Hello
@Serin !
Sorry for the lenght, but I want to be as detailed as possible since I mainly it played by ear with Peeps when it came to gaining his trust. I noticed a lot of the handtamed canaries on the YT video's were handraised, so I gave up on following the training videos online.
One thing for sure, it took a lot of patience and time as well (though it took less than 2 years lol). To this day though he will not step up to my hand if I offer it alone. I believe I spend between 3-5 hours in the same room with him per day which was probably one of the main reasom he became more comfortable with me.
I should probably mention though that I don't handle him, I take him to the vet even for his pedi... I've never grabbed him...
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[MAY 27, 2017]
Peeps was given to me at a little over 1 year old by my uncle.
Before me, my uncle would remove the food on certain times of the day, and stuck his hand in the cage with seeds, so Peeps--having no choice--would eat off of it. However, I think I saw in a video that it's not a very effective method in the longrun, so I didn't continue it. Plus, I just felt bad letting him go hungry for the sake of taming him.
Although I didn't continue that method, I did keep sticking my hand with seeds in his cage for a couple of weeks until it became too time consuming. There were times when he ate off of it, but he mostly ignored it since he already had food. I also realized that I didn't want him associating me to stress since I was technically invading his territory.
I never used treats for training, he was too skittish to fly to me in the first place!
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After about 2 weeks of living with me, I began to let him freefly in my bedroom. My room was big enough for flying but not too big go get lost in either. His cage was always accessible for whenever he got scared. I usually stayed in the room with him, and if not me, my brother did. Around the same time, we played canary training music.
Things we noticed:
1. Peeps responded to canary music almost instantly. He didn't go near us in the beginning though, but he sang.
2. He started testing us when we didn't actively follow him around the room. We just went on with our tasks (like homework) and let him explore the room. My brother was lying on the bed motionless when Peeps landed on him the first time (on his belly).
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[JUNE 26]
Upon realizing its possible for him to land on us, I decided to play canary music on my cellphone and place it on my belly. It worked
He still didn't like hands the first time, but he ran to the screen when I put it on the floor. Whilst he was preoccupied with the screen, I would hover over him and bop him on the head and back with my nose (or closed lips). As odd as it was, I think it helped with getting him used to touch. He always flew away whenever my hand got close to him though.
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[JULY 9]
After a couple of weeks, I started forming a perch with my fingers while holding the phone. Since he loved the music, he flew to me instantly. I continued with the head bopping. At first, he only stayed for a couple of minutes, but overtime went to 5+ mintues. I did this while sitting on the floor.
Another thing I tried was move around the room with the music. He didn't stay as long--I think mainly because I was standing. He s till flew though so that was still a win for us.
Overtime, he began associating the music to my phone. I knew this because I would enter the room with it on hand, and he flew to me in an instant. He would fly away though once he saw the screen was black.
The important thing though was that he felt safe enough to do that. I continued this method everyday whenever I let him freefly.
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[2018]
I started using the music less and less this year, but I continue to be in the same room whenever he is out. He started perching on my leg around March.
I think he does this often whenever I'm just sitting on the floor. He's now perches on my shoudlers as well (as seen on the screen reflection in this vid from 2 days ago):
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Gah thank you for your patience (I understand if you skipped some lol), I figured talking about the process may help with developing your own approach.