cockateil

Question
I have been recently been taking care of a family friends cockatiel and it acts weird. I have a cockatiel to so I have a idea of what a normal behavior is. And that bird flies BACKWARDS (I know weird!)It also hates my bird (but my bird likes her.) She loves to be taken out of the cage and loves attention from people. But when she is out of the cage she bites hard and tries to climb to your shoulder or fly backwards. To sum it up she is like a little brat! But I know her past was hard. She isn't a baby she is mature enough to lay eggs. And she was a sweet little bird, (I'm sure its what happened at her house.) So my questions is can I make her stop trying to fly away? How do I make her stop biting? Can I actually make her nice again or is she just mean for life now? Sorry if it doesn't make sense.

Answer
Hello highland dancer and thank you for your post.
I am sorry that it took so long to answer you, but I was called out on an emergency.
Backwards, huh?  That is weird and I have never heard of this.  She is not mean for the rest of her life, she can be tamed down again.  Is this a bird that you are now going to keep, or is she going back?  The reason for that question is that it will take some time to work her back to being tame again, and if she learns to trust you, then has to go back to a person that she doesn't trust, this can be very stressful for her.
To help tame her down, the first thing to do is to clip her wings.  She will soon learn that she won't be able to fly away (frontwards or backwards), and she'll be more receptive to being handled.  She may still bite for a while, but she'll learn that this won't get her anywhere.
She just needs a lot of the proper attention and POSITIVE reinforcement, and she will tame down.
As for her biting, you could try using leather gloves when handling her, but be careful.  Sometimes leather gloves will actually scare a bird, but if she doesn't get scared by them, this would be the thing to use.  
Be sure to speak to her in a calm, gentle voice.  If she bites you, and you yell, this will only reinforce the fact that she'll get a reaction out of you and you will not touch her anymore.  This is negative reinforcement, and you want to avoid that.  When she lets you handle her, praise her and give her treats.  This will help to get her trust in you.
If she doesn't like your bird, then don't force that issue.  That can have disasterous results with one of them getting hurt or worse.

Good luck and God Bless.
Dianna