Any Step-Up Training Tips?

[Anji]

My lovebird is terrified of human hands however she is tame and loves to be near me but it makes it hard to play and handle her without having to use my hands. She sees me and my hands as two different identities. I've been doing research on clicker training with the small point stick and tried it, but she was afraid of the clicker and the noise it made. So I tried using my mouth to make the clicker noise and that seemed to work better. However after our second training session, she would rather fly on my shoulder than actually take some of the millet. Does anyone have any tips for a beginner like myself? Or any possible suggestions.

EDIT: The only time when I can actually touch my lovebird is when she is on the floor and wants me to pick her up. I lay my hand flat for her and she will climb up. But other than that, my hands cannot be anywhere near her.

[Bernadette N]

Hallo, when I bought my bird, he was 3 months old and super afraid of hands. He STILL hates hands (he is now 9 months old), but he will step up and do some tricks. We bought the Barbara Heidenreich parrot training series "Good Bird Inc", and it has helped us tremendously following the suggestions she makes. Our bird used to flap and cry and run away from hands... but now, he will step up and isn't scared if we put our hands near him.

For success... a few things I did notice was -

Find a treat that your bird adores (ours loves safflower seeds)!
Make sure that between each trick, you let your bird finish their mouth full of seed :-)
Let them do it in their own time, and praise them a lot.

This is what we did (in stages, over time):

We put a seed in the cage and let him find it, then we held one through the bars, then we held a seed near various perches in the cage, getting closer and closer to the door of the cage, then finally we fed him the seed with our other hand underneath, then it was held at a distance so he'd have to reach out for the seed - OVER - a hand, we slowly held the seed further and further away, til he had to stand on our fingers/hands to get his treat. We praised him continually. Even if it was just one little toe, or one little foot. And it took us ages. Sometimes there were days between him taking a chance, or just minutes or hours. Now, he will step up, grab a seed and hop back into the cage to eat it. My husband has more luck usually with our bird staying ON his hand while eating seeds, but we are getting there :-) Just play with your bird too, with some fun toys. Soon your hands won't be associated with scary things. It's gotten to a point that our bird will ring a little bell if he wants to play the step up game. Haha, like a little butlers bell...

I'd recommend looking at the Parrot Body language DVD and the Behavior and training DVDs - the workshop is interesting :-)

Goodbirdinc.com <----

[Pips mom]

Some birds just don't like hands.......Pip is one of them. I've had Pip for over 5 years now and he's as tame as can be, but he still hates hands! Like yours, he will step onto hands if he's on the floor. He's doesn't appear scared of hands at all......he'll let me get close to him with my hands if I appear to be doing something else, but if he thinks hands are going to touch him, he takes off! There are times when he allows me to pick him up now, but lately he'll even go in his cage for me on his own to avoid being picked up and touched! I do still hold him sometimes........if I take him into another room and shut the door, he'll just sit there and let me hold him! He even seems content in my hands and won't fight too hard to get away. He knows now that I have to just hold him sometimes and kiss his little head, so he just sits there like he's thinking........ok, let's get this over with! but he knows I won't hold him down very long......maybe a minute at most and he'll still stay with me alot of times and on my shoulder after I've held him! Pip always wants to be on me now......he'll even come flying around looking for me! but for some reason, he just doesn't like hands, and that is that! That's fine........at least he does seem to understand when I do touch and hold him and could care less now if I do.......he just prefers to not be touched by hands. I respect that for the most part, but he's just so darn cute that sometimes I just have to get him and hold him and smother him a little!

[Bernadette N]

Like yours, he will step onto hands if he's on the floor.

Beaker likes to hop onto a ring we have, and happily gets carried around on that, but hands? They are annoying/scary/big? I don't know. All I know is he love his ring.

Hehe :-)