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Dorian is obsessed with chewing on plastic. He's constantly finding something I haven't seen before putting him down, and racing to get to it. A couple of days before NYE I'd put him down on the counter while I did the dishes. I turned my back on him for a few seconds, and when I turned around he'd gotten to a clear plastic bag that had some chocolate rosettes in it. The chocolate was old (it just hadn't made it to the garbage yet) and he'd chewed a hole in the bag and powdered some of the chocolate. I snatched him away from it, put him on his playstand, and cleaned up the little bit of chocolate he'd gotten to. He immediately took a drink of water and a big poop. Then I got on google and asked "is chocolate toxic to parrots?" The first two words I saw were "potentially fatal". That, of course, got my heart racing. First, I tried to phone his groomer because she's had parrots for decades and I trust her, but of course she wasn't home. Then I tried our vet, but they were closed for the holidays. Then I called the nearest emergency vet, but they didn't have any avian vets in over the holidays. I finally got through to a practice an hour and a half away. They gave me the phone # for a pet poison control line in the States. By now, 45 minutes has gone by, and Dorian is perfectly fine, sitting and beak grinding, but my adrenaline was in high drive. I quickly gave them my credit card info, while they consulted with their vets, after giving them his weight, and the amount of chocolate he'd ingested. They finally told me that I was fine monitoring at home, and what to look out for, like unusually green and watery poops, and lack of appetite. I hung up, and immediately offered him a walnut, which he inhaled, and after about another hour I started to relax. I felt like such a bad mommy. I also found out I'd pay whatever I needed to for someone to tell me he'd be ok. I still don't know how much it will be in Canadian $'s, but I figure minimum $150. I don't really like chocolate anymore, which is why it was on it's way to the garbage, but after this experience I'll never have it in the house again!

The picture I have in my head of watching all this go down is quiet funny. Dorian sitting there all relaxed after his delicious chocolate foray and you flustered giving out credit card numbers, calling anyone that will listen. Bad Dorian...bad bad bird. So naughty.

They do like to keep us on our toes, don't they?! I'm so glad Dorian is fine- I would have been the same and would have panicked too. Alfie also gave me a scare recently- he loves shredding up cardboard boxes. I put a box on his shelf to destroy when he was out of the cage and he was busy working away on it. I didn't realise but he had climbed inside the box and was chewing it from the inside. He then managed to tip the box off the shelf... with him still inside it. The box landed next to me on the arm of the sofa - it had probably fallen a couple of feet with him flapping inside it. I paused for a split second as I wasn't sure if he'd injured himself or how best to get him out then very carefully lifted the box and put it on the sofa so he could climb out of the hole he had made. He was fine, thankfully. I checked him over and watched him like a hawk for a while to make sure there were no signs of injury. Thankfully he landed on the soft sofa instead of the hardwood floor! I now leave boxes in his cage where he can't fall anywhere and put old magazines/catalogues on his shelves to shred. At least he can't climb inside those!