Good vet visit, good news and good parrot

That’s excellent news, and neat that you found a vet you knew from before too.

Thank you both. Ralph had a good day today. I think he's recovered from the car ride and vet visit, but he's still not feeling 100%. He had lots of playtime, both inside and out of his cage. He wasn't too talkative and mostly made various sounds that he likes to make, including imitating the creaky cupboard door. He rested or napped a few times through the day, and was always ready to go when he finished. 

I don't think that Dr. L. (complicated name that's hard to spell) ever took care of George or Dusty the collie, but I do remember her from that vet practice. It was usually Dr. S., the senior vet in the practice who came to the house to give Dusty his cortisone shots. He sometimes took care of George but mostly it was Dr. J., the avian certified vet who handled him. Easier to abbreviate everybody's name, and nobody on the Forum would know any of these veterinarians anyway.   Dr. S. passed away several years ago and that practice was bought out and relocated. Most of the vets associated with it went to other offices, as Dr. L. and Dr. J. both did.

I don't buy the packaged cut up vegetables. The sugar snap peas are whole pods, and are packaged in store. The odd ones I got a couple weeks ago were commercially packed and were an unfamiliar brand. Sometimes they have the peas available in a bulk bin and I prefer getting them that way, but the store seldom has them in bulk anymore. I end up throwing away a lot of the pre-packaged peas because they're only flat pods with no fully formed peas inside. That's not what Ralph wants.

Ralph knows the words for a lot of the things he eats and he can say "water," but he doesn't really ask for anything by name. He usually looks in the direction of whatever he wants, and what he says is more of a graaaccckkk. The ehhhh sound applies mainly to whatever he's tired of doing or doesn't want. Either way, I understand what he means.   Willow is doing a good job of communicating too. 

I’m glad Ralph is doing much better. I also prefer the plain bulk vegetables. They don’t spoil as easily. And Willow has decided he now likes beans because I showed him how you can open the green bean and get the seed out. So kind of like Ralph.

How do you set up Ralph’s weaving stuff? Like the cable ties? I think Willow might enjoy something similar, but he doesn’t want to weave the loose items in his toy basket.

Ralph seems to have developed insomnia. At least he was awake for much of last night. At around 2 AM I heard "clunk... clunk... clunk" coming from the living room. I went in, turned the light on and there was Ralph, pushing his wooden dowels onto the floor. I picked them up, put them back and told Ralph that it wasn't time to play and to go to sleep. I went back to bed and about an hour later, I heard a crunching sound coming from the living room. Back out of bed, into the living room, switched on the light. Ralph was chewing up a popsicle stick. Again I told him it was time to sleep, not play, and we could play in the morning. I told him good night, turned off the light and went back to bed. Ralph was quiet after that. I think he was. I finally fell asleep shortly after that. He was good today, active and vocal. He did take a few naps, but I suppose he needed them after being up at night. I could have used one myself. I took a picture of Ralph this afternoon when he was playing in the dishwasher.





I also got a picture of his cable ties. I tried talking a picture from inside the cage but the cable ties didn't show up well, so here's the one taken from the outside.

Ralph was quiet all through the night last night, so maybe he slept more normally. He didn't sleep so much during the day today, just rested a few times and took one very short nap after dinner.

Since Ralph wasn't feeling well, he had been sleeping a lot during the day. I think that messed up his normal sleep pattern and it's still out of whack. What it seemed like he was doing at night is the same as he was doing in the daytime-- sleeping from a while then waking up and wanting to play. It really doesn't matter to him if it's 2 AM or 2 PM, it's all the same to him with his current sleep schedule. Unfortunately for Ralph, my days of staying up all night are long past. When my noisy former downstairs neighbors would stay up until past 3 AM, and keep me awake, I was pretty much worthless the next day. Ever since I got Ralph, he decided on a bedtime between 7 and 7:15 PM, and in the evening when he's out to play, he's still ready to go back to his cage at that time. Before he got sick he would go right to sleep. I think he still does but he doesn't sleep as long as he normally would. Eventually he'll probably get back on track.

Ralph's eyesight is remarkably good. The other night when we were playing in the kitchen, he was staring at the far wall, at a point about 9 feet away. It took me a moment to find what grabbed his attention, a tiny fruitfly on the wall. 

I hope that the picture gives you a better idea of how the cable ties are arranged for Ralph.

Hi there, handsome Ralph!!

I’m glad you’re ok.

I’m also glad I can get through to this forum again. It wasn’t coming up for a couple of days.

And yes, now I know how you hook up the cable ties and I’m going to try them for Willow. Basically if I get something for Willow and he won’t touch it or use it, it goes to Jasper to be devoured. (Not cable tues, because I don’t think Jasper would be too interested.)

I'm sorry about that, Heather! It's good for another year now. 😊

Jeez, Gary, Ralph has put you through the wringer this month! I'm so glad he seems to be on the mend, poor guy!

I can't believe the veterinary receptionists treated you so poorly, sheesh. You were trying to get help for your baby! 😳

Happy that you found a good one. Hopefully Ralph will continue his recovery with no more setbacks.