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- 6/6/18
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So.
I'm pretty damn good at training my parrotlet. But she's been a nightmare to get harness-trained. I'm slow, I'm methodical. She will make a lot of progress that I won't push. But at one point she will revert again and I have to start over. Her biggest problem is pulling out of the neck hole. Her head is fairly big.
I started with a mini-wings. Training her was as good as impossible because she just saw it as a chew toy no matter what I did. The neck hole was just too small for her head so she reaaally didn't enjoy putting it through it.
I moved on to a black aviator. Much better. I did all the things I did before: Getting her used to being around the harness. Then putting the harness on her back. Then targeting her head through the large wing loop. Subsequently, I squeezed it off, and targeted her through it. Eventually I could target her through the neck hole as well. She would sit there, relaxed. Just eating her nutri-berry as she had her head through the neck hole, carrying the entire weight of the aviator without any problems. I hadn't yet come to the point where I could put her wings through it. This was all done very slowly over a course of a couple of weeks. And every time she reached a step, I gave myself a couple of days repeating it just to make sure I am not rushing her.
I could no longer target he through it and had to lure her through the neck hole with a treat. At first she would leave her head in it to continue eating her treat. But at this point, not even that. She just takes her bite of the treat and pulls out again. I've tried luring her through and extending the time before I reward though.
I think she doesn't like taking the harness off because she has a fairly robust head. And she's a fairly robust parrotlet to begin with.
Everything goes fine, but then she'll revert. This happened twice now with the Aviator.
The last and I do mean last thing I would want to try is force the Aviator on her, and just take her out with her nutri-berries to get distracted by the environment and food. But that's not something I'm itching to do and I'm not sure if it's worth doing just to get her harness on.
Advice?
She's target trained, fully bonded to me, really tame, etc. So it's not a lack of that.
I'm pretty damn good at training my parrotlet. But she's been a nightmare to get harness-trained. I'm slow, I'm methodical. She will make a lot of progress that I won't push. But at one point she will revert again and I have to start over. Her biggest problem is pulling out of the neck hole. Her head is fairly big.
I started with a mini-wings. Training her was as good as impossible because she just saw it as a chew toy no matter what I did. The neck hole was just too small for her head so she reaaally didn't enjoy putting it through it.
I moved on to a black aviator. Much better. I did all the things I did before: Getting her used to being around the harness. Then putting the harness on her back. Then targeting her head through the large wing loop. Subsequently, I squeezed it off, and targeted her through it. Eventually I could target her through the neck hole as well. She would sit there, relaxed. Just eating her nutri-berry as she had her head through the neck hole, carrying the entire weight of the aviator without any problems. I hadn't yet come to the point where I could put her wings through it. This was all done very slowly over a course of a couple of weeks. And every time she reached a step, I gave myself a couple of days repeating it just to make sure I am not rushing her.
I could no longer target he through it and had to lure her through the neck hole with a treat. At first she would leave her head in it to continue eating her treat. But at this point, not even that. She just takes her bite of the treat and pulls out again. I've tried luring her through and extending the time before I reward though.
I think she doesn't like taking the harness off because she has a fairly robust head. And she's a fairly robust parrotlet to begin with.
Everything goes fine, but then she'll revert. This happened twice now with the Aviator.
The last and I do mean last thing I would want to try is force the Aviator on her, and just take her out with her nutri-berries to get distracted by the environment and food. But that's not something I'm itching to do and I'm not sure if it's worth doing just to get her harness on.
Advice?
She's target trained, fully bonded to me, really tame, etc. So it's not a lack of that.
