katana600

In just one day of antibiotics, oral and injections, the kitty is looking better already. We have two leads for possible homes and a sheet of paper from the vet with every rescue organization in the area. My goal is to find a home for him or arrange a rental car to drive him back to Atlanta. He has been a little fighter and is exceptionally charming once he has started to feel better.

PS: I am looking forward to a chop stick tutorial, that sounds interesting. Also, every short term absence and return give Miss Gilbert a little more confidence. It seems counterintuitive that being gone helps her understand that things are the same. She is exposed to different caregivers, still has fresh food and water and her needs are met by new people. Our house sitter has a young adult son and he tends Gil. She has a definite preference for men. Joshua has been brave enough to learn to scratch her head just the way she likes it. I miss her too much, but each time is easier and she is evolving and learning new coping strategies. It's good for all of us and makes us better when we are back under the same roof.

Little Miss G was very distressed Wednesday afternoon and chewed and tattered her chest and pulled a flight feather that was ready to molt. After I got her cage moved back in place, she calmed down. David came home from work Thursday as usual and he said she came out of her cage and there has been no more nervous chewing. We got all our work done today and I will soon be back in my nest and will do no more traveling for a while. In fact, I may quit answering the phone. :-)

I am making a trip with a friend from Atlanta to Dallas with a rental truck and car to move her daughter to a seminary school. We are flying home Wednesday August 20. In a traffic snarl on a bridge in Shreveport LA this morning we saw a small cat in severe distress running beneath a tractor trailer. He made it to the inside median and I was able to jump out and run back to snatch him up while my friend kept crawling along in stop and go traffic. We got on our way again and called a vet in Dallas and got him to treatment and he is not injured. He is young, about 3 pounds. He has an upper respiratory infection and conjunctivitis. He is on antibiotics, a gel nutritional supplement and has been given tests for all the big bad stuff and passed his tests. The vet gave him meds for fleas, ticks and parasites. My time is short and tomorrow we will be unloading the rental truck all day and getting it returned. If anyone can direct me to a shelter or home for this kitten, I will pay for neutering and shots. I will have only Monday and Tuesday. I have no car during the day but will get a rental if I need to in order to secure him a safe haven. He is so affectionate and grateful. His eye looks better already with the antibiotics. He isn't eating and is skin and bones from the stress. He has fought hard for a chance in life. If I wasn't here without a car and flight plans on Wed. I would take him home. Any leads I could call about on Mon and Tuesday would be greatly appreciated.

You have so much experience, you will sort out what he needs. Its good news that is weight is not dropping. He's young to be fledging, so maybe he is getting interested in food he can feed himself. Hope he gets it sorted so he doesn't worry his daddy.

Congratulations, she is beautiful. You and Poet are off to a good start. I love the photos. Looking at her bright eyed and alert, then scrolling as she was falling asleep, I felt like it was in motion slowly getting more droopy eyed and sleepy. It made me yawn. :-). What a beautiful beginning. It gets better from here, hard to believe, I know.

Even in the wee hours, I was grateful that she was okay. It was pretty funny when she gave me the word to go back to bed. Today, since I know her reactions, I am getting into some rough territory. I am driving a rental truck to the Dallas/Fort Worth area to pass along some household furnishings to my daughter. A friend is moving her daughter for her first term of school so its good to share the trip. Miss Gilbert was abandoned from one home without preparation, just get "him" out, the moving truck is loaded, kind of thing. When I have moved furniture or put boxes together she has had a few meltdowns. I had to move her cage to get the big stuff out. She is so very quiet, watching my every move. I talked to her and told her I was going to come back and that David would be here. She watched me intently and her eyes were pinning. I've noticed before, but its more certain that her left pupil is shaped differently than her right. It looks a bit like a comma or a round little tadpole with a curled tail. It's time for her annual vet visit so I will ask. She does have my number but she is always "doing the math" so I can't get hers. LOL. Never have I felt so outclassed and outperformed. She's a tough one to get to know but I have a feeling when she is sure, she will have an overnight epiphany and decide I am okay.

Miss Gilbert has a way of showing her rumpled little maroon tail feathers when she has a complaint. A while back I thwarted her efforts to fling her stainless steel food or water dishes by replacing them with heavy ceramic. The water dish is just the right size to drop in a metal bowl for a liner. While I was away she whiled away her idle time figuring out how to push that bowl hard enough to raise one side, hold it down with a claw and bit-by-bit rotate it until it breaks the suction anchoring it in place. I watched her work it free and give it a forceful fling sending water up the wall. She particularly was entranced by the loud drip sound as it hit the papers on the floor. I was not going to give her the satisfaction of hurrying over to replenish with fresh water. About 3 am were awakened by such a clatter I thought she had fallen from her perch. When I turned on a light expecting to soothe her, instead I was greeted by the sight of her standing on the floor of her cage, the proverbial prisoner with a tin cup banging away across the bars of her cage. I had forgotten to refill the water dish and she was thirsty. She gulped fresh water and piped up "night night" which was my dismissal to return to bed.

The sound of wings behind me is something I will never grow tired of hearing. It's more exciting when it's a hard won accomplishment. I am cheering for Escher's progress. May he have many more joyful moments in flight. The dog is probably not near as pleased with this development. :-)

Hi Blair, welcome to the forum to you and Amadeus. We travel between Ga, Tx and Pa with our girl Miss Gilbert. Something that made her much more at ease and comfortable on the road is the Booda Comfy Cross perch. It's a rope perch and it can be configured to stretch across the cage in 2 to 4 directions. That way, depending on the rocking motion of the vehicle for wind, or braking she sways and is able to hold on and brace herself easier than on a rigid perch that bounces. She also falls off sometimes and the rope is much more forgiving. Your cage is very nice for travel. I bet Amadeus is a great travel buddy.

Welcome Lori and Maggie Mae! What good fortune to find a breeder close enough to visit weekly while you watch Maggie Mae grow, change and get to know you a little at a time. We had a June baby five years ago and he came home in November but we were seven hours, one way, apart. I only got to see him once a month. You will learn how to feed her formula from a syringe just in case she needs a comfort feeding or medications later. You will learn what soothes her, how she likes to play and so much more. The great thing about the toy selection is your breeder will know the personality of Maggie's parents, clutch mates and greys in general. Getting her familiar and buying some toys to give her now will give you both a "jump start" when it's time to bring her home and set up her new home. One thing I would recommend is to loom into getting a harness. She is much more likely at this age to accept it, to tolerate you learning to put it on her. If you can take her outside with certainly she is safe on your shoulder, you will be off to a great head start.

You have both just made my day. I thought Miss Gilbert was the only one with off color remarks and "the tone". It's so much easier to laugh without reserve at Smokey introducing the new neighbor than to hold my breath and turn away when Gil emphatically calls me wh%re or b!tch in front of company or accuses a guest of sh!t on the floor. There is going to come a day when Sterling Gris remembers his cock... tail request at just the right time to regale your daughter with his clever recall.

Well what do you know? Welcome to the family Toby. Coincidentally, just yesterday I was thinking how connected our own family has been through the name Toby. My now 26 year old daughter had a teddy bear as an infant we dubbed Toby. One of our nieces named her cat after him and decades later another niece is carrying on the tradition by naming her cat the same. I was wondering how that name came into our thoughts and along comes another Toby from the same era. I have to admit, I'm missing Lulu just a little. Since we discovered Gilbert's mistaken gender would it not be astounding if we could find out that she calls me LuLu because it was her name in her original family? Kudos on the vision of Louie and Toby in magnificent tandem flight.

Other than thinking of the dangers and loss, I can only imagine the adventures of these escapees. Everything outside so foreign, they are naive to the predators but there has to be a primal instinct of flying freely also battling with their desire to be back in the safety of their familiar home. It reminds me of the movie "The Village" where everything they knew was a carefully crafted illusion. The idea of one of our beloved companions fending for himself in the outdoors with no skills or life experience is so distressing to us humans. I just wonder how they think of it. Brutus and Greycie both express signals of danger, they seem to get it that inside is the safest place for them. I am just ever so grateful and relieved they are home.

Oh what a good laugh Inara, I missed this post and really enjoyed it this afternoon. Good one. Little miss sassy pants had a few days at home with a pet sitter. She is in her cage the whole time but she seems to revel in the safety of her cage even while the door is open when I am home. We took a rental RV to Pennsylvania to go to a wedding. Both our daughters flew from TX to GA and we brought along both the young men they are dating. Excellent trip with one malfunction after another with electrical issues with the beautiful modern RV. Every day I was grateful not to be concerned for life or death issues and knew they were safe at home. The carbon monoxide detector malfunction was determined to be the cause of all the trouble. It went through all six batteries for the Diesel engine, the generator as well as auxiliary batteries and couldn't be silenced even while connected to the campsite electric. Can you imagine how two parrots would be a timeless reminder of the alarm? Gilbert was so happy to see us return. I was convinced she is in such a better place with trust and managing her own stress. On day two of being home, she unexpectedly lunged at me while I was walking past her and I barely dodged a vicious attempt to bite me in the face. After that, she pulled and chewed off so e feathers. So much for managing her stress. That one afternoon of acting out was exchanged for a peaceful existence since then with many solicitations for me to rub her head. It's so hard to "read" her. Normally when I come in the room, or stand up if I am already there, she trips over her own feet to rush inside her cage to escape any interaction, period. Now she is still rushing into the cage, but scrambling to get to her "touching" perch. This is where she comes if she is soliciting a scratch on her head. She has abruptly changed from rushing to safety inside her cage to quickly getting inside and keeping the safety of the bars between us but clearly signaling she wants the reassurance of my touch. She always grips the bars so tightly with one talon while she vigilantly fixes one eye on me, prepared to lash out and bite if the mistrusted human goes too far or puts a finger too deep inside the bars. The thing that is different now is her eye pinning. For more than two and a half years she never pinned. Her vet and I wondered if she possibly had a head injury that rendered her incapable of pinning. She started barely fluctuating her pupil to the distinct pleasure of sharing warm oatmeal. Now she is clearly pinning fast and predictably showing pleasure in getting a head rub when she feels safe inside her cage. She will actually relax and her eyes roll and she blinks long and slow as she is nearly hypnotized into inadvertently drifting off to sleep against her will. We have come a long way. I visualize one day she will sit on my lap and feel safe the way Java does.

As others have expressed, a parrot is so much more than a pet or companion. They are such complex, emotional creatures their life and loss are deeply and profoundly moving. I am so sorry you lost Bogart. It is such a painful devastating time. I promise as time goes on you will smile more at happy memories than to cry for the loss. Bogart's life may be far too short counted in days, but he was happy and loved, living a charmed life for his entire lifetime. I'm glad you shared the wonder of his life with you.

Your survey brings up thought provoking new questions. When you get what you wanted from your questions, it would be wonderful to get in touch with an avian research program to take it further and might make a good thesis for a budding avian vet. You have an inquiring mind and great ideas. You are on to something here. I have a tendency to answer true or false questions with an essay. LOL. Number 17 (?) stumped me. I answered unclipped. But in our case unclipped does not translate to flighted. Another very interesting spin off to this survey would be to get specific country information. It would be excellent and useful research to find individuals who find success as a group to learn how to better serve our companion greys. Now my mind is trying to sort out how to determine any individual person's definition of "success" and factual information vs. anecdotal. Some respondent may have the slant toward having the perfect parrot when maybe the parrot is a figment of their own imagination just to feel a part of something. Oh, see what you started? The thinks we can think. Great idea to work to learn more. I might get the notion you are a teacher opening our minds.

It's great to hear from you and Marco. She has been such a sweet lil baby with you from the start. You are doing a great job with her and obviously she is a big part of your life. I would love to know what she thinks of the tattoo, did se react to the change? Did the artist do it all at the same time or gradually over many visits? It certainly does keep her with you always and us very well done.

Welcome to the forum. Olaf has had kind, respectful treatment from his breeder and from you. He learned already you are a good person. Smokey doesn't trust you yet. I believe if you don't try to get close to him too soon he will watch Olaf and learn from him that you are okay. When he growls to warn you, stay back and speak gently. Maybe if you offer Olaf's good food to Smokey in the morning he will be hungry enough to eat, mix some of his preferred corn and sunflowers and bit by bit he may try new food. It will take a lot of time. I brought home a ten yearn old distrustful parrot three years ago and we are still working to earn her trust. Be very patient with Smokey and your reward will be great.

Welcome Sharon, Eva and family. You may think you are here to learn, and you are. Every grey is unique and wonderful and every family is gifted in finding creative solutions to living with these magnificent creatures. We will learn as much from you as you will gain from us. Thank you for joining us, this is a magical journey.

Ray, your thoughtfulness is only exceeded by your kindness and gentle way with all creatures, four-legged, winged and two-legged as well. Thank you for caring.

Condolences to your family for your profound loss. You have such a caring heart to overcome your grief and come to tell us to help prevent any of us from experiencing your pain. I am so very sorry you lost Rocco. Filling the tub was such a common sense sort of thing recommended for hurricanes and natural disasters. It was an accident, be as kind and forgiving to yourselves as you would be to your best friend. Your grief for losing Rocco is more than enough loss for you to bear. I am so sorry for you to lose your beautiful and much loved Rocco.

I am home most of the time and have a rehomed older grey and she gets cranky too. She went through a few months of wrestling her stainless steel cups out of the ring and flinging food and water. I first tried a method I read here on the forum to lay the cup on its side and used the blunt tip of the metal file to create a dimple on the inside that made a bump on the outside to help hold the cup in place. Then one day I found much heavier ceramic bowls on a ring. That solved the problem completely. There are also plastic ones on the market that have a locking mechanism.

Even pigeons need TLC sometimes. Thank you for posting this, it is one of those days when I just needed that extra breath of a caring and capable spirit to tilt the energy level past the inertia sticky point. It really does make a difference, one little life at a time.

I still can't get my mind around Ray reaching under the cover and rubbing Cricket's head without looking. I am granted sporadic and gradually more frequent privileges to touch Gilbert on the head, only through the bars and then I must watch carefully for signs of her being finished far sooner than me. When I see that photo, I think "maybe someday" and yes, I too have pangs of envy. Lucky lucky Daddy bird.