Aviator Harnesses and training

[InTheAir]

Heyo,

We have been using an aviator harness for about 5 months. It is undoubtedly the best harness on the market, a lot of thought has been put into its design.

Our harness training quickly deviated from the method on the DVD you get with the harness.

The aviator harness comes with a 45 min DVD on how to use it. We translated it into ringneck (added food incentives), used the desensitisation techniques and then kinda gave up on the idea of him ever liking it and basically started stuffing the bird into the harness (with copious amounts of sunflower seeds). We figured that because he likes meeting new people he'd eventually associate the harness with positive things.... It is now pretty easy to stuff him into his harness, and he only growls if you inadvertently pull on a feather when you're trying to tighten it. He will perch on one persons hand while the other person puts the harness on.
He still gets very upset when he trips on the leash and attacks the harness, he preens heaps in the harness (we mainly use it on weekends, so he probably isn't at all used to the feeling).
We will probably never find a solution to the leash getting in his way occasionally and more regular time in the harness would probably desensitise him to both these issues.

The main issue we have had is that a ringneck is very small and fiddly, and so is the harness! To tighten the harness on a perch is nigh impossible without almost knocking him off his perch! I can see why they used a Macaw for the DVD! ( we have a 98g runt but another 20g probably won't make that much difference).
I am thinking that ringnecks may be the one the parrots that are the least inclined to be harness trained. Our bird tolerates it quite well, but does not like it.

I have been doing some retraining at present to see if I can get him to put the harness on willingly.. He will put his head into it for a treat, but still isn't saying 'yes, please put that on me'
Also, as we have only used the harness as a halter to keep him with us (and he is so agoraphobic we can't even perch him on a tree right by us that is fruiting!), we have started practising short flights between us in the harness to help address this. He flies between us fine, but is getting less keen to perch on random people.
From reading other forums with multiple species of smaller parrots I would highly recommend training while the bird is in a cage or enclosed space, as if your bird gets a fright while its head is through the harness it will fly away with the harness around it's neck and be terrified! In a cage you can still let the bird make the choice to come and try it. Ellie will testify this ;p

I have trained a lot of horses from scratch, and do apply some of the techniques with Nele (um not old Skool horse breaking... that is evil and unnecessary).
I have found trying to formally 'train' Nele with food to be grabbed and lifted stressed him out, whereas grabbing him and lifting him to move him from for, example a perch to my shoulder, as part of daily life doesn't phase him.
In a concentrated training session, I can 'feel' his reluctance, whereas if I just grab him at random to ..put him somewhere he usually doesn't feel' so worried. We don't train the grab anymore, and he doesn't object to being grabbed when Dave or I do (daily basis), he loosens his grip on the perch quite quickly now, and is fairly relaxed while being transferred this way.
I do quite a lot of other trick training with Nele using soley positive reinforcement techniques, and find he picks tricks up within 3-5 tries (if he doesn't then I am not explaining things properly).
But things that involve desensitisation don't seem to work in this manner and require flooding.
Any thoughts?

Claire (in the air... Yah!)

[Skyes_crew]

I can't really offer advice as I'm in a similar boat as you Claire. I'm still shopping around though. I've heard that if you start young that it is easier. My boy is 12 weeks so I'm wanting to start soon. I will wait for responses to your questions.

[InTheAir]

On reflection I think I should clarify the above post on a few points:
By 'stuffing the bird into the harness' I mean I usually perch him on my chest, where there it's less chance of flying away and he is easy to restrain if necessary, he stays perched there while the harness is fitted. In my (cynical) eyes that is 'stuffing him in'.

I don't know if other ringnecks are as tolerant, and I wouldn't recommend our method. We have an extremely easy going bird, who happily forgives us when we take liberties with him, not every bird would be so obliging. There is every possibility that if we tried this on a different bird, it would break it's trust in us and we'd be back to square one in basic taming.

As this is our first bird, we are not very refined trainers. I hope we can teach Nele to like his harness one day as we learn more. It could be that I am too impatient and expect too much too soon when I am training him.

We believe that he would suffer more harm from bring left at home alone, then from having to wear a harness, which is why we expect him to put up with it.



I can't wait to hear how you go, skye. I hope you can work out a better way than we have, and teach us!

I have thought about the possibility of getting an easier harness to put on to use as a training tool. Perhaps that could help in the initial stages? One with a detachable leash, so the bird can be at liberty (in an enclosed space and supervised, of course) may help get him used to the feeling...

[ellieelectrons]

I bought my aviator way too late and I've never had success using it although I haven't completely given up. I manage to get them to voluntarily put their head in the harness for a reward but if it doesn't come off again straight away, they completely freak out and start flying around with just the neck part on (and not the part that goes around their body)... which is very scary for all concerned. After this happens, they won't consent to putting the harness over their head any more until the fear wears off some more. At the moment, we are in hiatus with harness training. I do not know if we will ever get there... but I hope to some day.

Ellie.

[InTheAir]

Ellie: I'm so scared of Nele doing that and hurting himself! If he is in a mood where he might fly away i get him to practise in the cage. He still gets the choice of whether he participates or not, but if it goes wrong it's easier to grab him and rescue him.


If anyone is interested
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etKRisR7vgo this is a good video from goodbird inc, but she makes it look too easy lol

Claire

[ellieelectrons]

I thought the idea of doing it in the cage was interesting. However I don't like to touch them in their cage. I let them come to me. They sort of trained me to treat them that way as I would occasionally receive bites for invading their space. I also would add they're not really tolerant of me putting my hand around their back either.

Ellie.

[Skyes_crew]

What size harness did you guys buy. I think I have the right one in my amazon cart. Just checking though. Is x-small right?

[InTheAir]

Yep, if your birdy is a normal sized ringneck.

[Skyes_crew]

He is...but only 12 weeks. Will it still fit properly? Or should I just use this time to get him used to it?

[InTheAir]

I think a harness that's too big is great for initial training anyway. Aviators have got quite a small hole for the head to go through, and especially for getting it off! X-small is a little bit large on our bundle of feathers, but we still use it safely... there it's no way he could slip out of it, I just think the neck bit is a bit too long, which makes the belly strap closer to the top of his legs than I would like.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but at 12 weeks I thought his skeletal structure is close to or has finished growing and it's just muscling up and feathers that get bigger from here on in?


Claire

[Skyes_crew]

You are correct. He is the skeletal size of an adult. But the site confused me because it said petite for a small ringneck or xsmall for a full size. Not sure how much more beefing up he's gonna do lol.

[InTheAir]

Hmmm... No ideas... Our bird never beefed up since we got him at 12 weeks, but he had juvenile metabolic syndrome...
I'd go with x-small, if it's too big it's still useful for training anyway.

[ellieelectrons]

I bought whatever was recommended for a normal size ringneck and as far fit goes, although I've never had it fully on either of my birds, I think it will be fine.

Ellie.

[InTheAir]

Over the past couple weeks we have done about 5 basic harness training sessions (using bribery).
Today we put his harness on so we could take him on a little outing and he was so good about getting it on, just sat there munching on seeds. He got to see his first cow (he wasn't interested). He didn't even bite the leash when he stood on it (he usually gets really annoyed by tripping over out.

Then he was a right little rotter when we tried to get it off lol. He wouldn't stand still so I could undo it, and he kept swearing at me in ringneck! He wouldn't take treats until it was off either *sigh*. I guess we need to spend more time practising getting the dratted thing off, it's so fiddly!