A pigeon’s motivation
Sometimes it’s easy to find what motivates our pets, for a lot of animals this is food or affection and sometimes the average pet owner will struggle with some animals who don’t fall into those categories.
To the untrained eye it may look like my pigeon Loki is horribly aggressive and can only think about attacking me! In reality it’s just that play fighting and wrestling are some of his favorite activities! To someone who only knows how to interact with animals who are food motivated or treat motivated a bird like Loki can be down right terrifying.
It’s especially easy to put male pigeons in the category of “aggressive and mean” but really it’s a misunderstanding of body language and communication.
Loki loves to be wrestled and to fight hands and random objects, this is because he is trying to be an impressive show off. He basically wants everyone to see how big and strong he is and play fighting is really just how he shows his immense affection for people. Loki is very intelligent and will easily try to follow most verbal or gestured commands if he thinks he will get some wrestling out of it!
Male pigeons bond with their flock mates and establish their social order in their flock by fighting and wrestling other birds. They even win wives by wrestling them and chasing them around so it makes perfect sense for a lot of pet male pigeons to enjoy fighting their humans!
So anyway what I’m saying is, sometimes the thing that motivates an animal (or a pigeon) isn’t as clear cut as cuddles and food :) you can still have a very rewarding communicative relationship with your animal and still train them commands.
