Nychsa

danmcq wrote: Hi there! Thank you for the welcome. I've jumped over to the Welcome room and wrote a little about our interesting environment. I look foward to chatting with everyone. Cheers! N

Hi there Everyone, I'm delighted to have found this site. My name is Terri, and I live with a beautiful 6 month old Grey named Bella, a lively little showoff Conure named Jigme (7 months) and my two greyhounds Doc and Dream. Before I brought Bella home I read myself silly on all things African Greys only to find out that the things people told me were "typical" not being the case with Bella. She is hands down the most affectionate animal I have ever had the pleasure of living with. She snuggles, purrs, and expresses her affection more then any animal I've seen. Nothing aloof about her. Even though she's only 6 months, she is jabbering away. For a baby she has a pretty good vocabulary! Several people, including my avian vet (who is a certified avian vet) told me she would more then likely not enjoy taking showers. On the contrary - she enjoys the shower tremendously. So, while I've taken information to heart, I'm not obsessing if Bella doesn't do some of the things people have told me are "typical". One thing I have noticed is she mimics the behaviors of my Conure Jigme, and of the greyhounds (while the hounds are quite gentle with the birds, I never leave them alone together). When Jigme takes a bath in his water bowl, Bella does the same in hers. When my hounds congregate around me in the morning for breakfast, Bella flies off her perch and joins them in the action. Both Bella and Jigme spend a good deal of time foraging. So, on their paytops I've made a foraging environment, hiding goodies in various places, and scattering treats among the straw on top of the playtops. I've also found that if I make little foraging cups out of dixie cups and hange them all over their cage and put different things in there, they get a bang out of digging around everywhere in their cages. Bella is curious about anything and everything, which makes teaching her things very easy. She seems to have very little fear about anything I show her. However, the only time she does get rather testy is with strangers. She has a zero tolerance policy for strange dogs, birds or people. Birds approaching the outdoor bird house (which she can see from her window) are greeted with Bella's fierce growl and wing flapping. My neighbor's little dog who came over thought for sure he would end up as a Parrot treat based upon the reception he got from Bella. And people - she growls particularly at men - even while receiving a treat! So, I'm trying to work on this, exposing her to more and more different people, people she sees me being friendly with and hopefully we can work through this! So, that's a little about us... I look forward to chatting with all of you! Cheers! Terri

Mysticode wrote: Hi, my Grey Bella and my Conure Jigme both do the contact call when I disappear from their view. Bella makes the beeping sound of the house alarm (that's what she hears when I leave the house and set the alarm), and Jigme has a cute little call that he only uses when he's calling for me. When they do it, I call their names back to them so they know I'm around. Nine times out of ten they'll simply follow me after I've called to them.