are things you can read up on.
Barbara Heidenreich is a good one to help you.
I must admit I do not know how to proceed. I am sure we have discussed this sort of behavior in a parrot work shop with Barbara.
Have faith it can be worked on. But if all else fails then you may have to consider a clip.

 

[pacoparrot]

I have started clicker training her and she is starting to understand targeting. She hasn't started flying to the target yet but she is good with walking to it. Stationing is the term I was looking for that I couldn't remember. I have 2 of Barabra's DVDs but neither of them are relevant to flight training. She just needs to figure out that I'm the leader and not my mom. She is a very good bird and is getting much better about being gentle. I'm hoping to teach her to fly properly instead of clipping her wings and making her all the more dependent on me.

 

[roxynoodle]

Not an issue for me as I am single. I used to get upset with my former fiance for getting mad at Rowdy for pooping on his dress clothes, but he could have changed when he got home from work, as I did.

Search posts on "stationing".

 

[JLcribber]

If you want to keep her, and keep her flighted which I totally agree with, then you're going to have to set up some boundaries so she doesn't have run of the entire house. Clipping the bird is not going to change the behaviour. It will only cause her to become more stressed out, more aggressive and more dependent on you to jump for her every whim. She likes who she likes and that is not going to change.

A bird safe room or an aviary is the real solution.

 

[pacoparrot]

Well my bird room is not safe because Paco is in there and I don't want her to get attacked if she lands on his huge cage. We don't have doors downstairs so she ends up in the kitchen where my mom sits if she gets bored with me. She hasn't been too bad about landing on dangerous things. She for the most part stays on people or lands on a nice flat spot. I'm going to try this idea I found. I took some food dye and made a green spot on her treestand. I will reward her for touching the green spot with her foot and eventually for flying to the green spot. Then I can put in a verbal cue. This will be her "station". It is a safe place to go to and wait for praise. That way I will have her able to fly to me and fly to the stand. It's just an idea but it does sound like it can work. She is sleeping right now. I have work tomorrow so she's going to have to hang out with the other birds until I get back. It's only a 3 hour shift so she will be fine. And I agree that clipping her wings will just make things worse. Then she will be frustrated and it will create problems.

 

[pacoparrot]

For today's first training session we worked on flying and landing on the target stick instead of my head. We also started working on flying to her treestand. At first I was just rewarding her for stepping down onto it but after a while I started getting her to land on it too. It's still not "homebase" but I'm hoping after a while she will think it's the best place to be (besides my shoulder of course).

 

[Inheavenlygrass]

Let us know if it works out. Kiwi has a bad habit of landing on people who don't like birds too. (And it doesn't help that I'm completely unsympathetic to those people I mean she's 64 grams, has dull claws and doesn't bite unless provoked, she's nothing to be afraid of)

 

[pacoparrot]

It hasn't really helped so far. In fact now she is getting more bold and is landing on everything. She understands that when I point to the stand and say "go to your stand" she's supposed to fly to it but she will only do so if she wants to. I don't really think it's something I can teach her. She might learn through her own experience that strangers should not be landed on but other than that she's just a free spirit. She picked up a plastic ring I was going to give her today and was flying around with it in her mouth and playing with it. Here's a picture!