Hrund

Thank you for this input, I guess I`m just too impatient and expect too much too soon. I was just so happy with him wanting to step on my hand. I`ll just have to keep working on this

Nokkvi is less afraid of me than my boyfriend. Is it better that I train him now at the beginning or should we both do it?

I think it´s wonderful how many here are rescuing birds. Our TAG Nokkvi is 6 years old and we´ve had him for 2 and a half weeks now. I don´t know much about him but that he was a breeding bird that didn´t work out and was at the petstore for half a year before we got him. I don´t think he has been abused but not handled much. I´m practicing stepping up in the toilet every day now. He steps up on a stick and just recently on my hand. There was a setback yesterday. My boyfriend came to the toilet too and and tried to get him to step on his hand, Nokkvi got really scared and tried to get to my hands. It was not possible to get him to step up again yesterday so we had to towel him and put him to his cage. Today I tried again and got him to step on the stick but as soon as I touched him he flew off and wouldn´t step up again. I´m really sad about this, it´s such a setback. I´m also afraid that we don´t spend enough time with him but I take him to the bathroom every day and train him and talk to him a lot. He also likes to play with his toys and seems happy.

I just read your blog and I love it , I got tears in my eyes reading it. Poor Baxter what a life!! But he is in good hands now that´s for sure :cheer: . What about commenting on blogs, is that not possible?

I´ve started to blog about Nökkvi. I really like to write about him every day, it will be nice to read later. I feel it´s too much to write about him and every litle thing he does on the forum so the blog is a nice thing . I can´t wait to read yours Erika .

LOL that´s funny, your poor dog really fell for it :laugh: . Baxter sounds so amazing, I hope that Nökkvi will some day talk but if he doesn´t then that´s fine too. We let Nökkvi out again today and he went to the bathroom on his own and I went after him and after a while got him step up on the stick and then sat with him for some time and he let me touch his chest again. We are letting him out again now and I´m curious to see if he will go on his own to the bathroom or not. This is so much fun and he is such a sweet guy. One thing makes me wonder a bit. He is less afraid of me than my boyfriend but the whistles more to my boyfriend. I´ve never been able to whistle myself so I can´t answer him but my boyfriend can maybe that explains it. I really hope that he will like both of us, it would be so nice.

I loved reading about Baxter and what you´ve been able to do with him in just 6 weeks. You truly are an inspiration and give me hope that I´ll be able to do at least part of this with my little guy Nökkvi.

Thanks for the good advice everyone . We got Nökkvi to go to the bathroom earlier and were there with him, both me and my boyfriend. He went into a corner and growled at us. He seems to be less afraid of me than my boyfriend so he left the bathroom and I was alone with Nökkvi. I had a carrot and touched him with it and also with my hand. He bit me for the first time, twice on my hand not too hard and once really hard on my finger. When he bit my finger I couldn´t help it and jerked back but I brought my hand right back and didn´t take it away until he was quiet so I hope I didn´t ruin anything. I decided to try the step up and as he wasn´t to happy with my hand I used a stick from his cage. I got him to step up on it and praised him like crazy, he seemed so happy, fluffed him self all upp and started preening. He let me scratch his chest and also did this thing that he sometimes does with me, kind of like yawning but more with his neck. I´m not sure if it´s regurgicating since nothing comes up and perhaps it´s too soon for him to be in love with me :laugh: . Well anyway he was very happy and we stayed toghether for a while then I decided it was enough for now and walked with him to this playground on his cage and got him to step up from there. I´m very happy with this and tomorrow my boyfriend is going to try this again in the bathroom, I hope he will do as good for him.<br><br>Post edited by: Hrund, at: 2008/08/31 00:44

Hello and welcome I´m new here too and am trying to get my grey to bond with me too. I read somewhere a story about a man (I have a goldfish memory and can´t remember if this was here or in a book) that had this same problem. His grey bonded with his wife but was afraid of men. He changed his voice when he talked with the bird, so he sounded more like a woman. Falsetto, isn´t that what you call it in english? And spoke to the bird that way every day, in a soft low voice. He also fed it with treats and played with it and with time the bird accepted him.

Great to hear about Baxter and his progress, I love to read about him . I read in an older post that he is grumpy in the morning. I wonder if these birds are that way generally? Nökkvi is like that, I just talk to him a bit in the morning but leave him alone otherwise, he is much sweeter in the evenings.

I´m sick so I haven´t had much energy to be online and not much energy for Nökkvi either , my boyfriend has to take care of him these days. Nökkvi went on his own to the new cage two days ago and has stayed there since . The new cage is much bigger and it´s more difficult for us to reach him there but I talk to him a lot. It´s a bit more difficult also to get him to go out of the new cage but he went out himself yesterday. Right now we are trying to get him out and he doesn´t seem to want to. Things are at a standstill right now with touching him, we have stopped trying to get him to step up and are going to do things slowly and not push him too much.

Hello everyone My 6 year old TAG does not know how to step up. I´ve been reading about stepping up on this forum and everyone is talking about how vital it is. I´ve only had him for 6 days, he is pretty scared because he hasn´t been handled much in his life. He lets us touch him in his cage but growls the whole time. We let him out every evening and he is pretty happy about that and goes out of the cage himself. He sometimes lets us touch him outside the cage too but always growls a little. Both yesterday and today we tried the step up with him using a perch that is in his cage. He just becomes extremely upset and doesn´t get it. At the most he puts one foot on the perch. We cheer him on and have tried to give him dried banana which he loves but he won´t take it. I´m wondering if maybe it´s just way too soon to be teaching him this? Should we just leave him alone and wait until he is completely used to us? We don´t even try to get him to step on our hands because he is so afraid.

Yes he is still getting used to us, he is 6 years old and half tamed. I think it´s going to take a while with him. He doesn´t know many things, for instance he has no clue about stepping up, we´ve been trying with him but I don´t think it´s going to work out until he trusts us more.

Nice to hear about the way you use different languages. We will of course be careful with using the same words when teaching him something. I´m not sure about him being able to talk, he hasn´t talked at all so far only whistles and makes other sounds. If he doesn´t know how to talk by now isn´t it unlikely that he ever will?

Hello I´m new here too and think this is a wonderful place. I thinkg your Smoke looks a lot like my TAG Nökkvi, can´t wait to hear more about him .

We have put some toys in his new cage and also food. He was getting tired earlier and chose to go into his old cage. But I´m sure he will be ready to stay in the new cage soon. I also speak softly to him all the time and sing , I don´t think I´ve sang so much in years, he really seems to like my singing (probably the only one :laugh: ). I tell him he´s my friend and that he is a good boy, he is such a treasure, I couldn´t wait to go home from work today and was thinkging of him the whole day. I´ve taken some pictures of him, I hope it´s ok I put them here.

Nökkvi is so wonderful, instead of watching the tv we are watching him. He let us touch him for the first time outside the cage although he growled the whole time. He could so easily have left but didn´t. They were playing Mika on the tv and we sang along and Nökkvi really seemed to like it. We have his new cage open for him and he went inside it himself some minutes ago and is exploring it :laugh: , what a wonderful guy. He is preening in there right now. We have it open though if he wants to go out again. One thing we haven´t had much luck with is "step up". We use a stick and put it to his abdomen right above his feet but nothing happens. I don´t think he has ever been tought to do it. We also have one problem, we haven´t discovered yet what he really really likes as a reward. Well I guess we can´t expect everything to happen in just 5 days .

Thanks for all the advice:) We are always careful of locking the cats up when we let the birds out. We definently don´t want anything bad to happen. Nökkvi is out right now and is extremely happy. I took some pictures of him but of course the battery on the camera ran out after just a few pictures and I can´t put them out right away.

Hello everyone I really love this forum, there is so much information stored here. I´m trying to look at old threads so that I can use old answers. One thing I haven´t found here on the forum. I´m wondering what language to use with my TAG Nökkvi that I´ve just had for few days. I´m from Iceland and my boyfriend is from Sweden, together we speak english. We tend to speak our native languages to our animals so they hear both icelandic and swedish and sometimes english. I´m wondering if this will confuse Nökkvi? He was born in Britain and if I understand right lived there for maybe one or two years. He is 6 years old now and has lived in Iceland for the rest of the time. Should we pick just one language to talk to him in? Which language do you think would be best? Any advice welcome Hrund

Thank you everyone Nökkvi came in a rather small cage, which he of course feels safe in but is way too small for him. We got a proper cage for him and just finished putting it together . We are wondering what is the next step. He will of course have to get used to it and it´s easier for us to get close to him in the small cage. I really don´t want to rush him. I will post pictures of him as soon as it´s possible to take good pictures B)

Hello everyone My name is Hrund and I´m from Iceland. I spent almost all day yesterday reading posts in this forum and liked it so much I decided to join . Me and my boyfriend live together with 5 cats that we have had for a while, two cocatiels that we have had for two months and a Timneh grey that we have had only for 4 days. I didn´t have any previous experience of birds, had an allergy as a child that has thankfully gone away B) , my boyfriend has some experience of birds. It has been my boyfriends dream since he was a teenager to have a African grey. We got a cocatiel from a friend two months ago. We decided to get him a friend and went to a bird specialist in my town. There we saw some Congo greys that he was using for breeding, we decided to go on a list for a handfed baby. While we were there we heard a bird growling, we took a look at him and it was a Timneh grey, really scared in his cage. We asked about him and the shopowner told us his name was Nökkvi, he was 6 years old, male, half tamed. He had been brought into the country as a breeding bird a few years ago from Britain with a female but they didn´t mate so the female was sold away. The bird seemed really lonely to us and we felt sorry for it. Some days later my boyfriend went back to the store and disscussed the bird with the shopowner. He told us we could take Nökkvi home with us and give him a try, if we didn´t like him we could return him. On wednesday we took him home, I have never heard such loud screaming from anyone as when we brought him to our home. Yesterday after reading your forum I decided that I wanted to keep Nökkvi no matter what, I just couldn´t think of returning him to the store. So now he is a new memeber of our family. Nökkvi is a frightened litle bird, he growls if we get close to his cage but in four days we are able to get all the way to the cage before he starts to growl. He doesn´t bite and we are careful with him to back off so he doesn´t start. We are able to touch him in the cage, stroke his beak and the side of his head. I sing to him when I do this and he seems to like it. My heart has really gone to this bird and I hope that he will learn to trust us with time. I´m just so afraid that we will do some mistakes. I have ordered some books from Amazon and hope to learn something from them. I would be very thankful for any advice you can give me on how best to approach him. He really wants to go outside the cage but we made the mistake of letting him out the first day because he wanted to go so bad when he saw the cocatiels go out, it took us a long time to get him back in the cage and he got really frightened. We can only have the birds out for a limited time because of the cats. Well I guess this is long enough for now . Hrund<br><br>Post edited by: Hrund, at: 2008/08/24 20:57