One Month Update

It's been one day shy of four weeks!! It has FLOWN by (see what I did there?) and I can't believe it's July! Mango (WHO IS A GIRL OMGWTFROFLCOPTER) and Loki are definitely settling in and figuring out the routine.

1. Training: Mango is getting better at stepping up every day, and she's starting to figure out touch training with the clicker. She'd rather show me her newest interpretive dance moves, but she'll do what I ask when I show her the black sunflower seeds she craves so much. Loki figured out touch-training with the clicker about 3 minutes after I removed all the distracting toys and excess perches from the top of his cage. Seriously. I clicked, gave him a treat. Clicked, gave him a treat. Asked him to touch the tip of a wooden skewer, he obliged, I clicked, and gave him a treat. He figured it out so fast that now it's only been three days and he'll chase the stick all over the top and sides of his cage (except inside his cage, which we're going to work on... see #2). Good boy!

2. Socialization: Mango is, once again, improving by leaps and bounds. She politely steps up to my roommate, D, and me when asked about 70% of the time, which is a vast improvement over the original ~10%. She still gives D the stink-eye when we're having cuddles on the bed, and she gave D a good hard bite when he asked her to step up off of my stomach while we were watching tv (NO ONE INTERRUPTS AMERICAN NINJA WARRIOR, NO ONE). But for the most part she's being good. She has been very brave and likes exploring new rooms, new stimuli, and hardly ever balks or acts afraid of new things anymore (as long as they're not moving towards her quickly).

Loki is almost exactly the same as the day he arrived. It doesn't help that I'm having to use some negative reinforcement techniques to get him to go back into his cage at the end of the night (or when I leave the house). In the beginning, he would go into and out of his cage freely to play, snack, etc... but then he learned that if I approach the cage and he's inside of it, I MIGHT close the door and he won't have the option of going out again. So now he just stays out. He might sneak back in to grab a quick snack, but he'll rocket back out the moment someone comes near his cage. Hey, I don't blame him. I'd sneak off for snacks too.

The problem is that he absolutely 100% will NOT step up for anybody. He's been on my hand a grand total of three times since he's been in San Diego: twice when he got scared, flew off his cage, and landed on the floor, and the one time we went to the vet. He is super attached to his cage. My hand is only a vehicle to get him back to the cage, or a vehicle for head scritches (which he still loves and demands). It's just a matter of trust. He doesn't trust me to not do something horrible to him if I pick him up. I don't trust him to not bite me if I try to force the issue (for the record,  he's NEVER bitten me, but he is a cockatoo and there's a first time for everything).

So my solution has been some extremely mild negative reinforcement. Even the term "negative reinforcement" makes me cringe, but let me explain: There is a perch that Loki chewed in half that is now Hot Lava. It resembles a Stick and all Sticks are the devil unless they are completely stationary, have not moved within the last 3 days, and have been properly screamed at and then chewed on. So now what I do is just take the Hot Lava Stick and hold it in the air above the cage. I am always very careful to move slowly, and Loki keeps an eye on it the entire time. Then I very slowly lower the stick towards him, and his solution to get away from it is to retreat to the inside of his cage. The *momemt* he is in the cage, the reward is that Hot Lava Stick immediately disappears and he is praised to high heaven, given copious treats, and all the head scritches he can handle

One of two things is going to happen. A.) He'll figure out what "night-night" means and eventually I can just say it without needing Hot Lava Stick, or B.) He'll be willing to follow the touch-training stick to the inside of his cage and I can work on attaching the verbal cue later. I HATE using Hot Lava Stick. I HATE that I'm scaring him. I want him to trust me and how is he ever going to trust me if I have to scare him back into his cage every evening? I just wish I could force logic into his brain that I'm not going to murder him if he steps up onto my hand. It'll be so fun! He can see other rooms in the house! He can play on the bed and snuggle and take showers! But for now I just have to be super vigilant with touch training and get him closer and closer to having to physically step on me somehow to reach the stick. Patience. So much patience.