# New Cockatiel's Behavior??



## slboling01 (May 27, 2011)

I have just gotten a 5-year old cockatiel who has had 3 previous homes that I know of and one was an abusive home where they would grab him and things like that. He is afraid of skin not just hands, but, but when I bring out a pair of dark gloves he gets very excited dancing back and forth and comes onto my finger just fine and steps up on my fingers over and over and enjoys the whole time he is out. My husband doesn't want to use gloves everytime we handle him so my question is, should I just conceed to use gloves everytime we handle him since he is already comfortable that way or should we get him used to using fingers and how? We have tried getting him out with gloves and then using hands, but that just makes him mad. We have gotten him out twice with our fingers where he bites first but then gets on our hands and he does ok stepping up on our fingers, but anytime we set him down and try to get him to step up again on our fingers, it's starting all over again. So any advice would be great and thanks!


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## KTyne (Apr 16, 2011)

I would say use gloves for now but at the same time start working on getting him used to bare hands/skin. 
I would use millet training or clicker training to start getting him used to hands. :') Use a clicker and click and treat whenever you go to get him to step up and he doesn't bite. When he does, ignore that behaviour.


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