My Bluefront Amazon Is Biting

As long as the cause of the grudge isn't enforced and instead you both work together then it should be passable but will need working on.
You and your mom need to both be on the same page so you work together and your little feather bundle knows a consistent identical response from both of you. Unfortunately what you mom did really didn't go down well and little one is perhaps now afraid of this reaction and probably didn't understand the reaction and its association with the "crime" hence deciding to totally avoid your mom for doing it in the first place.
Roz is way better at the training and explaining than me by 100% she's done the parrot training courses! Better we tag her and see what she thinks and how to get around it all :) @Roz
 
choongiloonks said:
... Kupo bit my mom. My mom yelled “NO!” While placing her on her back.
Click to expand...

Using punishment comes naturally to us humans because that is what we have used for eons! Punishment is doing anything that lessens a behaviour. There is a huge fall out to using punishment... including increased fear, increased aggression, avoidance, even phobia. Plus the person doing the punishment is going to be paired with that punishment. That means the person ends up being an aversive (something the bird doesn't like).

Let's change that! What your mom can do now is pair herself with as many AWESOME experiences as possible for Kupo. So petting through the cage bars (as long as Kupo likes it) is excellent! Singing and talking to her are excellent too. Try to avoid using punishment in the future. Watch that body language and keep away from Kupo if she looks like she is likely to bite. Positively reinforce behaviour you want to see more of. Positively reinforce her step ups every time.

When you went to pick her up from her cage after your mom walked away, stepping up on you was reinforcing. Can you identify what her reinforcers were? Was it the close approximation of you? Was it you talking to her/praising her? Was it you carrying her somewhere she likes? Did you give her the choice of stepping up? (Choice is a HUGE reinforcer!). So you see reinforcers don't have to be all about food. If you can identify a reinforcer(s) you are likely to be able to repeat the scenario next time... ie. use the same reinforcers... and Kupo will likely to step up again!
 
That last thing we want is for her to fear my mom and avoid her. I keep informing my mom to pay attention to her body language.. or when her eyes are pinning and she looks a certain way I tend to back away and approach her later on when she seems calm.
I have learned a lot by just watching her and paying attention to what she does when she’s scared/excited/feeling wild or aggressive.

I always give her the option to step up, I never force Kupo to step up. But when she does I give her praise and head rubs.

So when my mother walked away and she came to my hand I took her out and said “yay Kupo gooooood girl”.

Sometimes when she’s in the cage and I ask her to step up she’ll “bite me” but not hard.. more like a test to bite me but not enough pressure to cause pain so I say “No bite” again.. then she stops and continues playing. I just take it as- she doesn’t want to be handled at that moment so I sit near her cage and talk to her, or me and mom sing to her.. and I attempt again until she’s comfortable.

A lot of times when I take her out she doesn’t want to be on my hand for long.. she prefers to fly around and sit up high most the days. Sometimes she’ll fly onto my shoulders but I don’t like her to since she’s already bit my ear a couple times for no reason. (No blood was drawn but it still hurt.) so I try to avoid that but she climbs up anyway and is almost impossible to remove unless she wants to sit somewhere else. She’ll have me going back and forth from shoulder to shoulder and won’t step up to my hand.— though your advice for treat reinforcing may actually help this a lot. So I’m going to attempt that with his as well.

But I always give her praise when she’s done good.


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Update: Yesterday I got her to step up for treats 3 times! It took a lot of patience.. everytime she tired to bite me I said “No!” And walk away into a different room to give her a few mins to calm down.
As soon as I entered the living room- the first thing she would do is fly to me each time.
Which was lovely considering I was taking that as a “I’m sorry mommy”.

The only thing is I actually don’t want her to have the habit to be on my shoulders.
She nips my ears, earrings, necklace and neck as well as my hair.. very randomly. Whenever she flys onto me I keep my head tilted to the opposite direction to keep my ears away from her reach. I also walk over to the perch and face her to it so she gets the hint and climbs off. Most times she does.. but a couple seconds afterward when I’m walking away- she flies right back onto me.

The real Question is:

Can I break this habit?
I try to keep her on my hand but she crawls up to my shoulders almost immediately. [emoji30]


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