Day 4

Hubby again had school so I was home alone with Pico and the rest of our birds.

As I approached Pico, I talked to him constantly in a happy tone. He became excited (aggressive?) as usual with the tail flayed and eyes pinning and trying to get to the highest point in his cage closest to my position. I spent some time talking with him and spending time near his cage to calm him down.

about 30 - 45 mins later, i decided to get him out of his cage. i picked up the perch, opened his cage and told Pico to "step up". he got on quite quickly, and of course made a bee-line right to my hand holding the perch. i lowered the perch, gave a short, firm "NO" and a short, firm perch rumble. he backed off and i let him compose himself for about 10 seconds, then seeing that he wasnt going to lunge at my hand again, i walked to his play stand and told him to "step up" on it which he did obediently.

i stood there talking and singing to him a little more. he looked a lot calmer than yesterday. (btw, i was singing "take me out to the ball game", and thank goodness for all of you that you didnt hear it!). i gave him some pieces of cooked lasagne noodles (since we were told that he LOVES pasta) and he actually took it gently from my fingers and ate it! the last time i tried to offer him something to eat was a peanut and all he did was take it from me and promptly drop it. i was quite happy with this new turn of events.

i sat about 5 feet away from the play stand and he calmed down so much that he fell asleep on one foot with his head tucked under his feathers on his back! cute! im hoping that this "training" is going the way i think its going and one day i will be able to carry him on my hand like my husband.

a couple of hours later, he got a little hungry and started getting restless. i got him on the perch, still has the feeling of getting a piece of my hand, so i had to do the little shake and "NO" routine. he backed off and i stepped him up into his cage. i had his pellets waiting for him.

after eating, i approached his cage again and he let me scratch all over his head and the back of his neck. he seems to love that so much. talked and sung some more to calm him and he would make these "purring" sounds. i've heard that Amazons "growl" and im not sure what that sounds like, but growls and purrs can sound similar, right? i like to think it was "purring" - call it positive thinking.

anyways, it went a little less aggressive than the day before - maybe because it was not so sunny out therefore felt like it was sleep time all day. (hubby told me that Pico didnt feel like getting out of the cage for him and just kinda slept all day). he sure displayed some energy every time i went close to him (typical tail and eye reaction towards me) but his lunging to bite me was half-hearted i felt. its too early to detect if my attempts to train him are working so im tending more to the fact that the weather outside was so depressing.

one step at a time. i read a step-by-step taming process for amazons and for the first 5 days im not supposed to hold him at all....well, oops! too late. i'll just extend my interaction with him the same way for the next few days and see how Pico reacts each day. i just hope i am not scaring him and bringing out fear aggression - that would be bad. i just want to firmly set rules with him in a nonabusive and loving way so he respects me as much as i respect him. id never hurt this guy - he is too adorable (however he might want to take one or two of my fingers off!).

he has gotten to like chewing leather strips, rope and wood. at least he takes out his energy on those things and not all at once on my fingers. :-)