 I'm just scared that a lot of you do give up and I know a lot of you give up because I hear the stories. Those of you who went out and decided to get a bird because you thought it might be for you, I really just honestly felt that this is something you guys needed to hear. Hello my fellow Snifers, Flaters and Newbies. My name is Marlene McCohen. This is Leo. What are you getting a little mad over there? Yes, you are. And this is J-E-R-S-E-Y. I can't say her name out loud. I don't want her to know that she's on the channel. She's got a little bit of a she's not camera shy if I'm filming her and she doesn't see it, but she doesn't like being in the sit-downs. But she insisted on being up here because yes, I give my bird choices. And yes, they are part of my family. So that is how I know. Today is a really important video. As you guys know, I've been doing this for a few years and I get to know things and hear things about your troubles and things that you're having difficulty with. And so today I really just sat down and said, you know what? I want you all to know. Sometimes you just can't bond with a bird in a day. And when I say sometimes, I really mean most of the time. I know that certain videos can make training look easy and can make bonding look easy, especially some of my videos sometimes where like a bird can just take to me. That's why I thought today, maybe I should just share with you some stories of my birds and some developments, which is what I call them and how long some of those took with some of my birds. For different birds, it's different developments. When you adopt a bird, most of my birds are rescued or when you get a bird, you really want to include them in part of your family. So there is no perfect way to live with your parrot. There's just the best way for you and the best way for your bird, right? Because you're going to be like a family and you're going to be like a parent, a parent to this bird. So there's going to be things that you do differently than other people and that's going to be okay. As long as you make sure that your bird gets a really healthy diet full of lots of vegetables, some fruits and just all of the right foods and those things are taken care of and you're conscious that you don't have like a bird that is locked in a cage all day. Then we are at a good start. Let's first talk about bonding. Right off the bat, the main thing that I want you guys to know is that with some birds, some forms of bonding can take years. Some forms of development can take years. And if you're working with rescues at all, and by rescues, I mean rescues, I mean abused birds, I mean re-homed birds even, just remember that you're dealing with one of the most intelligent species of animals on the entire planet. And if you really know birds and you'll find out if you don't, they are very emotional, just like any animal is, you know, you see dogs, they're excited to see their family, birds are no different. And when they lose their family, if they were connected to their family, they absolutely feel lost. And you will see this time and time over again in feather plucking and other behaviors that indicate stress, fighting, screaming. So the chances of you getting a perfect bird off the bat is rare. And it's just one of the reasons why birds are just so, you know, re-homed because the problem starts within yourself and your patients. I know that like when I go to these mean greets, I'm able to pick up all these birds and like hug them and kiss them and just want to go into different rescues. And a lot of that has to do with me and my handling, but a lot of that has to do with how well socialized those birds are. And so because there's a lot about that that makes it look easy, I just thought I would really get into some stories with you about my birds and their slow developments. Let me just explain to you what developments are to me. So because I like to include my birds as family members, some things that are important to me that would indicate that the bird feels comfortable and feels loved and attached to somebody in the family would be that, you know, when they're on their stands, they make the choice to fly to me, you know, like maybe I'm doing something and they want to fly to me. I, you know, love that who wouldn't. When they're on their cage and maybe they want to walk to you or get off of their cage. Sometimes when a bird is new, they won't even leave their cage for a very long time. And sometimes if you have a new bird and you open the cage, they won't even get out of the cage. So you have a difficult start, right? But a lot of people take a day or take a week and then they give up on their birds and they don't really know how long certain things could take. A bird letting you give him a head scratch. That is a development that's really exciting. Some people get really emotional the first time their bird lets them scratch their head. For me, because birds are like my family in my house, that is a beautiful development that I look forward to. And sometimes you'll never get to do that with your bird and you may have to be okay with that and just provide for your bird in other ways. And if it happens, it happens. And if it doesn't, it doesn't. One thing I really want you to know is you don't have to be 100% bonded with your bird to give it the best life in the world. You always have to be working on the bond and improving the bond and the bond will grow. It will absolutely just grow. I mean, I, it's just like any regular relationship, there's just gonna be things and it's just gonna grow. So I thought I would start off by telling you about Vinny because I know you guys love Vinny. I probably should have had Vinny up here. Vinny, as you guys know, I put these subtitles to Vinny. He talks a lot. He is extremely smart. He loves to dance. He loves kisses. He loves giving me kisses. He also loves his independence. He loves playing with boxes. He loves dive bombing. He has an array of just amazing talents that he loves to display and show. But it was not day one or week one or week three or even year one that I knew about all of this. Vinny came to me through a situation where he was a lost bird and they had tried for a very long time to find the bird's home and essentially it went from person to person until I found Vinny. Now if you guys remember the story of Vinny, Vinny did let me pick him up right away and it's funny because I'll always warn people about Vinny but actually a lot of people can hold Vinny. It's just like because of a little bit of his unpredictability, like, you know, more like I feel a bite happening. No, no, no. He's fine. He's fine. As soon as I met Vinny, I was able to pick him up and I was able to put him on my shoulder and even the lady herself, she was like, oh, he might bite and I probably would guarantee knowing Vinny now that he probably did bite her. I approached Vinny from like a point of no fear and that can really help you with your bond with birds because I didn't know any better and if you don't know any better with a bird, a lot of times that's going to be your saving graze. But I don't have vivid memories of me and Vinny sitting down and him giving me kisses and coming up to my face and loving on me in the first few years the way I do now. But what I remember of Vinny is him being kind of a loner and you guys know that I practice and gauge not cage so it's not that your birds don't have cages, it's that like you're trying to provide a life where you know how to live with your birds outside of the cage, not the time that you're focused on quality time or active time exactly. Also times when your bird is just kind of living in your house, maybe you know obviously you want to give your bird a lot of attention, you guys see we play hide and seek with the birds and every morning I have a game that I love to play with Jersey and every night we're singing songs and dancing and they're all engaged and we're all finding all these little things that they like to do. But when we're not doing that I have a handle on having them on stands in the house and sometimes there's a little bit of rambunctiousness but most of the time they're pretty quiet amazing birds that like go from their cage to the stands to little different spots that I know that they have. Do they make a mess? Yeah, sometimes they make a mess especially Merlin but this is what I feel I signed up for. I'm not going to put a dog in a crate as far as their cages go they love their cages they they're open so if she wants to go in and have a nap in her cage she does but it's like her choice. It's not about what I'm able to control because I can only have for devoted hours it's I'm able to live with them in the house. Because of that Vinny had a lot of activity at this corner in the apartment I lived in it was like you know when you have an apartment that comes with a small bar that was like Vinny's bar it had a mirror he loved the mirror it had like box town literally and he would play with the boxes and then he would get bored he'd go sit on top of his cage he'd look in the mirror and he didn't really like come out to engage with me on his own initiative and when birds take their own initiative it's like another development in the bond like for example I could take Leo out and love on him and ask him to hang out but it really means a lot to me when today I was crossing the kitchen and he flew after me because he doesn't do that a lot this is very new and as you guys know I've already had Leo for like two years so I would consider that like a really good development in our bonding so basically there's a lot of things that you see Vinny do now like that he did not do with me at all I don't even know when I discovered that he could dance and when I discovered the details of the music that he liked obviously it was long ago enough that I don't remember but I don't remember discovering these things right away this was all from playing with and engaging with him and I'm still discovering new things all the time and that's the amazing thing about birds as you guys know a lot of birds will be very territorial so the first thing that you might have to get over is the hurdle of getting them off their cage maybe they'll come down maybe they'll fly off but maybe when you go to put a hand in their cage they will not come to you maybe they're aggressive maybe they're territorial that's something that Merlin was and that took about two months for me to be able to get my hand in the cage for him to come and step up maybe even a little bit longer because to be honest I wasn't logging it but I know I couldn't do it right away and then there's the aspect of giving Merlin a head scratch that didn't come right away either that wasn't something that happened in the first month that was something that you know we had to develop that trust with Merlin Leo was an amazing bird as soon as I met Leo he let me like love on him and hug him and all of that our connection was there but the way he behaved in the house was not when I brought Leo home he was I guess you would say close to a bird that maybe is acting a little bit depressed he didn't take any initiatives he barely spoke he didn't say anything and make any noises I mean till this day he's very very quiet he's just unusual for an amazon at all he liked Rocky a lot you could put him on a stand and he would be idle idle so unless you're engaged with him he would be an idle bird on a stand and he also wasn't interested in toys which can be another problem and a development that you definitely want to work on to create an independent bird and you guys should check out my video on how to create an independent bird because it's very important that they don't rely on your love because they really can become pluckers just from relying on your love so it's important that as much as you're developing the bond you're also developing their independence so Leo would just sit there and it took me some time like a year for him to make the development to like get off the cage and walk towards something and I think the first time he did that was when my friend brought a baby over and that was my friend's baby Bella because Leo loves kids which was like wow he took that initiative because it's something he really wanted by the way Tracy he's cheering that you left and then later on he started taking that initiative to hang out with me if you guys watch me on instagram you see that like sometimes I sit on the couch and that's my time with the birds at night you know if I happen to have been somewhere like on a movie set or whatever all day then I will actively come home and sit on the couch so that I can sit with all of them and watch a movie because it's a way for them to be out relaxed engaged get cuddles and then I'll also go take them to shower but a lot of the times my birds come over to me on their own they just walk over on their own like all of them and when they finally do that I know that they've kind of made it into the family Nellie and Monty now do that they can fly better now too they now come over and Leo now walks his little you know chunky self over so I mean this took like a good year and for him to fly to me that took I don't know how long it's been but like he only started flying to me very recently all sorts of different things or developments head scratches a bird flying to you a bird walking to you a bird eating with you a bird letting you pick them up a bird letting you get them off their cage a bird letting you put them back in the cage because that too like Merlin I could get him out of the cage but then for a while I couldn't get him back in the cage so I had to analyze like what can I do what can I do to make this transition a little bit easier for you there's always cases that you're gonna have to solve with birds and then sometimes you're gonna go backwards with a bird you are going to have made a mistake that you didn't know was gonna bother them until they told you until they bit you until whatever and you might go backwards with a bird or you might have invited someone over maybe a significant other and you thought the bird was going to be yours and the bird falls in love with them very common thing to happen and now your relationship has gone backwards with the bird that is not unsalvageable like you can work towards your relationship with the bird I would say that mine and Rocky's relationship has gone a little bit backward if you look at the older videos of me and Rocky I was the first person to pick him up me and my sister we were the first to be able to do that Rocky started not liking that my sister gave the dogs attention first she's very much a dog person you got like pretty mad at my sister and sometimes when you lose that bond it's like it takes work to bring it back and a lot of people use easier for them to not do that work and that's why I'm here I'm trying to tell you that if you do that work you will get your bonds back with me and Rocky I can give him had scratches when George is not there and after I went backwards with Rocky and why did I go backwards with Rocky I went backwards with Rocky because he loved George more and I let that happen I let it happen because I had other birds that needed my attention first and if he wanted to love George more and George was going to give him all that attention it made it a little bit easier for me in the house with all of the birds but if I wanted to have Rocky's attention back then what I would do is work with Rocky without George being around and he lets me scratch his head he lets me pick him up he actually listens to me better than he listens to George I'm very in tune with him I know what he wants I know what he likes to eat it's interesting because George will be like no don't do that he's not going to eat that he doesn't like that way and then I'll be like no when mommy feeds him like you'll see and then he like goes like this and then he's like uh-huh when he likes something so you know even though I'm more in tune with him that doesn't necessarily mean that I am the person that Rocky loves and that Rocky lives for keep that in mind what I want you to get out of this video is that not every relationship is perfect right away not every relationship with your bird is easy you are going to continue to make developments with your bird and I just want to inspire you to understand that that can and will happen when I got Cody I swear like you guys know Cody was a huge healer of my heart when I brought Cody home like they told me she bites and and all this stuff and you saw George he had no fear he didn't even know he's like whose bird is this so he just went and like was able to like bond with Cody right away he's letting you pet him he just like come in and pet him what's he doing here um these are bird now but by day three I think I was in bed with Cody like don't sleep with your birds that's not what I'm saying but like that bond of you know me being able to just cuddle and love on Cody happened within three days I can't do that with Merlin there's things that George can now do with Merlin that I don't do with Merlin and also that took him months to be able to do with Merlin or to know maybe more so to know that it's something that Merlin enjoys you see he like dances with Merlin and slow dances and flips him around things take time and I want you guys from this video to understand that it's might not happen in a day it might not happen a week might not happen a month might not even happen in a year sometimes certain things don't happen for two three years and then they happen it's unbelievable that doesn't mean don't work at it consistently that doesn't mean wait for it to happen it means work towards new things all the time with your birds new developments new games you're gonna find out so many different things like how did we find out that jersey likes to play hide and seek but for real you know how do we do that I mean you have to be playing actively you know someday she literally chills like a statue all day you know and you're like you got to get her into it you got to be like and I know and I use her tantrums to get her into these games and I'll say this again to one of the ways that I get my birds to get along and get them to really bond with me is by sharing with them and eating with them so what happens is when I'm eating I always have little bowls of food for them as well and also bowls of food for them to share so that they know that like no one is priority and they all you know there's nothing to fight over and nothing to fight for and then in the shower it just kind of mimics the rainforest they're tired usually I shower at night and they're kind of tired and they're chill and then eventually just by default by all of them being up there next to each other they get over themselves it really helps sometimes you're gonna have to solve the case and in this case like with Nellie and Monty you see that like they were they're each missing a toenail because of each other and I was giving them and I was told that they're okay in the same cage and they were getting aggressive and they were aggressive with me and I literally took them planning to re-home them and I just I just was like no no one's going to be able to handle this right now I gotta figure this out I gotta take time can I have a kiss oh puke puke I have seen them rumble like two football players that would not get off each other hi oh yeah you have a big hit Marlene likes the big headed ones I separated them and I gave them their own space in their own territory but covered them together so both their cages are together but in the same space and sure enough that made huge changes with them and they have jealousies and they have a lot of like ways to go in certain areas but in areas of me being able to pick them up and love them and everything is like amazing you know Monty was very very grumpy like at first glance Monty would be the kind of bird that people would think like he's difficult he bites but he's the one that like acts a certain way in the beginning you start at zero with him and then you kind of go up and then you got his love Nellie is like hi you started a hundred with her and then he found out you made this mistake and this mistake and that mistake and so a lot of it is about like finding out what mistakes you are making and adjusting but I really just made this whole video to let you guys know that bonding does not happen in a day it happens over years it continues to grow and all the developments that you want out of your bird that are important for you out of your bird they may take time you may get them you may get them sooner rather than later you may get different things than you expected but just keep on playing with them just keep on engaging with them keep on playing with them keep on entertaining them they have a lot to offer I'm just scared that a lot of you do give up and I know a lot of you give up because I hear the stories those of you went out and decided to get a bird because you thought it might be for you and you had some hurdles like don't give up like just keep working with your bird if you're absolutely not going to work with your bird then definitely find it a better place do not leave a bird locked in a cage somewhere because it's just not it like these birds like they're just loving creatures just love love and love interaction and for them to be in cages is locked up is just it's just standing idle you know right baby please I really just honestly felt that this is something you guys needed to hear I don't know if you guys will watch the whole video but for those of you who stayed thank you so much I know that you guys really care about birds really hope that you would share this with someone having a little bit of difficulty with their bird just from having like a huge Facebook group like parrot station I know that this is an ongoing problem and I just thought I'd share like little things that you know take me time everything just improves and gets better and it will and it's all about like just continuing on and remembering the goal and breakthroughs will be the best feeling there is no feeling like a breakthrough with a bird thank you guys so much if you enjoyed this information please support my Patreon come on check it out get some early access videos and access to other things I love you guys so much don't forget to subscribe hit the notification bell because a lot of you are asking me if I stop to YouTube so I think you're just not getting notified I love you guys so much by the way don't forget if you guys are looking for an amazing bird food brand for your bird that is healthy organic and not full of food colorings and sugar and peanut smash check out Marlene's signature blend I did this along with top's parrot food I encourage you guys to check out my feathered fun box it's a passion project it's a subscription box that comes with parrot toys for your bird and also special merch kind of like my dream box honestly I put so much into it I love that there's something like this for birds out in the world that's why I created it www.featheredfunbox.com I love you guys so so much thank you for listening