M&M Ninja
Strolling the yard
I posted a long post of questions here. Several things have improved. I’m posting the update separately as some of our training methods might be helpful to others.
Location
After initially trying to work in the bathroom, away from her cage, I’ve stopped doing that. I now mostly work at/near the cage. This transition happened organically, but was also mentioned by @Monica as advisable.
Timing
It is important to be sensitive to her daily mood/energy swings. She is too hyper first thing in the morning. And she gets sleepy during the early afternoons. Most other times can work. I have found the best time for her is late morning, before we eat lunch. This does not necessarily coincide with her being hungry. But it seems to be the time when she is most present and attentive to what I’m saying.
Harness Work
We are harness training in an unconventional and completely inconvenient way. She likes to sit on my arm and lean into my ribs. So once in that position, I would put the harness on the other hand and then use that hand to scratch her head. The harness comes close by, hangs out around her face, oftentimes bumps her, and then goes away. We advanced to big hole over the head; then resting on body. Then we did small hole. Amazing. She didn’t care at all because she it was all about the snuggles and she felt safe.
Because we have been doing ‘wings’ as part of our comfort with handling practice, I was then able to get a wing in….then the OTHER WING. No joke. I got the harness on with one hand with her body mostly inaccessible, while snuggled against my side. My husband had to come do the final tightening because I just couldn’t bend that way.
We did this for three days in a row. She isn’t thrilled about being outside to the extent that she’ll leave the harness alone. She was regularly outside in a big aviary at the breeders, so her mind isn’t blown by the scenery. Her main objective is to preen and bite the harness. I’m not sure how to discourage this.
Then we suffered a setback.
On day three, we came in, I was calmly taking the harness off, something spooked her and she started flying around. She was still mostly harnessed and couldn’t get far. As she was flying back and forth at the end of the tether, she flew right in front of one of the dogs (who snapped at her) and then into the bathroom. This all freaked her out and now she is NOT COOL about the harness.
Obviously, we will now put the dogs away when we do anything Cord might be nervous about. But we haven’t gotten back to that point yet. We are back to ‘harness on hand that scratches’ and occasionally ‘big loop over head’. Maybe by the time we get the harness back on, she’ll be amazed by the outdoors again and willing to leave it alone.
Step up/Step down
She still isn’t food motivated but I’ve continued to offer her papaya bits and sunflower seeds, mostly because that is what we have on hand and they are small. I formally ask for a step up off the cage door every time she comes out. She isn’t allowed to fly to me from the cage. I say step down every time I want her down. This is the weaker of the two since she would prefer to be on us. But she is getting it and she does do it. We have stepped her up off our shoulders a few times, off furniture, off her perch, etc. I can tell she’s thinking and realizes some sort of communication is going on. The first time she does it in a given day and I praise her really big, she always gets soft and very pleased looking.
Wait
This might not be a conventional parrot ‘trick’, but I believe it is important. The dogos are NOT allowed to barge through doors. This was not cool when we lived in a house and it is unsafe to barge down the RV steps with leashes, legs, uncertain ground, etc. All non-human animals need to learn to wait. So that includes Cord too.
She has a perch right by the doors. At first, I tapped the perch to make her go there before opening the doors. I’d say something like ‘go to your perch’. Then I’d take hold off the door latch. She’s like the energizer bunny and immediately wants to leap out, so she always wanted to follow my hand from her side of the cage. To the latch! Back vertical! Lean over again! Try to get out! Vertical on the perch again! Oh, there it is – back to the latch!
The final behavior looks like this: I hold up the hand not reaching for the latch and tell her to wait. Then I open the door, put the hand down, and say, ‘okay’. She then comes out.
There were several stages of intermediate understanding. Door opens a little, she lunges to break free, door closes again. She leaps off her perch prematurely. Etc. The duration of the ‘wait’ started very small and I tried to open the door as quickly as possible so that she was successful. Now, she can wait for a good, solid, 2 Mississippi seconds. When I release her, she climbs off the perch, through the door and then I ask for the step up.
Screaming and The Coffee Grinder
I’ve given up on modifying this behavior right now. I’ve tried everything I could think of to see what environment promoted the least reaction. The only thing that works consistently is her being out and on one of us. Since we don’t want her out first thing in the morning, we are allowing her to scream and hoping she gets less sensitive about it. If we make coffee in the afternoon, she is usually out and doesn’t scream. [We are also keeping the grinder out on our table and thinking about turning it on randomly during the day.]
Previously good, Now not so good
Whatever poop training she came with, she no longer has. She still poops off of surfaces pretty well, but doesn’t target “her” stuff like she did at the breeder’s house.
She has started landing on the dogs if I am loving on them. This is so not good. She immediately gets picked up and plopped somewhere else, then later reinforced for being there. I’m trying to be very careful about loving on them if she is out. She has also started landing on the ground. Also not good.
Location
After initially trying to work in the bathroom, away from her cage, I’ve stopped doing that. I now mostly work at/near the cage. This transition happened organically, but was also mentioned by @Monica as advisable.
Timing
It is important to be sensitive to her daily mood/energy swings. She is too hyper first thing in the morning. And she gets sleepy during the early afternoons. Most other times can work. I have found the best time for her is late morning, before we eat lunch. This does not necessarily coincide with her being hungry. But it seems to be the time when she is most present and attentive to what I’m saying.
Harness Work
We are harness training in an unconventional and completely inconvenient way. She likes to sit on my arm and lean into my ribs. So once in that position, I would put the harness on the other hand and then use that hand to scratch her head. The harness comes close by, hangs out around her face, oftentimes bumps her, and then goes away. We advanced to big hole over the head; then resting on body. Then we did small hole. Amazing. She didn’t care at all because she it was all about the snuggles and she felt safe.
Because we have been doing ‘wings’ as part of our comfort with handling practice, I was then able to get a wing in….then the OTHER WING. No joke. I got the harness on with one hand with her body mostly inaccessible, while snuggled against my side. My husband had to come do the final tightening because I just couldn’t bend that way.
We did this for three days in a row. She isn’t thrilled about being outside to the extent that she’ll leave the harness alone. She was regularly outside in a big aviary at the breeders, so her mind isn’t blown by the scenery. Her main objective is to preen and bite the harness. I’m not sure how to discourage this.
Then we suffered a setback.
On day three, we came in, I was calmly taking the harness off, something spooked her and she started flying around. She was still mostly harnessed and couldn’t get far. As she was flying back and forth at the end of the tether, she flew right in front of one of the dogs (who snapped at her) and then into the bathroom. This all freaked her out and now she is NOT COOL about the harness.Obviously, we will now put the dogs away when we do anything Cord might be nervous about. But we haven’t gotten back to that point yet. We are back to ‘harness on hand that scratches’ and occasionally ‘big loop over head’. Maybe by the time we get the harness back on, she’ll be amazed by the outdoors again and willing to leave it alone.
Step up/Step down
She still isn’t food motivated but I’ve continued to offer her papaya bits and sunflower seeds, mostly because that is what we have on hand and they are small. I formally ask for a step up off the cage door every time she comes out. She isn’t allowed to fly to me from the cage. I say step down every time I want her down. This is the weaker of the two since she would prefer to be on us. But she is getting it and she does do it. We have stepped her up off our shoulders a few times, off furniture, off her perch, etc. I can tell she’s thinking and realizes some sort of communication is going on. The first time she does it in a given day and I praise her really big, she always gets soft and very pleased looking.
Wait
This might not be a conventional parrot ‘trick’, but I believe it is important. The dogos are NOT allowed to barge through doors. This was not cool when we lived in a house and it is unsafe to barge down the RV steps with leashes, legs, uncertain ground, etc. All non-human animals need to learn to wait. So that includes Cord too.
She has a perch right by the doors. At first, I tapped the perch to make her go there before opening the doors. I’d say something like ‘go to your perch’. Then I’d take hold off the door latch. She’s like the energizer bunny and immediately wants to leap out, so she always wanted to follow my hand from her side of the cage. To the latch! Back vertical! Lean over again! Try to get out! Vertical on the perch again! Oh, there it is – back to the latch!
The final behavior looks like this: I hold up the hand not reaching for the latch and tell her to wait. Then I open the door, put the hand down, and say, ‘okay’. She then comes out.
There were several stages of intermediate understanding. Door opens a little, she lunges to break free, door closes again. She leaps off her perch prematurely. Etc. The duration of the ‘wait’ started very small and I tried to open the door as quickly as possible so that she was successful. Now, she can wait for a good, solid, 2 Mississippi seconds. When I release her, she climbs off the perch, through the door and then I ask for the step up.
Screaming and The Coffee Grinder
I’ve given up on modifying this behavior right now. I’ve tried everything I could think of to see what environment promoted the least reaction. The only thing that works consistently is her being out and on one of us. Since we don’t want her out first thing in the morning, we are allowing her to scream and hoping she gets less sensitive about it. If we make coffee in the afternoon, she is usually out and doesn’t scream. [We are also keeping the grinder out on our table and thinking about turning it on randomly during the day.]
Previously good, Now not so good
Whatever poop training she came with, she no longer has. She still poops off of surfaces pretty well, but doesn’t target “her” stuff like she did at the breeder’s house.
She has started landing on the dogs if I am loving on them. This is so not good. She immediately gets picked up and plopped somewhere else, then later reinforced for being there. I’m trying to be very careful about loving on them if she is out. She has also started landing on the ground. Also not good.
