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Post by siobhan on May 4, 2016 13:18:14 GMT -5
There is never "enough about the parrots" around here! And if anyone tells you they've heard enough about the parrots, you should immediately stop associating with that person. You don't need that kind of negativity in your life. LOL
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Post by aaron on May 4, 2016 14:39:42 GMT -5
There is never "enough about the parrots" around here! And if anyone tells you they've heard enough about the parrots, you should immediately stop associating with that person. You don't need that kind of negativity in your life. LOL No doubt about that!!  |
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Post by Jan and Shah on May 4, 2016 16:56:54 GMT -5
I agree - I have had Shah for 10 years and I am still picking up new ideas from this forum. It is more like "cant get enough about the parrots".
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Post by cnyguy on May 4, 2016 20:47:32 GMT -5
Sometimes, there's no choice but to associate with negative people. And sometimes you have to listen to endless stories about someone's (human) children, when they have little interest in hearing about parrots. Such is life, as my grandfather used to say. Most people who know me ask how the parrots are and like to hear about them, within reason-- but I do tend to go on and on when I'm on that subject.  Around here, it's tolerated, if not expected. I wondered if Scooter might enjoy untying strings as Ralph does, so I gave her some a few days ago. She inspected them and then ignored them until today. She untied them and had a grand time chewing them. She also tolerated another misting today.  |
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Post by easttex on May 5, 2016 4:36:06 GMT -5
More than any bird I've known, Allie likes to turn wood into toothpicks. (You'll want to keep an eye on Scooter if you have wooden baseboards and door frames, as I do.) I give her lots of wood toys. She also likes one that has rolls of paper that she can pull on and tear up. They're good candidates for foraging toys, too. Allie might totally ignore one for months, and then suddenly start trying to puzzle it out. I also clip a cotton towel to the outside of her cage. She loves destroying that. I guess some birds like to construct, while others prefer to deconstruct. |
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Post by siobhan on May 5, 2016 10:15:16 GMT -5
If you have junk mail, catalogs, old phone books (or new ones; who uses a phone book these days?) anything like that, hand it over. Rocky will ignore such things some days and other days makes a right old mess ripping them to shreds and loving every minute. The tiels love to destroy paper, too. I keep threatening to hire them out to make hamster bedding.
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Post by cnyguy on May 5, 2016 20:26:36 GMT -5
who uses a phone book these days? I do. I'm old, and I'm used to doing things the old-fashioned way. I also don't own a cell phone, let alone a fancy smartphone to use to look things up-- and it's quicker to grab the old phone book than to use the Mac to log onto the internet and search for a phone number. Of course, phone books aren't as useful as they used to be, omitting residential listings altogether (with so many people ditching their landline phones, too many people wouldn't be listed anyhow). Junk mail I have plenty of. Ralph will occasionally bite out a corner of an envelope; he no longer stashes junk mail behind the sofa pillow like he used to. Maybe Scooter would enjoy tearing apart the ads for replacement windows and cemetery plots I often receive (neither of which I need). Scooter isn't much for chewing wood, I'm told; one of her favorite toys is wooden, and she's had it for years; it shows signs of being gnawed on a little, while many parrots would have demolished it in minutes. |
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Post by biteybird on May 6, 2016 3:18:26 GMT -5
Ralph will occasionally bite out a corner of an envelope; It's funny how they go for the corners. I've given many a card to people with a nice parrot bite-hole in the corner. I usually tell them why, but the good thing is that if the envelope is a bit crinkled or ripped anyway, people just assume it was Bonnie. |
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Post by cnyguy on May 6, 2016 20:21:47 GMT -5
The big news today is that Scooter invited me to give her scritches. First time since she's been here (it will be three weeks on Sunday). |
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Post by Jan and Shah on May 6, 2016 23:19:42 GMT -5
That's great news Gary. Sounds like she is finally settling in.
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Post by Angela on May 8, 2016 0:07:41 GMT -5
That's wonderful Gary!
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Post by easttex on May 8, 2016 13:18:12 GMT -5
The big news today is that Scooter invited me to give her scritches. First time since she's been here (it will be three weeks on Sunday). That didn't take long. When I picked up Allie for the first time, she had five hours in the car to study me. For the first several hours, she adamantly stayed as far away from me as she could get in her travel carrier. After that, she moved over to openly watch me. It was like she was mine and I was hers from then on. I was prepared to go all kinds of slow with her, but, for whatever reason, she didn't need that. I think she was starved for affection. She was neglected in her first home, though probably not at first, and didn't get all that much handling in her foster home. Coming from a home where she was loved, Scooter probably doesn't feel she needs to rush things as much as Allie did. |
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Post by cnyguy on May 8, 2016 19:57:44 GMT -5
A ten-minute session of scritches seems to be part of our bedtime routine now. Scooter hasn't asked for scritches at any other time, but as soon as Ralph goes into his cage after our evening playtime, she's ready and waiting. Ralph does a few wing-flapping exercises while he's waiting for Scooter and I to finish (they've been part of his regular bedtime routine for a long time). Scooter still doesn't want to come out of her cage, but that's not a problem; whenever she's ready, she can come out. George the YCA never was too comfortable out of his cage, and never wanted to go too far away from it when he was out. I suspect that Scooter will eventually be more adventurous than that-- it will just take time for her to feel ready. She does come from a good home and got plenty of attention there until recently. I think that being able to see how Ralph and I interact is helping her adjust to being here-- she watches Ralph intently from a distance, probably the first time she's seen another parrot since she was a baby.
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Post by julianna on May 9, 2016 13:22:01 GMT -5
I must say... I think you are doing an awesome job with Scooter... sounds like a lot of fun as well.
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Post by cnyguy on May 9, 2016 20:17:00 GMT -5
Thanks, julianna. Since I still don't know exactly how long she'll be with me, I'm considering her to be a houseguest, but treating her like family. I'm having to follow the same advice I sometimes give new parronts about such things as taking everything at the new parrot's pace. Today, Scooter said something new, in my voice. "Come in, get inside," she said. A few nights ago, a neighbor knocked on the door while I had Ralph out, and I needed to put Ralph back in his cage temporarily while I answered the door (my neighbor has a dog who likes to chase birds, and I didn't know if he had the dog with him or not). Ralph wasn't too interested in returning to his cage, so two or three times I said "Come on, get inside" in a normal tone of voice, before Ralph complied. Funny that Scooter would choose that as something worth repeating.  |
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Around here, it's tolerated, if not expected. 
