lisachristine

I've had Rosie now for over a year and last week was the first week that she started playing with her toys. Now she destorys them withing a day. If I were you, I would keep offering them to her. Also, you could try to roll up fresh newspaper, shred the ends with scissors, and wedge it in between the bars. That's how she learned to shredd.

Just a quick story about yesterday when I was trying to teach my beagle/bassett mix to "speak". After about three times of repeating "speak!" followed by a bark, I hear Rosie from my livingroom bark like a dog! SOOO funny! Out smarted by the bird (the dog never did catch on). So now it's our new trick! Speak Rosie, bark, good girl!!!

Thank you both for your input. I guess it comes down to "reading your bird". I can see that too much regurgitation could be harmful, so I will keep that in mind as I go through the bonding phase. We won't make it a habit, but I also won't shun it. She's only done it once in the past year, so we should be ok....

Thanks guys.Their moods sure change from day to day. I tried to feed her another treat today and she ripped it from my and and threw it to the bottom of her cage. Maybe another day! She tries so hard to hard me, but isen't winning the battle. She maybe stubborn, but it's nothing compared to how stubborn I can be. I think that's why we're so good together!

Soooo, three days ago I decided to put a chair next to Rosie's cage so that we could have bonding time at night before we went to bed. If you haven't read my intro, basically Rosie wants nothing to do with humans or human contact. Today after work I decided to sit in the chair, ask her how her day was, and shared a cracker with her. For the first time EVER she took the cracker very softly from me. After eating it she started making WEIRD noises like maybe a cracker was stuck in her crop. For some reason I decided to put my fingers in between the bars (she would normally bite), however this time she started rubbing up agaist them and regurgitating the crackers. So is this video possibly BONDING???? Don't play with my emotions!!!

Long story short, Rosie my 4 year old rescued CAG has never learned to fly,step up, or leave her cage. After living with us for over a year now, I have decided to start handling her (I gave her the first year to get to know and trust us). The problem being that once she steps up (after sometimes taking a bite to the hand) she quickly loses balance, gets scared, and jumps. She tries to flap her wings put still lands hard and brakes blood feathers. We now use a thick blanket to cushion her fall which sometimes help. My question is, will she learn to balance by practicing or am I going to make things worse? She no longer screams when I enter her cage, so I think she's ready. Do I teach her step up first or should she learn to use her wings first?? She has suffered a long time with a horrible clipping, but now her flight feathers have grown in.

Thank you all for the kind words. I will keep you posted on her well being.

Hello all! My name is Lisa and I am a proud parent of a special CAG named Rosie. Not only am I a first time owner of this breed, but a first time owner of a rescued CAG. Yeah, I have my work cut out for me! She came to me last year at the age of three with a background of being passed from house to house. Her first owner was an elderly man that was afraid of her and used to towel her to get her in and out of her cage. Under weight and nearly plucked to death, she instantly won my heart. The first few months were full of sleepless nights, worrying if I was in over my head (she had made no progress as far as interacting with people). Whenever I approached her cage she would scream and fall to the bottom of her cage, breaking blood feathers left and right. At one point, I called my mother crying (who has had some parrot experience) because there was blood splattered all over the wall and I thought she was bleeding to death. With encouraging words, I pulled myself together and got the situation under control. Now one year later, she is 95% feathered and is in good health. Although she still won't "step-up", she has not thrown herself from her perch in four months. She has finally learned to play/shred toys and doesn't scream when the water bottle that I spray her with is near. Baby steps...I try to remind myself how far she has come to keep from getting discouraged. I want this to be her last home.