tatdmommy

My house is under construction at the moment and looks like a big white bomb went off from the sheetrock going up recently. I also have paper taped to the floor over the wood floor and I can't vacuum right now so I think the extra messes are making me more upset than normal. Soon my roombas will be able to run around again and clean up. I also normally vacuum the whole house every day due to 2 mastiffs who shed a whole dog each daily. With the house addition done (almost) and a new baby coming in 2-6 weeks, Pongo is losing her room. Her new spot will be in the dining room. I was hoping to teach her to eat in her cage for just 1 less mess but I think even I realize it won't happen. Thanks everyone for the suggestions and comments.

I put paper down to catch poop, but with all wood floors in the house the crumbs scatter no matter what. I usually close her in the cage when she wants to go and eat or I take the food out if her door is open so she can't eat when she is out. I just don't like taking the food away from her when she is out, but I guess if it is only for a few hours at a time she will be fine.

Pongo aka Pumpkin attempts to bring her food out of the cage when her door is open. She enjoys sitting outside of her cage on her rope and eating. However I think due to the mess the food makes she should eat only in her house where the catch pan is. Is this something that I should just not ask of her? Should I just let her eat outside of her cage if she wants to?:unsure:

I think she is on her way to spitting out the words. She does that mumbling stuff in 3 different voices. If I try to talk to hubby or on the phone she gets as close as she can and mock mumbles me. She is a bit of a riot these days.

With tons of repeating of the same words, then she goes and picks up half of a song she has heard about 6 times and whistles it perfectly?? Is she a smart ass or what? I know whistling is easier than words but come on. I have been doing the same words for 8+ months, lmao. Maybe for the last month I have played the song periodically.:silly:

Ok, thanks. I believe we are going to Holland and we live in California. We will be traveling with a 1-2 month old baby and a 10 year old also. Taking the bird would be very hard on top of taking the kids. I may take her if we go for more than a month but we will see. I am just not sure I will be able to handle it all and get my work done. Thanks! I am glad to hear she will remember me, lol.

Early next year myself, my hubby and kids will probably have to go to Europe for an extended period of time. A month or maybe more. When I got Pumpkin aka Monk I never thought anything like this would happen. This is job related, so its a must that we go, hubby owns the business and I am his employee, lol. What can I do with her? I can't take her I don't believe. Leave her with a vet or someone at my home? Has anyone else had to do this? Will she still like me when I come back?? :dry: We have taken 2 3 day trips and she does well with that, but a month makes me nervous.

Normally she is so mellow, calm, sweet and just plain cute. Throw in some occasional raptor on the toys and that's her life. Well today she has been spinning circles on the rope with the head trick and some raptor. The other day she went ape shi* on her water bowl, so I took full advantage and put her in the shower and she took a " I want to take a bath" kind of bath vs me just giving her one. Perhaps at 1 she is coming into her personality a bit. She also enjoys mumbling in a low tone when I speak to my husband, little monster. I call her looney bin bird, I guess it fits her quite well. HAH

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lucian2005/ I am not so good at posting pics but the first 6 photo's on there are of her new antics. She flips upside down on the rope, then puts her head between her feet and wedges her head in there until one foot falls off then she reaches up and chews on the remaining foot that is holding onto the rope. This seems a little dangerous to me. I think she may have finally lost her mind LMAO. She also throws in a little upside down swinging, wing flapping raptor also. Does anyone's parrot also do this?

Thanks everyone. I read a ton about this last night. It's a lot of paperwork and permits. Probably more than I really want to take on for a 7-10 day vacation. I know I will relax more if she is home, but when we are gone I do worry about my daughter and the mastiffs. Now I can worry about my daughter, mastiffs and bird. We may just stay home. I read somewhere when I was initially looking at getting a bird that you shouldn't leave them for their first year with you or first year they were alive, I don't remember which way it went. I can probably wait to go on vacation until next year, but I have this huge itch in my pants to JUST GO AWAY. I am sure everyone can identify with the it's time to go itch. Thanks again everyone.

I am thinking about maybe going to Mexico on vacation with my hubby maybe even spend a Summer down there. I would like to take Pumpkin with us. Has anyone ever done this? I have read that the government isn't advising against taking birds to Mexico like they were in previous years. They have changed some of the rules when you enter the US. It still involves seeing a vet upon re-entry to the US, paying a bunch of fee's and a 30 day home quarantine. After reading the USDA site it does seem like a chore. Has anyone left their bird with a sitter after having it for about 6 months? She really loves women and I think she would be ok if a woman took care of her, I just don't want her to freak that Momma isn't here. We haven't been on vacation in over 2 years and I just want to get away....I need a beach, no responsibilities (well limited), alcohol and a maid.:evil:<br><br>Post edited by: tatdmommy, at: 2009/01/28 06:12

Thanks everyone for all the responses. I am glad my shower is getting some love. I worried I was over personalizing the shower and bathroom. I am a pottery barn wh*re. I love their stuff. I sorta copied the floor design from a catalog of theirs. Picking colors and making sure everything would tie together was the hard part. My contractor took me out to buy white tile....haha. Much to his dismay I was able to do this shower for very minimal cost. Thanks again everyone!

Thanks Dave! I appreciate the time you took to write that response. I will look for a humidifier and get a squirt bottle. Let the battles begin. lol She probably won't talk to me for a week. Here is a tricky one for ya. We have soft water does that make any difference on birds skin? I know it does wonders on ours.

Thanks Lisa. She doesn't get to use our shower. LOL When I take a shower in there she sits on the door and make holes in the towels. She gets to shower in my daughters bathroom since it has a shower curtain rod for her to sit on and a hand held shower for me to spray her. It also has a cool Ikea rack for hanging towels on the wall in the shower, which doubles as an awesome perch. Pumpkin has let me spray her on the back a few times, but it just rolls off. I can't manage to hold the sprayer fend her off from jumping on me and move her feathers at the same time. Maybe after this becomes a daily or every other day routine she will "just get use to it!". :evil: I absolutely love and hate my shower. I designed the shower, omg my brain almost melted figuring out what I wanted to do in that bathroom design wise. Travertine is great but a lot of work. I had to spend many hours spread out over 3 days to strip it, clean it a few times, let it dry and then re-seal it. That was hell on earth. Plus I didn't get to shower in there for 3 days, I went through withdrawls. I do love the double shower head design it saves time when hubby and I are both getting ready. Thanks for the compliments on my daughter and my ponies. They are big but they are sweet as pie. The grey one is stupid as a rock, I call him special Ed a lot.

Hubby is having a hard time with allergies recently. He thinks it's the bird, since she is the newest addition to the two dogs and cat we have. He is taking a daily allergy pill but has had allergies that flair up for many years. He gets hives and can't breathe through his nose at night. Once or twice his face swelled up pretty bad but that was from swimming in a pool with pollen on the top of the water. We have 80% hardwood floors in our house and the rest of the flooring is travertine. No area rugs to speak of. I dust pretty often. I vacuum/sweep 1-5 times a day depending on the bird mess or dog mess. I also have the roomba's run around. I am bathing her more often now that he is having stuffed up nose issue's. Before his allergies getting mad I was bathing her about 3 times a week. Here come the questions. Pumpkin doesn't appreciate getting wet. She will let me wet her feet and her front a little bit but that's it. I usually steam her about 30 minutes. Is that as effective as a bath? I don't see dander on my cloths or anywhere else. I usually only see things fly when she is preening and does some shaking during/after the preening. If she had bad dander wouldn't I be able to see it on my clothes? I also clean her cage 1-3 times a day and totally take it apart and clean it every two weeks. We are looking at the getting one of these filters for the house to maybe help him. http://www.rabbitair.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=49 Does anyone have one of these filters? If so do you like it? We also have a special filtration system already on our heating and cooling system that helps with dust and allergies. My daughter had severe allergy related asthma when she was younger, she is doing much better now though. I also have allergies and some flonase fixes me right up. Sorry if I am all over the place with my post, lol. If anyone has any other suggestions of what else I can do to keep things cleaner please let me know. Thanks! Heather (self proclaimed neat freak)<br><br>Post edited by: tatdmommy, at: 2009/01/20 03:28

Thanks everyone for sharing. I feel better that I am doing an ok job spending time with her. She is happy, I think. She whistles and screams a little, attacks her toys multiple times a day and does this funky birdie babble. Soon she will just spit out some words I think, I hope. LOL

No, I was serious. I have looked all over the internet, I will admit I am not the best googler in the world. But I have looked and looked to find what is the typical amount of time people spend holding and petting their birds. She always seems to want more. Perhaps that is the nature of the beast. She will track me down to get more head scratches and chin rubs. So I wondered if I was somehow not supplying enough "time" to her. Sorry Dave I cannot take on anymore animals. I have the 2 mastiffs, the cat and the bird at this point. I am spread a little thin and out of space in my house. I also have a soon to be "tween" and a husband. LOL Hubby did say to me when I posed this same question to him that I was a little nutty. He said " most people leave and go to work and are gone at least 10 hours a day, you are home all day with her". Ok maybe I am nuts...:whistle:

I work from home and I have her cage open pretty much all day unless I am up and about. She hangs out on the back of the couch and looks out the window and harasses the cat at the same time. She gets to shower and steam pretty often too. She sits on me probably 2-10 times a day messing with my hair or getting head scratches. She walks around and visits her boyfriend who lives in the oven door (her reflection). I take her outside in her travel cage for some sun and to scream her head off at the other birds. I also move her cage into pretty much any room that I am in. She seems to like to have me in her view. She chirps if I disappear which makes the family nuts I sometimes wonder if 30 minutes to 1 hour of total time that I hold her and pet her each day is enough. Some days she is grouchy and it's less. So how much time does your bird spend on you each day getting love or just riding around? Thanks!<br><br>Post edited by: tatdmommy, at: 2009/01/16 20:41

Her cage is backed up to a wall. The wall and her cage face this window. I am turning on and leaving on the radio to try to drown out some of the tweets we hear all day long. It seems to help a little. A few minutes ago she was chirping while on her play top. I had the blind completely closed. So I opened it, it's a wood type blind that has slats. So they are open not pulled all the way up. I also turned on the radio. She has stopped the loud ear piercing noise for the moment. Thanks LindaMary.

In our front yard we have a tree that has nests in it of blue jays and some other little birds. In our backyard there is more trees with nests in them. Also in the graveyard behind our house there are very, very tall trees that crows seem to nest in, I know this only because the crows go CRAZY and chase this huge falcon around. I think the falcon raids their nests. It's a very loud chase with many crows. They all hang out on our power lines in the backyard too. I went out into the front yard the other day and a huge falcon was sitting on my lawn next to the tree where the nests are. He looked at me and gave me a wtf look and took off. In our office is where Pumpkins cage is. The tree in the front yard is about 7-10 feet away. If I open the window she can hear them tweeting. Well she gets worked up and makes this obnoxious high pitched scream. The same scream she does if I leave the room. If she is on my shoulder and does it my ear rings that is how loud it is. She seems to be terrified they are going to get her. I took her outside in her travel cage and we sat out there and the whole time she made the loud scream and climbed all over the cage in what appeared to be a nervous fashion. She also is freaked out if the blinds in any room that she is in are open. I have to keep them almost closed. She can still see the shadows of the birds as they fly by and over the houses. It almost seems like she is trying to talk to them yet pees her pants if they look at her. I don't know if she can sense the falcons outside or what. Has anyone had any experience with this? How can I possibly get her use to all the drama that goes on outside the house?

We took her and she was a hit. My 87 year old grandmother was there. She is just in love with pumpkin. Now she wants a bird, we said "uh no!" She has a little dementia and asked the same 5 questions 20,000 times but Pumpkin liked her. She sat on Gramas shoulder for a long time. Of course Pumpkin had to hang out on my mom A LOT. I almost think she likes her more than me. My mom sort of resembles the breeder, we think that may be why Pumpkin is so infatuated with her. Pumpkin also has a I only love women issue, I see it starting to come out more and more. She tolerates my hubby for the most part but Me, my daughter and my mom are her favorites. Well we had fun. Thanks everyone for the advice. Pumpkin has now dive bombed my from the play top and is demanding head scratches or she will eat my keyboard. lmao Thanks everyone!

We are still deciding on whether or not to take Pumpkin with us to my mothers house this afternoon. She absolutely loves my mom. My mom comes in my house and she starts whistling, flies off the cage, etc. I got her a traveling cage with perches and bowls. So she will have somewhere to go while we are there. They don't have any animals so there is nothing to worry about in that department. Pumpkin is pretty well potty trained too. I don't think it would be an issue. Does anyone else? Thanks! Happy Holidays everyone! Heather

I took Pumpkin to the Vet last week for a nail trim and check up. They did a new patient CBC panel, I think that was what it was called. Everything they did in house checked out great they said. They had to send some blood work to the lab also. Anyways the vet left me a message that she had an elevated white blood cell count but that she didn't think it was anything to worry about. She won't be in the office until Wednesday this coming week, great. I did search on the Net and read that this can sometimes happen with the stress of being at the Vet office. Has anyone had something like this happen before? I don't want to over worry myself.

Well said DanMcQ. The "Dumb Skin Head" title I also think was not given a lot of thought. In defense of the title and user BMustee though I will say that many people don't know that there are Non Racist Skin Heads. Until I met my husband I didn't know they existed. I agree with what was said about the guy they were interviewing and the poster on his wall, etc. Dan~ the only thing that would make you a Hells Angel would be the patch on your back, whether it be full patch or partial patch. LOL Without that I would think you were just a guy who likes to ride. I drove public transit in the Bayarea for 10 years. I learned a long time ago not to judge any book by it's cover.

I have to chime in here. I am married to a former skin head. However there are two different kinds of skin heads. There are the Racist kind and the Non Racist kind. My husband was the non racist kind. The Non Racist skin heads were here before the Racist one's. Just an FYI.