Originally Posted by
RedBen
A wheel sounds like a good idea! I think he'd like that, let me see if I can find one online so he can play in it instead of shaking up the cage and turning my budgies into birdshakes!
I can imagine the roaming around the room in a pattern can be instinctive as he also sometimes comes to check out the balcony door (my husband sits outside to smoke) or hops up on the couch to say hi to me and nibble at my toes (yum!). The backflips, though, in my opinion are either an addiction or stress/boredom as that's what he did in the petmarket too.
When his boxcastle is done I'll try to catch him on camera! I have to collect some stuff, maybe I can use his old cage for that too!
Regarding the backflips and naughty behavior, I was considering doing the following and I'd like to hear if you guys would think it works:
If he's naughty, I'll pick him up without any vocal or eye contact and put him in the cage until he stops being naughty. Only thing I don't want is that he associates his cage with punishment...
I think he uses the backflips as a way to tell us he wants out, so I will only let him out if he's not doing backflips, and if he does them I will wait until he stops before I let him out of the cage. Maybe he will learn that backflipping won't get him anywhere and being a good boy in his cage will.
This is what worked for my naughty rabbit who ate cables behind the TV and now knows very well that that is not allowed. Same with biting, if he bit us and we'd pull our hand, he'd know that is how he gets what he wants. To the point that he would scare my mom out of her armchair and nibble at my dad's back to force him to move, so he could pass by.
I'm not a fan of nose-tapping, neck-grabbing and voice-raising (the latter because negative attention is attention, too)
Now I know Red is not a rabbit, that's why I'd love to hear your ideas! He's not very food driven (yet?) so rewarding him with treats doesn't work as the big big world around him is way more interesting than a nut or avocado!