After 15 months re-homed 16-yo grey finally became my friend

[LotusBloom]

After around 15 months, the 16-year old grey (CAG) that I adopted last year finally gave me a chance. I have spent quiet times by her cage. She always seemed to enjoy talking to me. When I would get near her, she would bow her head down as if she wanted me to pet her but then she would lunge and attempt to take a chunk of my skin as soon as I got within reach. I was feeling very bad for her and lately even doubting whether I did the right thing by taking her in. I wondered if she would be happier elsewhere.

 

So after a very rewarding day at work (I work with adults with disabilities who have aggression problems hence my bravery to face an unhappy african grey) in which I had been working for months with a very aggressive, vision-impaired older individual, who finally held my hand and smiled without trying to attack me, I decided that I was going to push the envelope with my unhappy grey. I put my hand in her cage but did not go near her. She kept bowing her head but I wasn't going to fall for her ruse. So then she would inch towards me, close enough to brush up against my hand, and then she would bite like nobody's business. I didn't pull back, I stayed calm, I spoke our shared phrases, and I continued to let her get it out of her system without flinching....and she can really bite hard.

 

After about 15 minutes of this grey coming up to my hand, biting me (and holding on with those bites--not just strike & bites), letting go, backing off, to return again to bite me, she climbed down to the bottom of the cage. I decided to sit on the floor and put my hand on the floor of the cage. This time she came up to my hand and was gentle with me and even nuzzled her face against my hand. She then let me pet her. She was so happy and making happy grey noises. She even regurgitated twice, went up to her bowl to eat just so she could come back down and regurgitate more for me. She let me pet her and she was so sweet. At one point she hopped on my arm so I tried to move my arm out of the cage. She stayed with me until she was about to cross the threshold of the door and hopped off, so I realized that she wasn't ready for that yet. So I just sat on the floor and pet her at the bottom of her cage. She let me pet her for a little over an hour. I will admit that she did the mating dance for me so I don't know if spring hormones are kicking in and that's why she is acting like she adores me now. Any advice would be helpful on that because she has been a terror for the longest time.

 

Last night when I spent time with her, as soon as she saw me coming, she climbed to the bottom of her cage so I sat on the floor again. She let me pet her again and she made happy grey noises. This time when she climbed on my arm, I didn't move my arm. She climbed out of the cage on her own and even sat in my lap for awhile while I pet her. Then she perched on my shoulder and even gave me gentle bird kisses. We spent about an hour and a half together. Tonight was just like last night.

 

I did tease my husband that he must have switched her out with a friendly grey because of the personality change. Does anyone have any idea why after over a year of her biting me and not letting me touch her and then 15 minutes of me still and taking her bites, she became my best friend and only on the floor? I'm almost afraid that by posting this, I will jinx the situation. Is it just because it's coming into spring soon so she's just getting frisky? Do you think she actually has accepted me and trusts me now?

 

Any information or advice would be appreciated. I have other parrots so I'm not new to the parrot world but she is my first grey. I've just never had one be so aggressive for so long and then like a light switch, change into a sweet loving bird.

 

I really hope it's because she finally trusted me, and not just because she thinks it's mating season and I'm the best looking critter around for her. lol So do you think I have reason to celebrate that I won over the love of a re-homed older grey? The last 3 nights, she was cuddlier than the cuddliest of my birds. I'm so excited but I'm afraid that I'm going to wake up one day and she will hate me again. Hopefully I'll get encouragement here but please let me know your thoughts.

 

Thanks everyone!

[Muse]

It sounds like you proved to her that you are not to be feared - by taking the bites without retaliation and remaining calm you proved that you can be trusted. Often with animals this causes an "aha" moment. You can almost see the little light come on as they realize "Wow, they didn't hit me or bite back! I guess they really don't want to harm me!" The hormones can be triggered by spring or by sudden contact. After long periods of not having love and touch in their lives, she may just be reveling in it.

 

It sounds like you do an amazing job at work, and it sounds like you are doing another amazing job with this Grey at home. Keep up the great work. I am betting that now that she trusts you, she won't go back to being mean. She may want touched less when the hormones subside but not wanting touched is often different than being mean (a lesson I have learned the hard way from our girl Megan). I hope your girl stays sweet for you.

[SRSeedBurners]

If she has that type of cuddly in her, it's in her. You've been able to reach it and will be able to again as long as you don't do anything to ban yourself.

 

I don't believe it has anything to do with mating season. Just from reading your post, is this the first time you've willed up enough courage to go for a bite and just hold it? It really sounds like to me you could have been at this place earlier had you willed yourself to take a nice hard bite. I say this from experience. I've gotten through to three abused, re-homes using the same technique. A conure, a jardines and a Caique.

 

In the case of the conure, we let him settle in for two weeks before I started to pressure him to step up. He gave me a series of nasty bites and then figured I was ok. I just sat through them without flinching.

 

The Jardines was the girl we lost. She bit the holy living tar out of me, blood and everything, at the rescue. I sat through that and she warmed up immediately after. The lady said "you're the only one that's been able to mess with her". No, I was the only one willing to take a nice bite and not flinch.

 

The Caique bit and bit and bit and lunged and went crazy and finally settled down but never really accepted me. We never brought him home.

 

You should celebrate. This isn't just a phase. She likes you and you've gotten through to her. Just don't lose hope when she 'regresses'. My Grey who is an absolute cuddle bug regresses into a nasty touch-me-not every so often. It's just their way.

[katana600]

Kudos to you for kindness, patience and perseverance. What's her name? We have an older rehomed Timneh with a similar reluctance to trust. We have had her, Gilbert, or Miss Gilbert, for four years. She has permitted head scratches while inside her cage, but she is still wary and guarded after all this time. Being low on the floor may be less threatening to your girl. I think it all depends on the personality and life experience of each individual parrot and their "new" human. It makes me so happy that you have had this breakthrough with her. Long may it last.

[birdhouse]

"Flipped a switch" is exactly how I describe Phenix' attitude adjustment during mating season. Normally, he's, well, complicated. ") We've been together for 25 yrs, but he had a checkered past before that. Wild caught & diagnosed as "terminally insane", he's come a long, long way. But he's a biter & he has trust issues. Prickly...? Yes! Cuddly...? No-o! Worth the effort...? Absolutely!!!

 

If your fid is like mine, the next month'ish would be a very good time for new advances. I think you did wonderfully by getting on the floor. There's some debate about height & dominance. I don't know what I think about that. But I feel strongly that a scared bird doesn't get any comfort from being towered over & can you really blame them?

 

I think the biting spree you endured was huge for a few reasons. You stood your ground & got a whole new classification in your grey's eyes. It also established that, at heart, she's not as mean as she might be. If you tried that w/Phenix he would have sent you to the emergency room. No exaggeration. To him, that would have read as confrontational & defiant. The longer it continued, the more he would have been frightened into an escalated response.

 

I don't let him get the last lick in a contest of wills. But it does need to be a dialogue w/him. Oh, & he's got a filthy temper once he gets going. Especially in the beginning, he'd go into a blind rage that nothing could placate. All bad when that happens.

 

Your baby is still deciding about the new flock. She only had the one home w/a parront who fed & weaned her. She's actually given you quite a bit of positive interaction since the beginning. Your relationship is probably always going to be forward & back because that's just how grey's are. They're so smart, incredibly emotional & in some ways you could swear they were almost human.

 

But they are Greys & make no mistake! That's shorthand for hard to decode. Time + Patience = Success ...thing is there's no limit to the amount of time or patience & success is relative. lol

 

You've got some very good instincts & should be pretty pleased w/both yourself & your fid at this point. It sounds like you have a lot of potential together. In the meantime, if you start to question it, you can always come here for reinforcement.

 

:cool: You're both doing an awesome job! Keep up the good work!:cool:

[LotusBloom]

Her name is Loper. I've tolerated her bites before but I never tolerated them for as long as I did the other night. Usually I've tolerated them but after a few minutes when she would be taking a break from her strikes, I would then leave her alone. I never left when she was in the middle of her bites because I did not want to teach her that her biting would make me leave but I never just stayed put until she was actually nuzzling up to me. I really think being on the floor helped a lot too which is strange because birds usually like high places. But then for the past year, she had no problem getting on the floor to challenge my dog to a fight. She would actually strut up to my dog and use body language to instigate a reaction. My poor dog is so scared of her.

 

There had always been a part of me that really thinks she gained entertainment by getting reactions from others. Especially since she loves to lure people in with this loving look, head bowed, leaning towards a person, and even talking in one of her sugary sweet voices so people pet her and then she would lunge and bite. Maybe she got bored because she wasn't getting that reaction and then realized that it was pretty nice to have nice physical interactions.

 

Either way, it's been really amazing. My husband has a cag, Chloe, and Chloe is a total lover (with him). She acts more like a cockatoo than an african grey. Maybe after Loper has spent a year watching my husband with Chloe, she decided to act more like Chloe...hard to tell. She was making the same happy grey noises that Chloe makes and being just as cuddly as Chloe. We got Chloe as a hand-raised baby so we didn't have an adjustment period with her. When we got Chloe, because of everything I read about how difficult african grey could be, when older, we decided to get a grey as a baby. Two of our birds we got as babies and 3 we got as re-homes. My other two birds that I adopted as older birds were a lot easier but then they weren't greys. In fact one of them, when I went to meet her, her owner warned me that because she hadn't been handled in awhile, she was no longer tame. Within 15-20 minutes, while still at the owner's house, I had this girl hopping up on my hand and loving with me.

 

So Loper has been the first challenging bird I've had. My cape parrot can be challenging in her own ways. She is very headstrong and can be very stubborn. She is so sweet that she will climb in my lap at night, roll onto her back and fall asleep as I pet her head and her chest. But then she can be so feisty that she will throw what seems like a temper tantrum that a 2-year old throws and she will aggressively bite me, etc. Even when my cape bites, with as huge as her beak is, it's nothing compared to when Loper has bitten me.

 

This morning, Loper climbed out of my lap to explore the floor for around a 2' foot radius around me. She also climbed on the outside of her cage for a bit and even was at the top of her cage. She maybe only spent about 5 minutes doing that but it's a start. She's also doesn't automatically hop on my hand or arm when I put it up to her so she may have never been taught to step up. For right now, I'm just letting her hop on my arm when she wants to explore and not pushing it. After we have several weeks of her climbing on me on her own, then I'll figure out if there is a way that I can teach her step up. I just don't want to push it. It took me over a year to get here so I don't want to move too fast with Loper.

 

I'm just so excited because I've always watched the wonderful relationship my husband has had with Chloe and I had always wished that I would have even half of that relationship with Loper. Plus it broke my heart to see Loper rejecting people. I figured that as long as she wasn't plucking or screaming, she wasn't that miserable but I still knew that she wasn't as happy as she had the potential to be. So now maybe she is happy.

 

It's pretty interesting too because now when she's done with me petting her, she uses gentle bites to let me know. She nibbles on my hand and is so gentle when she puts her beak on me. Such a difference from the bird who would leave bruises on my fingers and even break skin. I still don't totally trust her yet and I'm sure I will still get nailed by her but it's like she's had a total personality change and isn't even the same bird.

 

Thanks for letting me ramble on. I'm just really happy that she finally has turned things around. I would read posts from people who took a month, a few months, or even 6 months for their re-homed grey to acclimate to them so I was pretty discouraged with this girl. I was contemplating re-homing her but I was afraid that she would not do well. Her previous owner had hand-fed her since she was a baby and had her for around 15 years so I was afraid that moving her to yet another home would make her worse, since she at least hasn't regressed to the point of plucking, etc. I think if one of my local parrot friends, who I trust with birds, would have wanted her, I would have given her to one of them but I could not have passed her along to a stranger.

[judygram]

Well as they say, "good things come to those who wait" must have had greys in mind for it can take a while as you found out, grey time is slow time and you have had the patience to wait until she was ready but oh how sweet it is.

[Ray P]

I do believe that parrots of any species respect a person with self confidence. You proved yourself, so it was time to make a change.

[kins2321@yahoo.com]

LotusBloom wow! You are very patient and determined... a Greys cage is their domain! Don't stick your fingers in there...open up the cage when you are home, read books in front of cage, so they eventually climb on the door. Read books, provide cloth books to chew, and play games with family in front of cage. Once they trust you... rotate the bird to other family members. Sophie loves us all... a decade later, we can stick our fingers in her cage, but dont have too as she flies out the moment anyone is home. Nancy

[Muse]

I do believe that parrots of any species respect a person with self confidence. You proved yourself, so it was time to make a change.

 

What an excellent point, Ray! In working with wild animals, I learned many times over that they can feel fear. From an animal's point of view - if they come upon another strange animal, and it fears them, it's more likely to attack them to try to get the upper hand first. So an animal that senses fear from another creature is anticipating an attack - we, of course know for certain we would never attack them but they are certain we WILL. A calm or self confident demeanor, on the other hand, sends a signal of respect.

[chezron]

What an amazing story! You are incredible to have the strength and determination to do this with your grey. I am fairly certain that few people could tolerate the level of abuse that you did. Good for you and way to go! Please post and ramble more because we all learn from your experience! I think your lessons could help many a grey owner who may choose to give away their bird in frustration, and choose instead, to weather the storm of testing. You have my admiration.