How to Earn a Pigeon or Doves Trust: Part 3 | Introduction to Training

[@kadenreaves1601]

Hi Eden and Tallulah! Thank you so so so much for your videos, I rescued a beautiful white pigeon about 7 months ago and at the beginning I had absolutely no idea what I was doing and expected her to immediately be my best friend and let me pick her up and pet her whenever I wanted. I quickly learned that wasn't the case and was completely lost on how to get her to even calm down enough for me to reach in her cage to clean it and feed/water her. I had become hopeless after a few months of this, resigning to the thought that I would never have a relationship with her and wondered if there was a rescue that would take her. I realized that there were no reputable rescues in my area for soft bill birds and there was no way in hell I was going to let her be left to humane society because I knew they were not equipped to give her a happy life. I started doing research and that's when I stumbled upon your videos, specifically your how to earn the trust of a pigeon or dove series. It has completely changed my relationship with her. I started having more respect for her boundaries, and patience for her fear. I started just sitting with her and talking to her and she began preening around me, and then I fed her from the food dish, then my hand, and my fingers, just as you recommended, and I never made attempts to grab her or force her to do anything. She starting getting excited when I came in the room, cooing loudly at me to come over and spend time with her. I have started target training and she eagerly follows the stick and will even run up to the cage door to take the treats right out of my fingers! I'm excited to start her stepping up training soon, but I have a couple questions for you that I'm hoping you'll take the time to answer if you see this. I'm curious when you were able to start petting Tallulah and how you knew she would be comfortable with that step? My pigeon, Lady Amalthea, will nibble at my hands sometimes but I think it is more of a search for food than it is an attempt to preen me, and I am scared that if I try to touch her, she may become wary of my hands once more. I'd love to let her out of her currently slightly cramped cage so she can roam around and we can more easily spend time together. I don't want to set back any of the progress we have made over the past couple months, and so if you have any advice, it would be greatly appreciated! My second question is, I am currently building her a large custom enclosure so that she will have more space to move and fly when I am not home and she can't be out of her cage. I have not gotten her out of her current cage since before I started following your videos, so this will be the first time in a while that she will be out and she will also be moving into a new space which I'm worried might stress her out. I'm wondering if you have any recommendations on how to make the change less stressful for her? Thank you so much again, you helped me save this beautiful birdie and provide it with a much calmer and more enriching life, and also brought a ton of peace and joy in my life. I really look forward to hearing back from you if you see this, and have a wonderful day!

[@50saphir]

your video help me with my fancy pigeon that is scare of my hands,,,

[@jerrydavis7130]

I was looking for practical training of pet using clicker and didn't find any yet. All of them are just introduction for beginners and none of them show actual training of more complex tricks. For example elephant lifting foot for examination. Your introduction is one of the better ones and very appreciated. Thanks.

[@alexfusco4419]

Tallulah is one of my pigeons names!!!! My first baby born in our flock January 9th last year!!!

[@magicschoolbusdropout7743]

Thank you so much for making these vids! I’m going to put this comment on all of your vids to help boost your videos, but you’ve helped me SO much!!! It’s hard to find sound info on pigeons, and your channel has literally saved my butt when it comes to research. Again, THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!

[@ashslayrants]

I know every bird is different, but what is a basic time frame for them to get to the point that they’re comfortable enough to begin training?

[@crumbleass]

Do you know if there is any way to train pigeons to be less aggressive to hands/people? I know its possible to teach parrots, so I was just wondering. My male (raised from 1½ months old) is very sweet and gentle at times, but he loves to pick a fight with me most the time! When I just had him (before I got him a female), he would literally dive bomb my boyfriend because my male saw me as his mate lol (thankfully that kinda stopped). He also gets too overly excited for treats, that he ends up biting the living hell out of me because he thinks I'm taking his food i think..? My female is still new, but she is very slappy with her wings towards me, so I'm just getting beat by both of them most the time lol I've tried with offering my finger/hand to them so if they preen or gently peck at it they get a treat, and if they're aggressive i don't give a treat- but as mentioned before, my male gets very excited and ends up tugging at my skin instead of being gentle.. But yeah I was thinking if you would have any idea how to treat aggressiveness?

[@animalpeople880]

It sounds like you’re living with quite the characters! The answer to that question is unfortunately a tad complicated. Can a pigeon be trained to not be aggressive. In my experience, yes, much more easily then with parrots or puppy’s actually. If you ask any pigeon person I’ve ever met, no. But I’ve also never met anyone else who tried, in fact, most people I’ve know with very aggressive pigeons actively encourage that behaviour. I’m planing to make a video discussing what I did with Tallulah, as I’m curious to learn how it works for others. In the meantime: Tallulah was aggressive in the pretty standard new pigeon ways, wing slapping and biting. But most of that was extremely short lived, after a few days of working with her she stopped wingslaping, and a bit after she stopped bitting. I also worked on training her not to play fight with me and only interact very gently. With all animals the best way to start dealing with aggression is to figure out the reason its happening. Without that you may reinforce it by accident. If they bite to get you to go away, and you stop interacting as “discouragement” your actually reinforcing the bitting. If they bite because they want to go back to the cage, and you put them in the cage for a “time out” that’s exactly what they wanted. Knowing the cause is vital to knowing what to, and not to, reinforce. I’ll take a swing at guessing what their situation is, but keep in mind I’ve never seen your guys, so I could easily be wrong as your comment isn’t much to go off. Your in the best position to observe their behaviour and figure out whats going on. I have a pigeon body language video that you may find helpful. With you’re male it sounds like excessive play fighting, almost half the people I know with pigeons have the same problem. Most commonly with human raised males as they weren’t taught social behaviour by there parents and flock, which results in a highly aggressive bird (both toward the humans and often toward other pigeons as well) much of the time. It sounds like your guy may fit into that category. But females and parent raised birds can be aggressive towards humans as well. Since he bites with or without treats present and it doesn’t sound like it’s centred around the food, more so just access to your hand. It also doesn’t sound like it’s focused in or around the cage which indicates its not territorial. Pigeons typically enjoy play fighting, they will do it with each other (they are typically far better at setting boundaries around how much is ok then we are) and they will do it with toys. Try thinking about it as you teaching him what is socially acceptable, all social animals have there own social normas that the members of the group must abide by, pigeons are no different. Not only will he be likely to have shaky pigeon social understanding from not growing up around them, he will likely also have little to know understanding of how to socially interact with humans. We’re a totally different species so he doesn’t even have instincts to help with that. You could try increasing the amount of boxing toys he has (balls, hanging bells, hanging toys, anything he can safely fight and have it move in response, extra points if it makes sounds) and keep a collection of small toys (tiny plush animals, parrot foot toys, even a sock in a pinch) and when he goes to play fight (just be sure thats what he’s trying to do, since if its motivated by something like fear or territory defending it will be counter productive) and either redirect him to playing with the toy by himself, or you two play with it together. So long as he’s keeping his beak on the toy and off your skin (at first prevent that from even being an option to make it easier on him) keep the fun going, if he nips you the fun ends. Similar to what you’ve been doing with allowing him to have treats only when he doesn’t bit you (Which is great by the way! The only thing I’d add is try giving him treats only in a small dish so he cant reach your hand, remove that option completely to allow bite-free interactions to become normal). I’ve been redirecting Tallulah when ever she wanted to play fight or was similarly hyper, and she started understanding supper quickly. Focus on teaching him that he can do that, with the toy. Its far easier to redirect behaviours in animals then it is to try and convince them not to do it at all. With your girl I’d guess her aggression is due to fear. Pretty standard for new birds, its the same reason Tallulah wingslaped in the beginning. Taking time to build trust with her one on one is likely all it will take to solve that. Just think about your interactions that result in you getting wingslapped, what happens just before, what was her body language, and what where you doing, what was happening in the room out out the window. If it happens when you reach to pick her up (especially if you’re just scooping her up) if you look at it from the point of view of a tiny bird at the bottom of the food chain, thats a very reasonable situation to freak out. Training her to step up so shes choosing to interact with you would likely help immensely. If the wingslaping only happens when shes in the cage, it’s probably territorial, in which chase training her to come to you so you don’t have to put your hands in with her to start, and train her to be ok with your hands near/in her cage would likely help as well. While your working to figure out their motivations, in the meantime the best way to stop the aggression is to remove the potential. If they bite when you reach towards them, don’t reach towards them. If you get winslaped when you clean the cage with them inside, don’t clean the cage with them inside. You don’t want to be accidentally reinforcing the aggression while you’re figuring out the best way to change the behaviour. While you can’t change their behaviour until you’ve sorted those things out, you can change yours and that’s often the best way to start.

[@crumbleass]

@@animalpeople880 Wow, thanks for the long and detailed response! You were pretty spot on with my birds' situation- however I'm not sure if he's actually play fighting or just being bossy/territorial. He definitely has certain spots (and cage) he claims as his territory which will tick him off if I touch or rustle around at it too much (which is fine!), but he also will just randomly want to fight my hand (or worse on rare occasions- my ear!) when I'm just minding my own business.. He is still gentle and sweet at times though! He likes to stand on my head or shoulders whenever I'm doing stuff around the apartment, and sometimes also even preen my ear and cheek :) About the "stopping the interaction as discouragement will reinforce biting" have I tried to work a lot with my male, multiple different times and methods (like the one I stated). It has ended with a very sore hand many times, as I wasn't sure if he would understand my hand is still my hand- even with a glove. so I went bare-hand mostly to make sure! With my first method i tried with him I would very gently and slowly approach my hand in "step up" position towards him, and not remove the hand till he stopped biting and give him a treat (and click the clicker since he's clicker trained). He has definitely loosen up after some weeks of doing that, but to be honest I don't know if it was doing anything good or bad in terms of his own boundaries, if that makes sense? Its been a few months since I last did this "training", but went onto a different method like the one i mentioned in my first comment. He also has TONS of toys and plushies to play with. Currently he's obsessed with dancing to- but also fighting a little plush duck my boyfriend bought :) I also didn't know they would fight as a play, I thought it was just pure defense? I thought I was just humanizing/Anthropomorphizing his behavior.. I know they sometimes "fight" when a male is driving a female though My female's aggresive behavior is definitely fear driven so I dont pressure her too much since she's still adjusting. However she has for sure warmed more up to me after a month of getting to know me, and is more interested to stepping up too (she knows she get treats). The other day she also finally learned to "target" too! Hopefully it will make her more confident and less fearful of me and help us bond.

[@gylfie7]

great video ! thanks for the tips :3 i can't wait to adopt my own pigeon to try it

[@animalpeople880]

Thank you! I’m glade you found it helpful

[@gylfie7]

@@animalpeople880 for a future video, do you think it'd be helpful to other people to talk about things you should avoid with your pigeon ? like, substances or movements to avoid ?

[@animalpeople880]

@@gylfie7 absolutely. I can put it on the list to make a dedicated video on the topic, but in the meantime I mention quit a few things like movements to be avoided in the body language video

[@zixeiyun786]

Can you do a video on how to comfort an injured Dove or pigeon?

[@anastasialaras68]

Can you tell me how to bond with a fearful pigeon? I rescued a pigeon who was neglected by his owner, his previous owner never interacted with him for 6 months. Now he was scared with human hands and would peck my hand whenever I approach him. My pigeon wants to eat from the palm on my hand, but other than that he don't want to do anything with me. He won't let me pet him etc. Do you have any tips for bonding ? Should I wrap him with a towel doing like training session ? Thank you !! ^^

[@animalpeople880]

Tallulah wasn’t handling and was neglected her first year if life. The series on bonding with a pigeon would be my recommendation for a fearful bird. I would strongly recommend against toweling them for any reason other then medical or to trim there nails. It's very scary and forcing them to interact that way sets a bad precedent for your interactions. I've seen lots if people recommend it but pinning down a scared animal to force them to interact is a very counterproductive way to establishing a positive relationship. Eating from your had is amazing! Since he’s doing that you can train him to step up, which is one of the best possible ways to get him comfortable with your hands and to be able to handle him.

[@guaponthepigeon7122]

Love it! Very informative!

[@animalpeople880]

So happy to hear that!

[@SphynXFlyer7]

I love your videos

[@animalpeople880]

Thank you!

[@Harukitheaesthetic]

Is it ok if i go outside with my dove

[@AElvitaDSouza]

So my pigeon i found him injured, he isnt good with human stuff (i hope you understand 😢) but i have to hold him and you can see he hates it. But i have to feed him medicine and all and also clean his wounds so he hates me i want to have a good bond with him. Any suggestions? Anybody....i just want him to be comfortable with me.

[@donuttheleo6660]

when is part 4? Or Is part 3 the end

[@animalpeople880]

I had some interruptions, but part 4 is on the way

[@donuttheleo6660]

@@animalpeople880 thank youu

[@PhilipOfLocksley]

Tallulah: Are you going to pet me or not?

[@prakashnanthur4907]

Please have bath for babies for pigeon

[@AllOfTheAbove1990]

What type of bird is she?

[@JonathanJoestarJuicefest]

Huh...I managed to get a feral fledgling nearing the end of it's squeaky days to eat from my hand. Even just seed by seed.

[@animalpeople880]

Congrats!

[@Rebeljaylyn87]

Girl. You iz PRETTY ❤❤❤❤❤

[@prakashnanthur4907]

Pl have a pigeon for babies

[@sarasohaib6765]

human needs them they dont put that in ur small mind