I need advice & i know you all will hate me for it. The other day, i was playing with Mystique..my new hand trained bird i had for 1 week. She all of a sudden bit me hard & i reacted without thinking, and hit her. Now, she wont chirp and does not have the playful personality she used to. She still sits on my finger and flies to my shoulder to hang out, but she is not the same. I know, i know to never ever do that again.. but does this mean that she will never be the way she used to? Or do you think that she'll eventually build her trust for me back.. maybe? Yell at me i know, believe me i'm extremely upset with myself.. i didnt mean to do that I just did it out of instinct forgetting how tiny & precious she is and now i just feel like she will never but cute and cudly with me ever again

i know how painful bites can be, but we must not react to them. parrots are not aggressive birds of prey like a hawk, they are friendly birds. They do not attack, they defend. so if your bird is biting its 99% because of something you are doing to cause it. we, as humans, often always think we are the ones in the right, not the animal.

now, i will be honest with you....

what you did was absolutely horrible, there is no justification for it and i think you know that.

she is probally very scared now. what birds have to go through to get to our homes, they go through bird mills, ripped away from their parents months before its time, forced into crates and shipping boxes so crowded most birds never arrive alive, then they sit lonely in a pet store just waiting for a human to take them home.

they rarely trust humans and rarely have had a good experience, so for them to trust us is truly remarkable and a testiment to their courage and endurance.

She might trust you again, but it will probally take a very very long time, can you blame her? She thought she had finally found a human who loved and adored her and that human hurt her. It might very well be permanant and she might overcome it with your help.

from now on you must be extremly gentle and patient with her, she may start to bight ALOT and if she does then do not pull away gently move towards her. for example, if she bites your finger, rather than pull your finger away, which is the instinct, push it towards her, this wil cause her to release and will confuse her slightly as it is not the expected reaction and she will eventually learn her bites have no power, if you do this, and do not scream, yell, do not make any vocalizations at all when she bites, this will show her that biting you does nothing and she will give it up.

this wont happen in a week or a month even, it will take time and patience.

http://www.goodbirdinc.com/

that is a very good site with a trained professional in bird training and handling.

rtegge, I know you feel very badly for what you did and Helwa is right on with her advice and words. I wasn't even going to add my 2 cents worth but the more I think the more it is weighing on my mind.

Please understand I am not saying any of this to come down hard on you or to judge you. I can tell by your reply that you already feel bad enough.

My concern? IDK how old you are or your gender (and I am not asking you to disclose this either) BUT, if this is how you instinctively react when a budgie bites, what will you do if a toddler bites you? For some reason, in the back of my mind I am thinking you are either a teen or young adult, not yet a parent. Maybe this was just a fluke and it would never happen again but I do urge you to dig deep with in yourself and really think about this. You may be perfectly fine but you may also need anger management or something.

I would never forgive myself if I didn't speak out to this issue at this time. Maybe this is an early warning and maybe I am WAY over analyzing it. I work with kids every day and they can sure make you want to smack them sometimes. It takes a lot to remain calm and loving. You don't have to address my post publicly. I am not accusing you so you don't have to feel the need to defend yourself against me.

Please, to anyone else reading my comments, don't take this as an open invitation to jump on this poster or to start making accusations.

As for your budgie, I do hope that you are able to remain calm and loving and that the trust will be regained. Good luck

I completely agree.
Whether or not your bird will be cute & cuddly again with you is the least of your concerns. If someone 100 times bigger than you hit you, would you trust it?
You need to find a good, stable home for that bird ASAP, in which it will never be hit again. All it takes is one time to break its neck, leg, wing, etc. If you really had a knee-jerk reaction, how can you be sure this won't happen again?
Take your bird to a vet to make sure you didn't do any internal damage, find it a suitable home, then go to anger management and then think about if you can lovingly & responsibly care for a living, feeling being.

Well said C Mom. You must have been reading my mind.

rtegge, Hate is a very strong word, and I for one don't hate you.You made a HUGE mistake, probably THE worst thing I can think of other than hitting/abusing a child. You could have killed her for cripes sake!!! Or mamed her for life in some way! But at least you feel honest remorse for what you did and I would hope you would never do it again. I don't think you will...I can tell you feel like a total xx** about it.
I think if you continue to be gentle and caring with Mystique you will earn her trust back. Lots of sweet talking, and PATIENCE.
As for anger management issues IDK you well enough to judge that. DO you fly off the handle and strike before you think often?? If you do have trouble controlling your anger and lash out without even thinking, then you should find a new home for ur birds. You're very lucky you didn't kill her this time so if you do have issues..
Other than that i have to say we ALL make mistakes. So if just a fluke thing, I'm sure you learned from yours.

I agree with above posters. I've been bitten many times by my pets (all of them) and I never hit them. I use a firm no and put them back down.

Now granted, I have spanked my children if they misbehaved, but that's a different thing. And it's usually a swat to the bottom and it's usually for something extremely bad, like playing with electrical outlets or the stove. But never EVER will hit them out of anger or reaction because of something like that.

I know you feel bad, I can tell. She is going to take a while again to trust you. Start talking gently to her. Get her to trust YOU then slowly your hand.

Ok I just have to say something. First of all anyone who has ever had a dog, instinctively taps an animal on the nose or chest if the get nippy. Why? Well because if my 115 lb dog decides to bite someone he could do damage, so I head him off at the pass and smack him on the nose (not hard, just enough to surprise and distract him) or poke him in the chest a la Ceaser Milan. When I first got Nouba it took every power of self control I had not to tap her on the beak when she bit. Owning a bird and training a bird is almost the exact opposite of any other household pet. That being said, I don't think hitting a bird is a good idea, however, I don't think you should come down too hard on an obviously inexperienced owner who is at the very least trying to get advice and do the right thing. As Helwa said, be patient and extremely nice. Basically pretend like you're back at the starting point (for the rest of us at least) and have to gain her trust again... because you are and you do.
Tapping an animal on the nose for biting you, especially when you are new to the care of said animal, does not mean you have anger issues. If they lit the bird on fire, I'd be with you but in my humble degree in psychology opinion, I would say that it is a normal instinctual reaction to fight back when something is biting you. They've only had the bird for a week and at the very least instead of continually batting it about the ears (as someone did to a Too I was just reading about for enough years to cause blindness in one eye) this person is here seeking help.
I doubt any of you are perfect.

animal training really is exactly the same no matter what kind of animal it is !!!! bird, cat, rabbit, dog ... human ... its all the exact same.

positive reinforcment and behavior analysis, its scientifically proven fact, sadly the old school methods are still very popular and engrained into our society and our brains.

its instinct to tap the dog on the nose or whatever, because that is what we have been taught to do. is it effective? depends...

it might give you a result, but most certainly wont work everytime. and then what happens if the dog keeps doing, you tap harder, get angrier, emotions get hotter for both you and the dog, then the dog begins to resent its humans and becomes an angry, aggressive dog. not always, but more often than not.

the animal might do what you want, some of the time, but its doing it out of fear and resentment and mindless robotic obedience. with positive reinforcement, the animal is learning, it becomes a learned behavior, something the animal understands and knows and will perform exactly the same each and every time on cue.

i work with big angry dogs all day, also sweet cuddly dogs, the last thing id ever want to do is tap a biting angry dog in anyway or anywhere...it would certainly make a bad situation worse.

sadly though, this is the instinct, because for so long owning a pet in our society was about taming the beast, being dominant over it and breaking it down...we thought that was the only way to do it...

hitting is not a proper nor effective form of communication, whether in humans or in other animals.

when i was a little kid and i got a spanking ... did it teach me anything? no! did i do that bad behavior again, probally not, but why? not because i understood it to be wrong and not ok for me to do, but because i feared getting hit/spanked again.

there was no learning or understanding happening, only primal desire to protect myself from being hit again. we dont realize thats whats happening, but in the brain that is exactly what is happening, even if the situation seems completly minor.

Ok here's the thing. It is a scientifically proven fact that kids until the age of about 7 (depending on development) have no concept of empathy or sympathy. None. They'll feign it, because it's socially acceptable, but if you try to teach them 'don't swing the cat around by it's tail because how would you like it if i swung you around by you're leg?' they have no idea what in God's name you're talking about. They'll agree, but only because you expect it. As such it's been agreed by MANY child behavioral professionals that the best way to stop unwanted behavior in young children is to scare them out of it. They'll understand why it isn't allowed when they're older but there is no hope of them understanding it when they are young. They will pretend to understand it to make adults happy but really, they won't.
Secondly the most famed, respected dog behaviorist in the world is the one that I got the redirection thing from. Ceaser Milan encourages it? why? Well mostly because how do you positively reinforce not biting. Praise them every second they aren't biting? What if they're connecting the praise with something else like... i dunno... sitting? And then what are you supposed to do when they are biting? Ignore it and allow the dog to savage your neighbor? No, you distract them with a sharp noise if you're far away or with a tap to the nose, chest, or hindquarters if you're close.

I respect Ceaser Milan completely. He's a miracle worker and I'll do whatever he says is the right thing especially because (and i hate to keep bringing this up) with a degree in psychology it makes sense to me.

ANYway I never said it was acceptable to hit the bird I was only trying to make the point that at least they were asking for help and it's best to just offer help, not jump on them for something that... I'm sorry.... but it's instinct to hit something that's biting you. It's called fight or flight. ANYway, suggesting anger management is extreme and well... rude. And if I was that person I would never come back here for help because I would know I'm going to be jumped on and yelled at instead of helped.

no animal shelter anywhere in the world uses ceasars techniques.. why? because they are dangerous and ineffective!!! that is why his show is NOT on animal planet!!! no, serious, that is exactly why!!!

you are free to beleive as you wish, but there are many professionals who are very well reknown and revered that outshine ceasar!! he just happens to be flashy and handsome and got a tv show because he was popular amoung hollywood residents.

we do not have to agree...but ive seen both techniques being used and i know which one works.