Post by siobhan on Nov 23, 2015 11:45:05 GMT -5
You know Rocky has a troubled history, most of which we can only guess at, and is afraid of almost everything. He has settled in and gotten over a few of them, but not all, and we keep encountering new ones.
We have a friend who makes cat play trees on the side and they're very nice. He and Hubby made a deal for one of them, for us to provide for Rocky. They're made of fallen branches, so equally suitable for a large bird. We brought it home yesterday and Rocky absolutely went ballistic. He is terrified of the thing. I expected caution, suspicion and so on, because he's a parrot (Ringo would have been investigating it before we got it all the way inside and probably Benjy would, too). I did not expect a panic attack. He won't go anywhere near it. If he's sitting on me and I try to edge in its direction to give him a better look at it, he freaks out. Yesterday, he leaped from my arm to his cage door -- he can't fly -- when I took one tiny step that way.
I'm hoping that he'll get over this once he sees that it's just sitting there, and I stand by it (without him) and show him the toys we placed on it, and talk enthusiastically about how cool it is.
Here's the problem I thought of after seeing his reaction to the play stand: Christmas tree. If he freaked out like that over a play stand, which is admittedly big and overwhelming, what's he going to do when we drag a tree into the house? The last four years, we haven't had birds in the living room, so they didn't have to see the tree, and the dogs don't care what we do as long as the biscuits keep coming. We usually get a tree the weekend after Thanksgiving (which is this coming Thursday, non-U.S. residents) and so soon after terrifying him with the play stand, I'm afraid of what his reaction will be. The only place to put a tree is ... in the living room. Where Rocky and the Evil Play Stand are. We never get a giant tree, but even a small one is going to be a big, scary new thing. Anybody have any ideas? Not having a Christmas tree is not an option. Christmas is ratcheted back so much already, with Hubby's dad in assisted living, neither of his siblings coming home, my parents are deceased, leaving only the two of us and my brother to celebrate. Nobody has any human kids. So a tree and the tacky lighted plastic Santas we put on the porch are pretty much it. However, I don't want to give poor Rocky a heart attack.
We have a friend who makes cat play trees on the side and they're very nice. He and Hubby made a deal for one of them, for us to provide for Rocky. They're made of fallen branches, so equally suitable for a large bird. We brought it home yesterday and Rocky absolutely went ballistic. He is terrified of the thing. I expected caution, suspicion and so on, because he's a parrot (Ringo would have been investigating it before we got it all the way inside and probably Benjy would, too). I did not expect a panic attack. He won't go anywhere near it. If he's sitting on me and I try to edge in its direction to give him a better look at it, he freaks out. Yesterday, he leaped from my arm to his cage door -- he can't fly -- when I took one tiny step that way.
I'm hoping that he'll get over this once he sees that it's just sitting there, and I stand by it (without him) and show him the toys we placed on it, and talk enthusiastically about how cool it is.
Here's the problem I thought of after seeing his reaction to the play stand: Christmas tree. If he freaked out like that over a play stand, which is admittedly big and overwhelming, what's he going to do when we drag a tree into the house? The last four years, we haven't had birds in the living room, so they didn't have to see the tree, and the dogs don't care what we do as long as the biscuits keep coming. We usually get a tree the weekend after Thanksgiving (which is this coming Thursday, non-U.S. residents) and so soon after terrifying him with the play stand, I'm afraid of what his reaction will be. The only place to put a tree is ... in the living room. Where Rocky and the Evil Play Stand are. We never get a giant tree, but even a small one is going to be a big, scary new thing. Anybody have any ideas? Not having a Christmas tree is not an option. Christmas is ratcheted back so much already, with Hubby's dad in assisted living, neither of his siblings coming home, my parents are deceased, leaving only the two of us and my brother to celebrate. Nobody has any human kids. So a tree and the tacky lighted plastic Santas we put on the porch are pretty much it. However, I don't want to give poor Rocky a heart attack.
You could probably get small fake ones from the store and then return them when you were ready for the next or something 
