Well, Dimitri and I aren't getting on very well. No progress, even regression and I'm having to rethink my entire plan (there was a plan?). Like that wise sage, Dr. Phil asks supplicants at the altar of his self-help show - 'Is that workin' for ya?' Nope, it ain't.
So maybe I can think this out loud. A bit of free flowing stream of consciousness description of what's going on. I've read and read files on taming wild birds, gaining their confidence, I've slow-blinked and breathed deep. I've endlessly beat a hasty retreat at any sign of nervousness. I've rewarded any sign of confidence by beating a hasty retreat. There's a track through the french door floor boards as deep as Death Valley. Yet and yet and yet, he's still terrified. Soon as I come through the door, slowly slowly, not looking at him, making my way by a circuitous route to an area of the verandah nowhere near him, he's off like a rabbit to the end of the perch. From the perch onto another perch which spans, what is laughingly referred to as, the training table. If I am still too close (by this time I'm using binoculars to see him), he will threaten to jump from the edge onto the blankets I've put on the floor for just this eventuality. As for clicker training. He targets like a champion and then flees before he gets the treat. No way was he going to venture onto the training table to follow the target stick. I longed for arms like Rubberman so that I could indicate the training table perch while still remaining in the bad girl corner sans dunce cap. Not that it mattered. As far as Dimitri is concerned taking any step beyond gnawing the end of the perch is only for stupid birds and he isn't one of them.
Okay, so the targeting isn't really getting us anywhere as I can't get him onto the training table to begin playing with props. Using props is a way to get the bird so enthusiastic about working with you for treats that he forgets to be scared. Yeah, right. (I'm sorry, I'm frustrated and so am writing with alot of ... frustration. I don't mean it). So he can target. He knows targeting. He's got targeting. I'll just get him used to the idea that anytime I'm in the vicinity he gets something yummy. If he doesn't want it from my hand, fine, I'll throw it in his direction. He adores millet. Who would've thought a big lumberjack of a bird like Dimitri would like millet. Anyway, when he is on the floor and heads in my direction, throw a millet bunch, or a bunch of millet. Give corn, sunflower seeds, millet, whatever he wants and is in the mood for.
But that didn't work, did it. He seemed even more afraid of me, snatching the treat and beating a hasty retreat to Timbuktu.
Patience is what is required. I know that. Lots of patience, oceans of patience, an infinity of patience. Still I would like to see some progress. I'm on holiday. I can spend time with him (and I do, taking a book and reading quietly in a chair well away from him, doing yoga first thing in the morning, making short treat trips as in the aforementioned description). I erroneously thought we'd get a wee bit closer to, if not friendship, at least acquaintances of a civil sort. Instead it's the KGB meets MOSSAD and the KGB forgot their ammo.
So what then is the new plan. R suggests I don't let him out of the cage in the morning until we've done some serious 'getting to know you, getting to know all about you'. That is one area we have made progress. He will get onto the most forward perch. Even to getting him on the forward perch was a milestone, now he gets on in less time and gets the BIG reward - freedom. R thinks yeah, but he needs to get used to my nearness and start getting hand trained. I naively thought when he was getting onto the forward perch with me on the outside that he wouldn't be able to do that without accepting my presence to some degree, but I guess his desire for freedom overrules, in this instance, his instinctive fear.
How to approach this then? His cage now sits on a table with legs and it's a little lower than the previous table. Instead of standing, perhaps I can use a chair so that a) I'm a bit more comfortable and b) I'm not looming over him like Kilimanjaro with hair. Maybe I need to be a little tougher and not be in such a big hurry not to let him out of his cage in the morning. Another 30 or 40 minutes in the cage won't hurt him. If he's in the cage, he can't injure himself. I don't have to force him to accept my presence. I can still do the advance and retreat thing. We can just be a bit more consistent. In that half hour we can have 2 or 3 or 4 short sessions. He'll still be free at the end of it.
I've just done a stint of advance and retreat from halfway up the verandah, coming through the end door instead of the middle french doors. Dimitri was actually coming to the end of the perch and even though he didn't stay there, I left the room as a reward for him staying calm.
I've vented now and feel much better. Found my patience again. Of course I have to go at his pace and there's nothing worse than being sad and upset and frustrated when I'm around him, which is why this blog is so good. I can get it all out of my system and go to him the calm, serene, loving person I really am...most of the time. NEWS FLASH: He's hanging around this end of the verandah where he can see me (at the computer). I don't have any treats. I'm sitting and not retreating but he's still coming for a look-see. Good, huh?
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