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Debbie is now 5-1/2 years old! Awesome little friend…and thankfully becoming more and more trusting and trustworthy. My wife used to be her target of sorts as previously stated, well now they’re buddies! Debbie will fly over and just sit and watch my wife do nothing, lol. Fly to the bedroom door, land on the floor and call for her now. So thankful my wife didn’t give up on her! She has had a seizure at the veterinarian for nail trim…that was a few weeks ago, have seen nothing more since…trying to get her to be less scared of being handled…well, she’s a Grey…not easy, being patient, wife gets to play with her feet some and trying to make that a first step.Hoping!

I added a donation box way at the bottom of the right side of the forum. Please dont feel obligated. Its there if your so inclined.

Thanks Kevin, much appreciated. I'll make sure to donate as soon as I'm able to. Money is a bit tight right now because I'm renovating the downstairs half of the house. But as soon as I have some spare cash again then I'll send some your way. Thanks for all that you do to keep this place up and running.

I somehow missed some of these messages so just catching up now. Very sorry to hear Debbie had a seizure. That must have been scary for everyone! Things with Alfie are going well. I started some structured training with him back in November 2019 - started with 'touch' training where he has to gently touch the end of a chopstick to get a treat. If he bit too hard, no treat. This went well. He also learned to wave- he sort of knew the trick anyway but now its much more consistent. We also started trying to learn colours using an abacus style bird toy. He likes that one because he gets lots of treats! And we worked on recall training, plus returning to a perch. This really helped build back trust between the both of us and gave us a fun way to interact. Things are going really great these days. The training is still a little hit and miss sometimes- Alfie has to be in the right mood for a recall, for example. But it definitely helped improve our relationship- he lets me give him head scritches and will seek me out to come and sit with me and get up to mischief. My housemate moved out in April 2020 so poor Alfie is stuck with just me again. I think he's just making do until someone more interesting comes along. 😄 He absolutely loves my mum - pretty sure I posted about that somewhere here. He goes all gooey and lovey for her and will sit with her for aaages getting loads of head scritches. It's very cute. I'm not on that level with him but I'll take what I can get! 😂 He's also getting pretty good at letting me know when he doesn't want to step up without biting. Previously if I offered a hand/arm and he didn't want to step up then he would just bite instantly. So I used to get him to step up on a perch instead. We turned this into a training exercise too- if he stepped up nicely he got a treat. He reliably steps up on to a perch and nowadays I can offer my hand/arm and he'll either turn away or walk away if he's not ready to step up. This is his polite way of saying 'no, not yet' instead of the instant bite. I know to back off and leave him be for a bit. Sometimes if I give him a minute then come back, he'll step up fine. Other times I have to grab a treat for him or use the perch instead if I need him to move sooner rather than later. So it's going so much better than it was when I last posted in this thread.

Funny how their likes and dislikes of people change over time. Hate to hear Debbie had a seizure. Timber has been on seizure meds for about 3 years now.

I believe that Greys are no different than humans when it comes to emotions and situations that happen to us and them in our daily life We don`t all ways tell people what is going on in our life. Some times we just have to get over it. At one time or another we all end up with a stone in our shoe.

Isn't that the truth LNCAG! I've read most of the stuff on parrot body language, but Timber is very sly about it. He will definitely try to lure his victims in for a bite. Glad things are returning to normal neoow! I wonder if he had a hormonal spell...

So good to know that someone else is enduring the almost exact events...Debbie will at times fly directly at my wife, beak open! Then fly off laughing! Or come land on her arm sit for a bit, reach down nip, fly off and laugh...this just started...again...happened once before, then just quit...really no change in her environment or routine...actually travels well and adjusts to new environment when necessary. Hopefully it’s hormonal and will pass...most of the time she’s so sweet, but right now a bit unnerving.