OK, I'm definitely not giving up!! LOL. I have thus far determined that his phobia of hands relates back to his cage and the room his cage is in. Unfortunately at the moment, I have no other room to put Sammie in! I could move him into the living room, but then Lily would have to move up here, and I couldn't do that to her...far too much stress, and she's been free and clear of her plucking habit for over a year, so I don't want to mess with that... So I ended up having to chase Sammie, or rather follow him as he ran away, all upstairs and ended up in my room... I kind of cornered him by the bathroom door, but there was plenty of space between me and the door so he wouldn't feel threatened, I layed down on the floor with my feet at my bed and my head at the wall, and I didn't let him by. I kept moving my hand towards him slowly, was probably sitting there for about 15 minutes...finally he ran up to me and snuggled in so I hugged him and started giving him scritches. He would still jump whenever a hand would start to move so I explained to him that it's OK, its just a hand, showed him, let him nibble on it, then he'd let me pet him. So I took him downstairs for some first aid assistance, since after all of his flapping around lately he broke a blood feather on each wing, the only feathers he's had come in the past 6 months....ARGH. But we stopped the bleeding and he's A-OK. So yesterday I did the same, let him out of his cage, and allowed him to divebomb to the floor and run into the hallway. It took me only 2 attempts to get him to step up, and I again took him downstairs. He allowed my mother to pick him up and play ladder games with him, and was stubborn, but let me pick him up again, lol.

 

I don't expect miracles, and I do hope that nobody thinks I'm rushing things, but I needed to find out what's scaring him (still haven't EXACTLY) and help him understand that hands won't hurt him! So I'll just keep letting him go into the hall and pick him up out there for the next few weeks until he's completely comfortable with stepping up from out there, then we'll try working in the room little bits at a time, and then with his cage. I don't want him to become cagebound on me, because that's how it was looking, he wouldn't even come out at first, I had to give a little coaxing!

Anyways, comments, suggestions are welcome, please not too much criticism...I'm stressed enough and I think whatever works is what's best, hope I'm not doing anything wrong per se.

 

CL