- Joined
- 8/2/19
- Messages
- 14
So this is my first post here. I have exhausted any ideas I have or anything I could research online so I decided it would probably be best to ask others! I have been training my one year old, greencheek conure, Gordi, to wear an aviator harness for almost 3 months now. At this point, my green cheek conure will successfully approach the harness on his own, and put his head through the headhole, and remain calm for up to two minutes (as long as there are treats around, basically). He also is pretty good about taking it off. However, I have been stuck at this step for weeks.
At first, while distracting him with a treat, I tried to put one of his wings through the wing hole. He didn't notice it very much at first, but once I had to take off the harness he freaked. I didn't try it again for the rest of the training session. In one of the next couple of training sessions, I tried doing this again except this time he freaked out and ended up getting himself tangled in the harness. This scared him for a bit, but I got him back to the point he was originally at (putting his head through the headhole and staying like that for at least a minute) with a little bit of coaxing and treats. Today, I tried a third time, but he was just not having it.
A couple of other things you should now about Gordi: He is totally fine with being touched and me lifting up his wings. He also knows how to follow a target.
I really don't want to give up especially since I feel like I am so close...Does anyone have any suggestions of how I should move forward? I would really appreciate it!
At first, while distracting him with a treat, I tried to put one of his wings through the wing hole. He didn't notice it very much at first, but once I had to take off the harness he freaked. I didn't try it again for the rest of the training session. In one of the next couple of training sessions, I tried doing this again except this time he freaked out and ended up getting himself tangled in the harness. This scared him for a bit, but I got him back to the point he was originally at (putting his head through the headhole and staying like that for at least a minute) with a little bit of coaxing and treats. Today, I tried a third time, but he was just not having it.
A couple of other things you should now about Gordi: He is totally fine with being touched and me lifting up his wings. He also knows how to follow a target.
I really don't want to give up especially since I feel like I am so close...Does anyone have any suggestions of how I should move forward? I would really appreciate it!