Otto sat impatiently on my glove, eyes locked on my right hand, leaning in for his next tidbit. I quickly offered a rat leg and he grabbed it as soon as it was in reach. In his haste, his beak only snagged the edge of the tidbit. He lifted his right foot to grab the morsel, got a better grip on it, and swallowed it quickly. He set his foot down on the glove and again looked to my right hand eagerly for more.
On a scale of 1 to 10, how excited do you think I was about what just happened?
I'd say I was somewhere between 10 and 1,000. I was so excited that I literally made this face:
After several weeks of frustration with my lack of process with Otto's training, this was a huge sign that I was actually doing something right. When he lifted a foot while on glove and put his head down to manipulate his food, it showed a huge amount of trust with me. He was comfortable enough to eat while taking his eyes off of me. On the glove, no less!
It gave me some confidence that maybe Otto is starting to trust me enough to move through the next steps of our training plan.
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