Quinn is warming up

[Casey Luria]

I hope this means there are even better things to come. Today Quinn chose to hop from his Manzanita Tree to my shoulder when I had my back turned to him. It has seemed like he is warming up to me during the last couple of days. I have been spending a lot of time with Scooter, my Amazon, in front of Quinn so that he can see that Scooter likes to eat from my hand, regurgitates for me and generally adores me. I am assuming that this has helped Quinn trust me. I was beginning to think that I had no business with African Greys. Our rescue bird kept her distance, except to take treats from me for the two years I spent with her. My husband was her human. The bird before who had a tragic accident preferred my husband too. Now I don't have the husband and was hoping to have a Grey that liked me. I guess it just takes a while, even if they are babies. I have a question too, are the young ones a bit clumsy? Quinn can manage to fly a little, they gave him a long clip at the breeders, and he does well at that but is pretty unbalanced elsewhere. He was hatched on 3/18. The bird I raised seemed to manage a lot better at this stage. He is fine on his rope swing, it is wide and doesn't he doesn't slip on it.

I also thought that part of why Quinn now trusts me more is that every time he flies to the floor, and that is frequently, my new dog runs right up to him. So far Jake has stopped when I have told him to and I pick up Quinn and put him back up on his cage. The dog won't let me out of his sight, so I am always there when this happens. Perhaps Quinn knows he is being saved even though he doesn't seem particularly afraid of the the dog. i think that the dog is curious more than anything else. this is a small Shih Poo. I still don't leave him in the room with them if I am not going to be there, even for a few minutes.

I would love to know if there are things I can do with Quinn to help him bond with me other than talking to him and trying to feed him treats, he doesn't really want anything from my hand, though he did this morning when I handed something to Scooter who did want it. I have never started from the beginning before and thought it would be faster than it has been. I do think I am making progress now, should I expect to go three steps backward?

Casey