Lovebirds update

[Ironhideforever]

Well it's been a few weeks since my last post. Progress seems to be moving on slowly, but I think it's going ok. They now have mastered the "LET ME OUT LET ME OUT PAY ATTENTION TO ME *CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP*" dance. They come out of the cage of their own voalition now, usually when my boyfriend walks in the room, they go nuts and want to jump and crawl on him.

We take the cage away for play time now, so when we bring it back, they usually jump right back in, so that little hurdle seems to have been leaped. They also seem to like bath time, and when they see our fingers in a little cup of water, they tend to get curious then clean themselves. It's so cute.

They still seem to be deathly afraid of hands and dowel however. We decided to give up on the hand training for now, as not to force the issue, and make them dislike them even more, and sometimes it seems like they are grasping the step up command onto a dowel and sometimes it seems like they want nothing to do with it. We place it at the cage entrance before we let them out too so that they can't come out unless they "step up"

Sometimes they bite the dowel and run around it, other times, they just stand and look at it, and sometimes they kinda just step on it, and then walk over it.

Should we keep this up? It seems like some books I have read say that it can be learned pretty quickly, but others seem to indiciate it can take months. Is there any other tricks or anything to make it easier, or is it possible they will just never like the hands and dowel?

Also, they have stopped fighting, unless they think one of them is getting more attention than the other, and even then, it's just 1 second squabbling. We replaced their food dishes so they couldn't huddle underneath them anymore, and they each have their own now.

Here they are sitting on my boyfriend.

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b164/Ironhideforever/birdieslikeme.jpg

[zlatushka]

With my first lovebird, Friday, (who is still afraid of hands, btw) I went with the dowel route as well. It seemed to work if I used excessive praise when he did what I wanted (i.e. step up, go home, etc) He got the idea pretty quickly. Not to say that it was 100% perfect all the time, but things are always improving. I found it to be a significant increase pretty quickly, then sort of a plateau period where he'd step up on the dowel consistently, and then its been steady, but slow improvement since then.

One thing that did make a difference was the length of the dowel. Too short was too close to the dreaded hands, and there was no way he was going to get up on that! I started out with a fairly long one; I think it was around a meter (handy for getting him down from the tops of curtains and doorframes LOL) and we're down around 15 inches I think now.

[Ironhideforever]

Ours is about 14 inches, but sometimes Chicken will figure out what's holding it, and go after the fingers, at which point we say "No Bite!" in a stern voice and then one of them will yell at us. I forgot to mention also, they seem to consistentatly(sp?) step up onto my boyfriends shoulders, or arms, usually as a means to crawl on him.

[Kathryn]

Sounds like you are making progress.
Be thankful for every precious step forward!!

[Janie]

Sounds like you are making progress.
Be thankful for every precious step forward!!

I agree! :) Sometimes a lovie will settle in and start getting tame in a few short weeks but I think that is the exception and realizing that it might be months is probably the more likely scenario. Just keep at it and it will happen. Some don't like hands and never will while others, like my two that were hand fed, see hands as just one more plaything or something good to nibble on. :D