The intro....

[hk955]

The intro you have all been waiting for!!!

 

We introduced Hannah, the corn covered Grey in the avatar, about 5 weeks ago to the chaos we call life. I am an active duty Marine and my girlfriend works as a banker. Although, she won't bring any work home.. We have 3 dogs, a 10 yr old Golden Retriever, a 3 yr old Rotty/Italian Mastiff mix, and a 10 month old American Bulldog/Pit Bull mix.

 

We picked Hannah up from Chicago after my sister said she had a friend that was looking for a home for her. She was being kept at an office building with another Grey and couple parakeets or some other little things singing about. This is all I have been told of her past....

 

She is a 7 year old female that spent ALOT of time in this office space. There was a good number of people tht would come and go through the space, but not a lot of interaction with the bird. The person that had her at the office "aquired" her becasue she volunteered to watch her for a time and the original owners never came back for her. I am not sure how long she spent in the office with the other birds, but I think it was in the area of a couple of years. The person that had her was a blonde, older lady - a fact that may come in handy later.

 

We picked her up and made the drive back to the St Louis area. She didn't do well with any one trying to handle her and put up a pretty good fight about being moved. I had to done a pair of workers gloves to initially move her. She did surprisingly well on the 5 hour trip back in the cage we bought for her to travel in. She spent most of the trip clinging to the front of the cage and trying to look out the front of windshield. The cage she came with was good size, but needed replaced, which I did within the first couple of days.

 

Long story short, she seems to really like me, and not my girlfriend much (she is a blonde, and not sure if Hannah is associating the blonde hair with her last captor..:lol: ). She has bitten the crap out of her a couple of times, drawing blood on occasion. Now, MOST of the bites came around her cage, but she has tagged her from time to time away from the cage where she is normally more handleable (is that a word?).

 

I can do almost anything with her. Handle her, pet her, have pretty much any interaction with her and not get bit. She doesn't seem to like the kids when they were here for Christmas, was pretty nervous and edgy when they were around.

 

I had to go away for a weekend and she was better behaved with my girlfriend, but when I got back, that kind of went out the window.

 

Oh, and an interesting note, she hasn't even attempted to bite the dogs. They can sniff all around her while she is in the cage with the door open and she just moves. When she is in the floor (supervised, mind you) she will walk up to the dogs and nibble on their toes when they aren't looking.

 

She seems to eat about anything, and other than the fact she seems to only like me.....doesn't really have any other bad habits. She is not a screamer, plucker, or hellion. We have a bunch of toys and things to keep her occupied when we are working and we try to keep her engaged in stuff when we are home. Her playstand is on the coffee table in teh middle of everything and she has daily play sessions in the sink with a bowl full of water she perches on and play with the silverware (I think because of the noise in the metal sink) and the vegtable scrubber (can't say why to that one - but she loves it).

 

Anywho, I lurk around from time to time and catch up on the reading and leech off the knowledge you all take the time to post here.

[judygram]

Hello Hk955 and welcome to the family, so glad you could finally join us after lurking around our site for a while, we don't bite but our greys might:laugh: but we look forward to hearing more about you and Hannah.

 

I do have to say you make a good introduction, better than most and I am proud to hear you are a Marine, btw I love your signature, it says it all.

 

You will find lots of useful information in our many threads and do not hesitate to ask any and all questions you may have and we will help you in any way we can.

 

I see she is a lovely looking grey from the pic in your avatar but if you have some other pictures of her you would share with us we would love to see them.

[Luvparrots]

Marine I love your sense of humor, "your girlfriend won't bring any work home," I'm still chuckling on that one. Kudos to you for giving Hannah a wonderful forever home, I salute you and hope to hear more of your great humor and stories about your interesting family.<br><br>Post edited by: luvparrots, at: 2009/01/07 02:47

[hk955]

I posted a couple more pics of her in my profile thing. I will try to get some more pics of her in action and post them soon.

 

Thanks for the likeing my sense of humor. It falls on deaf ears often. But, I try...

[LisaM]

Welcome HK!

 

First and foremost - thank you for serving in our Armed Forces. I was Army but I sure do love the Marines...for all the reasons described by Mrs. Roosevelt!:blush:

 

Sounds like Hannah is a very normal Grey. Ours started out liking me (immediately from the time I went to her previous house to look at my male Eclectus...I was nervous about a Grey but Kenya just wouldn't let me leave without taking her home with me). She wouldn't even let my husband or anyone else handle her for the first few weeks without going for skin. She now still prefers me to anyone else, will tolerate hubby for short periods of time (took several months) and will only go to someone else if she figures they'll carry her over to me). My kids, 10 and 7, still love her to pieces even though they don't handle her. They talk to her and play with her, just don't touch her.

 

This site has been enormously helpful to me and though I find myself away for periods of time, I always find my way back. :-)

 

Lisa

[Lyric]

Hi HK955, welcome to the forum. Glad you decided to join in the fun with the rest of us. You gave a great introduction and I can tell you'll fit in great here! Love to hear some more stories about lady Hannah- I'm glad you were able to give her a good home.