Daisy and Flying

I watched a dog for 5 days. A little Shih-tzu named Daisy. She was really cute. The birds didn't agree. At first, they were curious, but when Daisy began to jump up on my lap whenever I sat down, the birds had enough of her. Manzi dived bombed her regularly and Maui chased her with an open beak. Fortunately, Maui is really slow and Manzi was still pretty cautious around her. So in the end, no one was hurt. At one point, Daisy walked too close to the cage and Maui lunged at her and lost her balance and fell off the cage. Daisy got excited and jumped towards her. Maui’s back was turned and I quickly pulled Daisy away.

Animals have a good instinct to know where another’s mouth is located. Daisy quickly figured out where the beaks were on the birds and knew to stay away from them. It was funny, when the birds were turned around, Daisy would sniff their backs and leave nose prints on them. The birds didn't like it one bit and would try to turn around quickly, but by then Daisy would back away. The birds also knew where Daisy’s mouth was and would run after her when her back was turned.

By the end of the 5 days, Daisy and the birds were almost always watching each other and trying to stay facing each other.

Flying:

I've been taking Manzi outside flying. We've just done point A to B flights, but Manzi has been 100%! I am only doing up to 100’. I need to increase the distance. Anyway, he is doing fantastic, so I need to watch the weather and then let him free fly around when there are no storms coming up. I hope I can free fly him in the next few weeks.

Manzi and Maui being friendly

I have had a few visitors recently, all of them animal people. The first set of visitors gave both birds treats right away. After 45 minutes or so, Maui was begging them for scratches and Manzi was performing his tricks. Within a couple of hours, both birds did quite a bit of talking.

Another visitor who came was also an animal person. He has been interested in getting a Grey himself, so I suggested he come over to interact with them. Maui didn't want him to hold her, but she did stay very near and never took her eyes off him. Manzi was standoffish for 15 minutes or so, but then he had enough and wanted to find out what the guy was about. Within 45 minutes Manzi was letting the guy scratch his head and  happily taking treats from him. Manzi usually doesn't let strangers scratch him. The guy did all the right things though and was interested, but not pushy with Manzi.

Having visitors who know how to handle animals is a great experience for the birds. They learn to go to strangers and not bite. It gives me confidence too that I will not get sued by someone over a nasty parrot bite.

Maui stuck

Maui was grabbing the doorway, hanging way down from her cage. I scolded her (she's no longer supposed to chew up my doorway), but instead of running and fussing like she usually does, she just stayed there. I got closer and she still didn't move. Then I held her beak to pry it off the doorway and she nearly fell. I realized that she had reached down to chew the doorway, but leaned too far and wasn't able to pull herself up with her feet due to lack of grip on the seed catcher. She was stuck and not sure what to do. I wonder how long she was like that. It could have only been a few minutes at most as I did hear her chirping away beforehand.

Sometimes Manzi gets stuck, but he bails rather quickly, by dropping and crashing.

Spring is here

Spring is quite lovely (although it did just snow again two days ago). I took Manzi outside twice already. The first time he was really irritated that I put on his leash and he pouted for 45 minutes. It wasn't until I began to go back inside that he realized where he was and began to hold his wings out for a flight. I brought him out again a few days later and he was a lot more cooperative. Outside he did some flying around, but I kept his leg leash on (there was a storm coming the following day and I didn't want to risk it). After the flight going so well, I am more encouraged to let him free fly. I will work with him for a couple weeks on recalls and see how he does. Today I did the first recall training I've done in many months and it was great. At first Manzi wasn't so sure, but within a few minutes he was flying to me rapidly after I'd call him. We only did about 10 recalls and he did really well through the last one.

I did some target training with Maui. She is great at that and will climb all over her cage to get the target. I need to start teaching her some other tricks. I think she has a lot more potential with trick training than Manzi. For some reason, whenever I do trick training with Manzi we have a 5-minute window before he begans breeding displays. Then training is over. Maui moves much slower than Manzi, but she is also a lot less stubborn and seems to "think" quite a bit more (she's more deliberate).

Hercules has been loving the outdoors. It is nice in that, if I put him far away from me, he'll slowly make his way back to me (chomping grass the whole way). I am almost finished with the patio, then I'll leave him out all day. I think he'll like that a lot more than my kitchen (I will definitely like it a lot more as well). Also, potty training him was highly successful. He hasn't had an accident in a while now. I just put him in the bath every other day with 1/2" of warm water. It also doesn't take him as long. Before, I had to leave him in there for 45 minutes. Now he usually goes within 15 minutes.

A week away didn't last

I left for a week to visit family. The girl watching the birds said they did fine, until the last day. Then Manzi went and scuffled with Maui (usually Maui is the aggressor). The girl was pretty scared and separated them right away with the ladder (previously mentioned; both birds seem to react to the ladder). Then she opened the cage and put Maui on a perch while she got the separator into the cage. When I got home, they seemed okay. I took the separator out and they were fine again. I put in again when I went to church the following Sunday as they scuffled a bit in the morning, but I haven't used it since.

They don't fight much when no one is around. It is just when someone is around, then they infrequently get in fights.

Lately, they have been sleeping together on the same perch as well. When I get in after dark, they are about a foot apart on the same perch. I'm not sure why they do that.

Anyway, I will leave the cage separator out for now. I have another trip coming up in several weeks, so I will try again. I was very happy with the girl's reaction as she took the right steps and was confident in handling the birds. Still, hopefully with them together for more time, they will work out their issues and this will come up less and less.