Greetings from Cupcake's Flock!

Welcome to you and Cupcake!

Hi Aaron and Cupcake (very cute name ), welcome. You can probably teach me a thing or two about quakers! Yes, once you are at the receiving end of 'the beak' and its power, it's very easy to be scared, unfortunately...

Hello Aaron and Cupcake, I was just reading your introduction, I too am new to the site as well as a flock! We seem to share several similarities, one of which is that I too do not cut my Quaker's wings. My Quaker is known as Charlie and I have found that although he is sweet to me, he is not friendly to anyone else and I generally lock him in his cage with the arrival of visitors. Did you do anything special to get cupcake to accept other people? I often thought Charlie is more headstrong and dominant cause he can fly whereas most do not, but perhaps I'm doing something wrong?

Donna R

Hi Donna!

Getting Cupcake to accept multiple family members was somewhat complicated and honestly our approach to solving the issue was not a real precise one, but I can tell you what has worked for us.

Cupcake doesn't love non-family visitors and will not generally sit on them willingly at first, but she doesn't do anything more than make alarmed noises at their presence, unless they try to engage her, at which point they may get nipped, especially if they act afraid of her beak.  Generally if she sees that we are accepting of the visitor, she will become increasingly accepting of their presence.  So her socializing with non-family members is acceptable, but it is nothing to write home about.

She is, however, fully affectionate and comfortable with each of the three adults in the house.  It was not always this way.  As a baby, she was nice to everyone.  Then, she became strongly bonded to me and was aggressive toward my fiancee.  It took at least 6 months for this to change.  Incidentally she has always been friendly to our male roommate, and I generally tend to think it was because he and I both handled the bird calmly and assertively without any clear fear of being bitten.  But anyone that pulls back out of fear of being bitten is much more likely to be pursued aggressively by Cupcake.

To try to change the dynamic with her and my fiancee, I held back on being affectionate with the bird, while my she was laying it on thick.  She gave Cupcake attention, she gave her treats, she let her out of the cage-- essentially she did all of the things the bird liked, while I did everything the bird didn't like, like putting her in the cage, cleaning around the cage, etc.  At night, before Cupcake goes to bed, we have always scooped her up and passed her around to each person for personal goodnights.  Sometimes she hated it, but I think it has had a positive effect.  

I think it also really helped that for a while, my fiancee was not working during the day, and so she was the only one at home with the bird during the week.  They spent a lot of one-on-one time together and it was a nightmare at first, but slowly Cupcake seemed to realize her days would be a lot better if she wasn't trying to attack her caretaker.  We were concerned that once she started working again, Cupcake might revert to her previous behavior, but she hasn't, and in fact her bond with my fiancee is stronger than ever.  I would say at this point, she prefers getting head rubs from my fiancee over everyone else-- but she'll happily accept them from any of us.

Another thing we do to reinforce the nature of our relationships is multiple-person simultaneous affection.  At first all Cupcake would accept was two or more of us at the same time, standing around her talking to her, giving her affectionate eye contact, telling her she is a good bird...  Now she will actually let two of us give her kisses at the same time.  My fiancee and I will each kiss a wing and gently squeeze her between us.  She seems to really get a kick out it.  The whole point is to keep showing her that we are all loving to each other and that having a bond with one member of the house is not in ideological conflict with having a bond with another.

One thing I've learned is that the nature of your eye contact with the bird is really important.  One of the most effective ways to get them to stop doing something is to consistently respond to misbehavior with a calm, stern look in the eyes -- this must clearly contrast with how you usually look at them.  You want them to sense your disapproval but not find the event exciting in any way.  This can be hard because the tendency is to want to react when your pet bites your friend... but minimizing that exciting reaction is key.  Also, if you have a particular person that is not afraid to be persistent with Charlie, and the bites aren't too bad, try pushing him a bit.  Show him that he can't get the person to go away by biting them.  Do this frequently.  Always reward any good behavior with praise, and never stop doing that, even if behavior becomes consistently good.  Don't be discouraged by bad behavior.  Persistence is key.

I don't think that Cupcake is more behaviorally dominant because she can fly, but of course as a flighted bird she has more ways to defy us, so it can seem more overt when she does, I suppose.  I feel like she appreciates the freedom of being able to go from place to place in the house and visit with different people, but everyone needs to be trained to always be paying attention to what she is doing and where she is.  Everyone should always be trying to make an effort to encourage the bird to feel included and involved in what is going on in a group dynamic.  One could easily say it is more about human training than bird training.  

This response is kinda all over the place -- feel free to ask any specific questions about any of this you might have.  Welcome and good luck!