Angel!

We seem to have turned a corner with Angel! I think I mentioned before I got the advice to hold her every day not just from my sister but also from a book on Doves and from internet articles. Well, it didn't work for us. After two months I was just plain done. It wasn't working.

So a week or two ago I decided to try something else. Sort of the "ignore the bird" method of training ;-)

What I've been doing is taking her out of the cage and then, instead of holding her for awhile, I immediately put her down somewhere. Either the floor or the table. I put some bird seed out for her and then . . . I ignore her. For hours. We all do.

If we have to walk past her we go slowly, but otherwise, we just go about our business and pretend she's not there.

She flutters a bit if anyone walks past (like the dog). But other than that - it's working!

It's been not even 2 weeks (I think?) and already, she's calmer when I go to pick her up. She walks around on the floor and explores and then she flies up to perch someplace. She's out for hours at a time and yeah, I have a lot of poop cleaning to do when she's done, but it's not a big deal. She mostly sits in one place.

And the other day she started returning to her cage all by herself. That really made me feel good. She must think of it a her nest.

As I'm typing she's walking around behind me, eating seeds off the floor. I had put some out on a piece of paper but when she flew to the floor she spread them all over so she's getting a bit of exercise chasing down all the bits.

But I'm feeling a lot more hopeful about her. It looks like she'll be happy here after all.