Posted by NateW on Tue, 10/25/2005 - 20:30
The idea of feeding Tangent after putting the harness on definitely backfired... I took a long break from it because it seemed to bother him, then tried again, just putting the loop over his head. He'd eat, then pull his head back and out of the loop as quickly as possible. After a few rounds of that, he got to where he'd pull back and actually fly away as soon as he'd gotten his dose of formula. Since I wanted to use feedings to train recalls (come to me, it's fun, you get fed! etc etc), this was very very disheartening.
So I quit doing that, but for the next few days he was still flying away after each bit of food. I was seeing some of this kind behavior in the beginning as well, and now I know for sure that it's due to the harness training. He loves being fed, but he loathes the harness even more. That blew a big hole in my free flight plans - not only does it mean that I can't use the harness to familiarize him with the outdoors, but I can barely count on food as recall reward. He does recall pretty well, but after a few recalls he decides to fly off and spend a few minutes at a distance to digest... that's been the case the whole time I've had him... it's hard to predict when he'll decide to fly off, but it almost always happens a couple of times per feeding session. It's no problem indoors, because he always comes back a few minutes later, but outdoors? Yikes. His recall is still pretty good even outside of feeding sessions, but I just don't have the confidence to take him outdoors.
Other than his love/hate relationship with the syringe, we get along great. And he's eating more solid food all the time... in the last few days he's added pistachios, raisins, and almonds to his list of edible things. Elizabeth and I tried playing frisbee with him and he caught on quickly, flying back and forth between us for safflower seeds. In one session we went from stepping back and forth to flying the whole length of my house. Once he figured out the game, he stopped waiting for our cues, and he was trying to earn treats faster than he could eat them... he'd fly to me, get his safflower treat, crack it open, fly to Liz, finish eating, get another treat, fly to me, finish eating...
He's got no respect for Phoebe, that's the only thing I'm actually unhappy about. He's shoo her off of any perch (including my shoulder) if he wants to be there. I'm working on following her out of the room (shrugging him off if necessary) in hopes that he'll get the idea that's not a good thing to do, but so far that isn't really helping. I set up a new perch in the living room so she's got another place she can go to get away from him, too.
I think I mentioned earlier that he's really loud when he's getting bathed in the shower... it turns out that just being in the bathroom with the shower running makes him chatter non-stop. He's still not speaking any English, but he has a much bigger repertoire of noises than I had guessed. He'll sit on top of the shower door and have a monologue the whole time I'm in there. I'm not sure what it is that motivates him - maybe the shower, the cieling fan, or both - but he sure seems to enjoy talking to himself every morning.
There's one perch in my bedroom where Tangent will fly every night at 7:30. It's great that he puts himself to bed like that, but I'd rather have him in a sleeping cage to prevent night-frights, and he didn't want to go in. So I took the perch down and hung the sleeping cage in its place... it took him a couple nights to make the switch, but now he'll fly into his sleeping cage when he gets drowsy. The next stage will be to move the cage gradually to the other side of the room.
It's kind of neat hearing both of them in their corners of the bedroom preening away when I go to bed at night. If I whistle quietly, Tangent will usually whistle back just as quietly... I'm still waiting for Phoebe to join in - maybe eventually they'll whistle back and forth to each other.
So I quit doing that, but for the next few days he was still flying away after each bit of food. I was seeing some of this kind behavior in the beginning as well, and now I know for sure that it's due to the harness training. He loves being fed, but he loathes the harness even more. That blew a big hole in my free flight plans - not only does it mean that I can't use the harness to familiarize him with the outdoors, but I can barely count on food as recall reward. He does recall pretty well, but after a few recalls he decides to fly off and spend a few minutes at a distance to digest... that's been the case the whole time I've had him... it's hard to predict when he'll decide to fly off, but it almost always happens a couple of times per feeding session. It's no problem indoors, because he always comes back a few minutes later, but outdoors? Yikes. His recall is still pretty good even outside of feeding sessions, but I just don't have the confidence to take him outdoors.
Other than his love/hate relationship with the syringe, we get along great. And he's eating more solid food all the time... in the last few days he's added pistachios, raisins, and almonds to his list of edible things. Elizabeth and I tried playing frisbee with him and he caught on quickly, flying back and forth between us for safflower seeds. In one session we went from stepping back and forth to flying the whole length of my house. Once he figured out the game, he stopped waiting for our cues, and he was trying to earn treats faster than he could eat them... he'd fly to me, get his safflower treat, crack it open, fly to Liz, finish eating, get another treat, fly to me, finish eating...
He's got no respect for Phoebe, that's the only thing I'm actually unhappy about. He's shoo her off of any perch (including my shoulder) if he wants to be there. I'm working on following her out of the room (shrugging him off if necessary) in hopes that he'll get the idea that's not a good thing to do, but so far that isn't really helping. I set up a new perch in the living room so she's got another place she can go to get away from him, too.
I think I mentioned earlier that he's really loud when he's getting bathed in the shower... it turns out that just being in the bathroom with the shower running makes him chatter non-stop. He's still not speaking any English, but he has a much bigger repertoire of noises than I had guessed. He'll sit on top of the shower door and have a monologue the whole time I'm in there. I'm not sure what it is that motivates him - maybe the shower, the cieling fan, or both - but he sure seems to enjoy talking to himself every morning.
There's one perch in my bedroom where Tangent will fly every night at 7:30. It's great that he puts himself to bed like that, but I'd rather have him in a sleeping cage to prevent night-frights, and he didn't want to go in. So I took the perch down and hung the sleeping cage in its place... it took him a couple nights to make the switch, but now he'll fly into his sleeping cage when he gets drowsy. The next stage will be to move the cage gradually to the other side of the room.
It's kind of neat hearing both of them in their corners of the bedroom preening away when I go to bed at night. If I whistle quietly, Tangent will usually whistle back just as quietly... I'm still waiting for Phoebe to join in - maybe eventually they'll whistle back and forth to each other.