This is a continuation of the counter-conditioning diary I started last issue. I am working with my Eclectus parrot, Kokoda, who I would like to teach to happily accept wearing a harness. In the last issue, we had made a start on the process of gradually introducing the harness to Kokoda and pairing it with some yummy treats.
To recap, my plan is to counter-condition Kokoda to the following elements of being harnessed:
- The sight of the harness
- The harness moving towards her
- The harness moving around, or near her
- Moving my hands towards her face and beak
- Placing her beak through the harness
- The wing hole of the harness going over her head, starting with the largest setting and gradually decreasing to the appropriate size
- Her wings being handled
- The harness being tightened around her midsection
Here I’m just gently moving the harness over Kokoda’s head and towards her neck. In this video, I start to gradually reduce the size of the hole she is putting her head through, as well as lowering it slightly towards her neck. At around 4:51 I lower it a little too far, or perhaps put a little too much weight on her neck, and she growls at me. This is a definite sign that I need to return to a presentation of the stimulus that she was previously comfortable with.
I start this time with the hole wider again, and then gradually make it smaller. About 3:00 minutes in, she pulls away during one repetition. You can see me hesitate to move the harness further over her head, and then again on the following repetitions I try to take it a bit slower. In this video, I am also trying to hold it over her for just slightly longer time periods. Towards the end of the video I begin to very gently let the harness touch the back of her neck, but without letting the weight of the harness actually rest on her.
For most of this video, we are working on getting her head through a significantly smaller hole, which is much closer to the head hole size (which is so small that it’s impossible to get over her head without it touching her).
Around 2:55 I place the harness on her neck and let her have the full weight, and you can see she is uncomfortable with this. So for the next repetition, I give her some of the weight but keep most on my fingers. You’ll see a bit of fiddling with the harness in this video as I am trying to position it in a way that isn’t going to put too much weight on her if I place it on her neck.
The first three or so minutes of this video aren’t great; I feel we have a few moments where Kokoda isn’t keen on what we are doing. After 3:30, things get better. In this section, I am placing the head hole of the harness over her head, which is an added layer of difficulty as the hole is quite small, especially when taking it off again.
We have progressed in this video; we are doing further work on placing the harness head hole over Kokoda’s head and then very gently placing some of the weight of the harness on her neck, gradually working up to the full weight. In this video, you can see Kokoda reaching out, stretching her neck toward me and opening her mouth to solicit more food from me. I wait until she does this in an effort to capture this behaviour, as it can be turned into her voluntarily offering her head through the harness.
In this session, I have added the use of the target stick, as I wanted to mix things up and keep Kokoda interested. Target training has a really high value to her and is a behaviour she is always happy to engage in. I have also changed reinforcers; I discovered that she is very motivated by soaked chia seeds, so I modified a syringe and began using this as her reinforcer. At this time, I noticed a very positive trend in how she responds to the harness. In this video, she is now becoming visibly excited at the presence of the harness: moving towards it, leaning towards it, and opening her mouth when she spots it. I have now started using the cues “head through” and “off”—these are cues I will use when the behaviour is complete. They will also provide her with notification that I am removing the harness. We are working on some longer duration now, with the harness hanging over her body; the soaked chia has proven to be very good for this as well. She stays nice and relaxed throughout the whole session even when I am taking the harness off.
I decided to change location and started working with Kokoda on the coffee table so that I could place the harness over her head and rest it against her back without the weight of it dragging down on her. As you can see, we have had a breakthrough—she is voluntarily sticking her head through the harness now with a lure! We are now working on longer duration with the weight of the harness on her body rather than on and off regularly. I also tried touching her wings gently during this video, as that is the next step in the process. This makes her slightly uncomfortable; she either pulls her wing away or moves away from my hand. We need to do a lot more work on this step. I ended with a couple of easy repetitions to make sure we finished on a positive note. Getting the harness back off is still a little messy and needs more work.
In this video, I am working on fading the lure for the “head through” behaviour so that it is not reliant on a lure in future, and also reducing from continuous reinforcement while the harness is on to a variable interval schedule of reinforcement. Once I start work on handling, I will be using a different reinforcer (probably sunflower seeds) for this behaviour so that I can keep the higher-value reinforcer (currently passionfruit-soaked chia seeds) specifically for counter-conditioning to handling and harness tightening. Removing the harness is slowly becoming easier as Kokoda learns how to place her head to help me remove it.
Lee Stone CPDT-KA is the owner of DogTag Dog Training in Port Hedland, Western Australia. Lee has a passion for anything animal behaviour and is working towards building a multi-species behaviour consulting business.
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Mike is an emerging animal behaviorist sitting in Minnesota in the US. He carries an MSc in social science research methods (U. of Kentucky) and brings a passion for understanding how the methods we favor shape the knowledge we privilege. Coming from careers in teaching and non-profit program evaluation, he found companion animal behavior by accident helping anxious feline friends in a unique shelter in Ohio. It is a privilege and a joy to combine these and advance the journal in this exciting time of growth.
Alexandra is a certified dog behavior consultant and holds a PhD in neuroscience. She has spent over a decade in academic research and is author of numerous scientific articles on different aspects of brain development, including olfaction, neurogenesis, and memory formation. Her work as a behavior consultant focuses on creating trusting relationships between humans and their dogs through communication, respect, and science-based knowledge. Alexandra is very dedicated to promoting more science within the dog training world. She supports dog guardians and professionals to build a solid understanding of scientific principles and provides guidance on how to apply these to life with dogs. She runs Canine Mindscape in Alicante, Spain.
I’m an Argentinean-Italian dog trainer and CSAT who spent eight amazing years in Brazil learning and working with dogs. Now based in Europe, I volunteer with the IAABC as a translator and, in my free time, help rehomed dogs settle into their new families. I love bridging languages—and hearts—between people and their dogs.
I’m a translator, editor and journalist, as well as canine educator for children and families, specialized in canine body language. I am part of the IAABC Family since 2019, as Language Director at the IAABC and Translators Team Lead at the IAABC Foundation, at the moment. I volunteer at local shelters and promote bite prevention and animal welfare at schools and events all over my country, Uruguay.
I’m a Chilean veterinarian and certified dog trainer, based in Madrid and working at a veterinary clinic. I’ve been volunteering with the IAABC and the IAABC Foundation for over seven years. In my free time, I help dogs and their guardians strengthen their bond, and I love spending quality time with my own dogs.
Master’s Degree in Natural Sciences, with a strong interest in environmental sustainability and the protection of natural ecosystems. Passionate about writing and science communication, she collaborates with multidisciplinary teams on research projects, such as Equine International, and with non-profit initiatives in the environmental and cultural fields. She is writing for different magazines, including IAABC Foundation. Her major goal is to improve horse’s welfare through behaviour research and empirical practice.
Adrienne Hovey is the copy editor for the IAABC Foundation journal and the owner of 
I believe that knowledge from a wide range of disciplines fosters a more empathetic, curious, and engaging world. I am passionate about social, environmental, and minority rights issues (both human and non-human), and this has invariably led me down the road of multi-species anthropology. Perpetually curious about the world we live in, I hope to contribute towards making the world a kinder place for all of us earthlings to live on!
Beckie Wheldon is based in England, UK, and has been supporting the IAABC Foundation Journal team as a volunteer journal content editor since early 2025. She has a BSc (Hons) Animal Behaviour and Welfare, and has recently completed a MSc Clinical Animal Behaviour. With a passion for both practical and theory, Beckie is proud to be a part of the journal submission journey and support the process of applied animal behaviour information and research getting from our writers to the readers. As her full-time career, Beckie is currently part of the UK veterinary charity, PDSA, as a Learning and Development Business Partner for Veterinary, where she supports the professional development of people in their Veterinary Hospitals. Her last position was with the rescue charity, Dogs Trust, as a Canine Behavioural Welfare Manager, where she worked on embedding evidence-based behavioural welfare best practices throughout policy and practices, with both internal and external professional stakeholders, such as the police and military. With a varied background in kennels, caregiver education, and charity dog training classes, Beckie is also an accredited Animal Training Instructor (APDT UK) and an Associate Clinical Animal Behaviourist (APBC).
Erin Jones, PhD, IAABC-ADT, CDBC, CPDT-KA, CANZ-ATI, CANZ-ABC, is the Journal Director of the IAABC Foundation Journal. She holds a PhD in Human–Animal Studies, an MSc in Anthrozoology, a PG Dip in Animal Welfare, and a BSc (Hons) in Anthropology and Psychology. An international presenter, editor, writer and mentor, Erin’s writing bridges research and practice with a focus on the intersection of philosophy, ethics and dog-centered behaviour practice. She is the author of Constructing Canine Consent and co-editor of Topics in Non/Human Coexistence and numerous academic and trade journal publications.