- OK. OK.
- [Jamieleigh] What were you doing?
- Cuddling with Touché.
(calm music)
(soft piano)
- [Jamieleigh] What are you doing? Can I see him?
You got him to let you hold him and squeeze him?
- Yeah.
- [Jamieleigh] Oh my gosh.
(kisses)
- I didn't realize how soft he was on his neck.
- [Jamieleigh] He's adorable, Capri. Good job.
- OK, you can move, Touché, I'm cuddling Lefty.
(chuckles)
(indistinct whispers)
Love you, Lefty.
You want to play with something?
- [girl] Shoot.
(indistinct chatter and rustling)
(rustling continues)
- Hey there, and thanks for watching this series
on Touché the Indian ringneck.
Now he's one of the project birds that I've worked with
among many others. This is also Rusty, another project bird,
and it's thanks to my patrons over at Patreon.com/birdtricks
that I'm able to do this at no cost to either the rescues,
or the previous owners of these project birds.
So if you like content, like this, please consider
supporting me over on Patreon.com/birdtricks.
As those of you know, that have followed Touché's story
from the very, very beginning,
I felt super bad about when I put him in an outdoor aviary
that is beyond the yard that you're seeing right now
with this enclosure. It's beyond my porch
and in my backyard, and it's a six-foot diameter aviary,
and he went absolutely crazy,
and broke his last tailfeather.
Now, I was completely devastated over this.
I didn't expect him to be so overly-heightened
and scared by being outside.
I thought having Lefty would kind of
give him his sense of calm.
However, it was kind of the going out and coming back,
that seemed to be an issue.
So I decided to start closer to home.
So, closer to his comfort level, which is the house.
The entire house is his comfort zone.
And so when Dave set up this enclosure,
which used to be in our garage,
I put it right there on my porch,
so that the transition of taking him outside of the house
and into this enclosure, and then back again,
wasn't so crazy and wasn't such a big deal.
And as you can see, he's way happier, happier,
he's way more calm.
And I got exactly what I was looking for.
So, I wanted him to like being outside.
I didn't want it to be traumatizing.
I didn't want it to be negative.
So I just wanted to take the time to comment
about what I think this video's lesson is,
and kind of the story of Touché.
I read this really cool quote the other day
that said "Embrace your pace",
and I thought that that was so powerful
and something that all bird owners need to fully understand
and comprehend about themselves,
that your situation with your bird
needs to go at its own pace.
You can't compare it to somebody else, especially me.
I feel like people compare themselves
to how quickly I may transform a bird
and think that they're not doing enough
and that's not the case.
Every bird needs to go at its own pace
and every person needs to go at their own pace
based on what you know, what your lifestyle involves,
et cetera, et cetera. A great example, I feel like of this
is Touché versus Lefty. Lefty was entirely ready
for my six-foot diameter aviaries in my backyard.
Didn't phase him a bit.
He loved it. Touché on the other hand was not ready.
It fully, just completely annihilated his threshold,
which is what, you know, made him break his tailfeather,
and, and get really scared and made me go backwards
in not only my relationship, but the training,
and the desensitization and everything,
because I blew out that threshold.
I just think it's a really great reminder that not...
that birds and people just, they don't go at the same pace.
And so, although lefty was almost immediately cuddly,
and personable and sociable,
and everything came easier with Lefty, I would say.
Touché has his own pace and, and he was slower.
And I think that seeing the same methods used on both birds
and how it affects each one differently is really important
for you guys to see,
because this is how I figure out what that bird's pace is.
I realized I'm going at the proper pace for Lefty,
but I'm going way too fast for Touché.
So I need to bring it back with Touché,
which is hard, because for me,
I've only worked with one bird at a time.
So I've just kind of been able to keep one pace
and, and just go for it.
Having two birds and trying to work with both
at the same time and progress at the same time
has almost made me propel forward.
And then also take steps back at the same time,
because Lefty and Touché are buddies.
So I try to keep them together, and I try to use
that whole golden retriever/cheetah concept
for my advantage and for their advantage.
But sometimes it doesn't always work and it backfires.
So I just kind of want this video to, to, I guess,
stand as a reminder to all of you that embrace your pace.
You know, just accept it,
understand that baby steps are, even baby steps,
as small as they may be, if they're in the right direction,
that's progress and you don't need to be comparing yourself
to anybody else.
You need to embrace your pace and understand
that this is your journey and enjoy the journey
because that's what really counts
and making it enjoyable for yourself and your bird
versus a stressful thing, or a never-good-enough thing
or a not-fast-enough thing is unfair to both of you.
And it's something that I've had to be reminded of,
of feeling like I'm doing amazing with one bird
and not enough with the other one.
I've just been able to enjoy where each bird is at
and embrace their own pace. So, anyways,
I hope this resonates with some of you,
and I hope you guys have enjoyed seeing Touché's progress,
even though it is slightly behind Lefty's,
I'm really proud of him
in the desensitization sort of stuff
that he's been able to pull through.
You know, in some ways he's way far ahead of Lefty,
as far as his confidence around the house
and getting around and his flight skills,
and communicating to me,
I feel like Touché is a lot more clear
of a communicator than Lefty. So, you know,
Touché can fly into my bedroom to let me know
that it's bedtime and he wants to go to sleep.
Whereas Lefty's not a confident flyer quite yet.
His flights are still really short,
and he just doesn't make it that far.
So anyways, I hope you guys get a lot out of these videos,
of these journeys.
I will say that transitioning Touché to my porch enclosure
was really easy. You saw his first day in there,
he fluffed up and he was great.
What I started to do to just make it even better,
even though initially he accepted it very very well,
is I started associating that cage with bathing,
which Lefty absolutely loves.
Touché probably loves it 50% of the time
that lefty loves it.
So I, I did associate it with bathing
'cause it's not a negative thing for Touché.
And then I started associating it with meals.
So if there was any time where Touché
wouldn't step up to go outside,
I would move Lefty out first,
'cause Lefty's always excited to go out there.
I would give him breakfast, Touché would hear
and see me getting it ready.
He would see me take the dish out there.
And then he was always like, 'OK, OK, I want to go too'.
And once I really set up this routine
of this is where you get breakfast,
this is where get dinner,
and then you guys come in at night and you go to bed here,
he was super receptive.
And I can't wait for you guys to see next,
the next video with Touché about handling
and holding his feet because I get this question a lot,
of 'should you hold a small birds' feet?'
So I'm gonna show you guys what that looks like
in the next video,
but I hope you really got a lot of value out of this one.
Please let me know in the comments, if you did.
(bird squeaks)
Hey, little baby.
(bird squeaks)
(chuckles)
(bird squeaks)