Suddenly aggressive towards hands

[outmaww]

I went on a three-day trip recently and left my bird with a friend. Now that I'm back, my tiel gets very worked up more than she did before towards my hands, meaning little movements like reaching up to scratch my face while she's on my shoulder causes her to hiss, and getting her down from certain places causes her to beak and bite at my hand. I've worked really hard with training her not to do that and we had gotten to a really great spot, but now it's seemed like it's all regressed. I'm worried something might have happened while I was gone, maybe my friend handled her in a way she found too aggressive and now thinks I'll do the same to her. Thoughts?

 

[Kiwi's Dad]

Bump!

 

[Fuzzy]

It could be something to do with your friend's behaviour towards her, but it could also be that after not seeing you for 3 days to provide continuity of desensitizing and counterconditioning/conditioning, she could have reverted back to her original behaviour. Who knows, and I wouldn't blame your friend. All you can do is work with observable behaviour and start again from the beginning, ie. desensitizing and counterconditioning - perhaps pairing your hands/hand movements with reinforcers like treats and praise (whatever works for her). Plus, heeding her body language when asking her to step up, ie. don't force her which evokes a lunge/bite, but prompt/lure (perhaps show her a treat/toy) and reinforce a successful step up (give her the treat/toy). Fade the lure if you have to use one as quickly as you can. This time the training will go much faster.