Day 12

I had a midterm test to go to today, so i had less time to interact with Pico unfortunately.

My husband was home the entire day, so Pico wasn't alone. I found out that he took another mist shower, which he absolutely loves! i haven't seen him get one of these since coming to our home, so maybe i can sneak one in tomorrow. not sure - i've read that too much showers can spark breeding aggressive behavior.

once i got home, i changed into my normal "poop-able" clothes and sat down next to Pico in his cage. I talked to him, preened his head and just kept him company. seems like he is going through a small molt since during a few preening moments, my finger accidentally touched some hard plastic shafts, which Pico didn't really enjoy and backed away with beak open. i don't blame him. i apologized each time; poor Pico.

he decided to eat dinner, so i let him be and i went to eat my own dinner.

after that, Pico seemed to wake up with a lot more energy so i set up the chair for his training session - this time, in our second bedroom just to change the scenery. i got some corn for his reward (he only gets corn now during our training session), picked him up on the wooden perch (no lunge-biting, yay!) keeping good eye contact with Pico. I brought the him closer to my side and carefully made my way to the bedroom.

we did the step ups with rewards. after a few times, it seems that he gets a little bored now because i tell him to step up with the perch and he doesn't move his foot to step on after doing a few repetitions. i've had to push gently on the lower part of his stomach near his feet and insist on a step up with a firmer voice. (he's not going to get away with not following my command). he does follow through, now mostly without attacking the perch with his beak which he used to do.

i dont know how to make our sessions a little more interesting for him. maybe bring in a favorite toy and play with that in between a few step ups?

if he continues to consistantly step up on the wooden perch without attacking it with his beak, i will start moving my hand on the perch closer to where i ask him to step up on the perch. maybe soon after that, ask him to step up on my hand... wow. when that happens without a bite, i can say that my training has paid off. :-)

after our training session, i took him to his play stand where he could chill out a bit before going to bed. he started his "huh"s and "what"s..i even think he tried to say "whats up", which is what we have been trying to teach Pico to say since coming home. cool!

great (short) day with Pico. no problems to report.

oh, we got the results from the vet (we had a whole bunch of tests done on him, being that he is a new bird) and everything turned out okay except that he had slight elevated levels of bacteria, caused by food contaminated by mice droppings. probably he was fed some contaminated food at the bird store - they have a lot of birds and probably buy their food in bulk. i have to write them an email letting them know. next week, hubby will be going to the vet to pick up some antibiotics to give to Pico. Good luck to him on administering that to his amazon! ;-)

**Note to me: I have talked to hubby about not allowing Pico to go on top of the highest arched part of his play stand. he suggested possibly making the stand shorter some how. i said maybe we should just cut that arched part off and cover the cut ends with some kind of hard plastic cover-stopper thingy. we have to do something soon.