| At least you were smart enough to know why you got bit. For the
longest time I thought my Max was a schizoid. It seemed to me that
one minute he'd be allowing me to pet him, and the next he'd bite
me. Then one day the light dawned, and I realized that the bite
occured as I was pulling my hand away to stop petting him. Now,
when I say bite, I'm not talking about breaking skin here. Just
a pinch that sometimes doesn't feel exactly great. How bad a bite
are you getting?
I woman who owns a pet store and lots of birds of her own told me
once to grab the beak like you did. However I think this works
only with hand fed birds that are not hand shy. Max is too fast
and would not let me get a hold of his beak, and when I did he'd
just pull out of my grasp and bite me harder to say he doesn't like
it.
The best thing I have found is a loud sharp "NO!" in an angry tone
of voice, or try growling. After all, that's what they do to you
(growl) when they don't like something. You might also want to
follow that by immediately walking away from the bird. These guys
aren't dumb. It shouldn't take too long for him to figure out that
the biting behaviour does not accomplish his goal (more petting).
Also, something I read in one of my books helped put it into
perspective. It said that in the wild, if one bird is preening
the other (and when we pet them, it's the equivalent of preening
to the bird), and the preener does something wrong like hit a sensitive
spot, or pull too hard, etc. the preenee will bite the preener to
correct him/her. You must not take it personally. It is not a
sign of aggression, ill-temper, or dislike. Keeping this in mind
helped me to deliver the correction to the bird without feeling
angry. And I've discovered that bird training is just like dog
training in this respect. The trick is to act angry to show your
displeasure to the animal, without actually feeling anger inside.
The moment I lose my temper or feel anger towards the animal, I
have found that I cannot get anywhere with him.
Is your bird hand raised or wild caught?
Laura and Mad Max
|
| REP .0&3
Blowing in his face does work, that's what I have to do quite
often. It definately gets their attention!! It is real comical
to watch Max after I do that. He looks around real quick to try
to see who just walked by. (of course, no one walked by, Hee Hee)
Another neat thing is when Max wants me to rub under one of
his wings, he will stretch out his wing, and I stroke the underside
around his ribs and sometimes it seems to tickle him because he
will let out a couple of screaches and back away, causing me to
burst out in hysterical laughter!! What a guy!
Grabbing his beak after he bites my finger (although he doesn't
usually bite hard) and gently shaking his head while telling him
"No" does help though. Also, Max has started preening himself while
I scratch his head and neck. Quite a clown!!
Vern
|