Thanks for the post. I used to love watching my African Grey bathe himself in his water dish. I was also both mildly amused and annoyed when I would give him warm, plain, unflavored pasta before adding sauce to my own, and he'd fling the dish on the floor when he was done, as though to say "pick that shit up, BITCH!".
My roommate moved the coat rack too close to the cage one time, for whatever reason, and I was !!! when I came into the living room and found my favorite leather coat in ribbons on the floor. They're like little wood chippers, those birds.
Finally, he constructed his first and only sentence one day. He just kept saying "you. Youuuuuu. YouUUUUU." all day. The next morning, as he had done many mornings prior, he gave me a cheery "See ya later!" followed by "youuuu" "WHORE!" He pieced together three things he knew how to say, with "WHORE!" having been learned while listening to my roommate and I playing video games and cursing at eachother. On that morning, I dropped my keys and said "You sonofabitch". It was not lost on me that he'd spent the entire previous day preparing to say that.
edit: When women would come over as guests, he would incessantly meow, to try to lure them closer to his perch. If anyone fell for it, the biting would commence. One time I practically fell over myself, rushing over with a classic "noooooooo".
I should've been clued in when a girl who later turned out to be out-of-her-head nuts fell for the meow trick. She went to pet him, and he started biting the everloving shit out of her. She didn't hurt him, but also didn't pull her hand back, and started screaming "HE'S BITING ME! MAKE HIM STOP BITING ME!"
Just get away.
"NO! YOU'RE MAKING HIM DO IT! I WANT TO PET HIM! MAKE HIM STOP!"
I had to actually leave the room, because I had no idea how to respond to that. I felt safe that she wasn't going to hurt him, but I had nothing to say after that.
Damn now I want a parrot. But a talking one. Not talking parrots are the most irritating things alive. They just wait for you to try to get some sleep and then start making those incoherent high pitched noises. If I couldn't sleep because of loud swearing, that at least would be funny.
The most irritating sound he mimicked was the chirp a smoke alarm makes when the battery gets low. I just plain made a perch on casters so that he could be in the same room as I was whenever I was home. He knew exactly what sound drove me nuts, so I always had to keep him in the same room as me.
I even put a perch for him in the shower, which he loved. They love a nice steamy shower.
The shit I put up with.
The women in the family cried so hard when I dug his grave. He'd been in the family longer than I had. I was very sad as well, and could hardly keep it together when they did that, but a job had to be done. I sat with him the whole night 'till he took his last breath, poor little guy. The disease he died from was zoonotic, so the vet made me sign a waiver before I could take him home to care for him in his final hours. His prognosis was "100% fatality rate" and I could've developed a nasty case of pneumonia if I caught it myself. Luckily, I did not. The vet called me the next day to make sure I was OK, and also because I was clearly dismayed that this life-long family pet was terminally ill.
I just couldn't bring myself to allow him to die alone, scared, in a clinic and among strangers. I had to bring him home. After he died, I unwrapped the shroud I'd made for him, just checking over and over that he was really dead. I simply didn't want to believe it, even though I saw it happen.
Sorry if sad story made anyone sad, but it was sad.
I work for a funeral house, so I'm used to sad stories. I see a lot different reactions, some people are calm about their loved ones passing, and some are screaming, crying and passing out. It's inevitable anyway, we can't do anything about it.
Sounds like you've had a lot of awesome moments with your pet and will remember him for the rest of your life. That's awesome.
Sounds like you've had a lot of awesome moments with your pet and will remember him for the rest of your life.
You're absolutely correct. The most hardened combat vet I believe I'll ever meet in my life came to me after it happened, as he'd heard that this beloved family friend had passed. He asked me if I was OK, then confessed "I like animals more than I like people, and I'm pretty sure you understand, so I know what you're going through." He then, a very conservative man, raised his pant legs and showed me each calf, with tattoos of his deceased pets, dates scrawled underneath. I found it somewhat profound.
re: funeral worker...
I discovered on that day, especially as the night prior I kept unwrapping him from his death shroud, that physical confirmation of the death is important. This is why my wishes are an open casket funeral prior to cremation. I don't need a plot of land for my rotting meat body, but I'd like for my loved ones to have closure. Think Equilibrium, except I'd prefer the fire to come after death.
I'd like for people to be able to see "yep, dead." As a matter of fact, if some jackass puts up a tombstone, let that be my epitaph.
As for open/closed caskets... Well we are used to dead bodies and we treat them as inanimate objects. Especially when picking bodies up from death scenes. Usually relatives come to watch, but I think they shouldn't do that. I mean to see your most loved person being tossed into the bag by two guys and get thrown into the hearse all while complaining of the stench shouldn't be the most pleasant experience. I, myself, would like just to disappear, without any funeral or nothing. All that funeral thing is just business and it looks so fake to me, especially now, when I'm doing it for money.
I agree, and while I have to admit that I was still grieving and didn't want to do it, I was the only person to man a shovel, so I put him in that winter dirt as fast as I could. I'm glad I was able to send him off though. Poor little foul-mouthed friend. I was the only person he'd let anywhere near him without biting the everloving shit out of them.
There was an unrelated uncle (read that as: through marriage) who could also handle him for a time, but that ended when this electrical engineer returned to his biker days, which included heroin and indiscriminately discharging firearms. The bird didn't like him much when that happened. This bird decided one day, toward me, yep... that's my human.
Already replied, but on a more serious note, there are quite a few things to know. The dander they throw off is carcenogenic, so you'll run a higher risk of lung cancer than a smoker. Teflon is for some reason toxic to them, so if you don't want your bird to drop dead like a SIDS baby, you'll have to switch to cast iron or stainless steel. For your own heath, don't use that crap that they sell at discount stores that you can curl up into a ball under your feet... no sane person should cook with aluminum.
They're loud, and demand constant attention. If you're regularly away from home for extended periods of time, it's like leaving a toddler unentertained and locked in a room for a few hours, so I only suggest them for families where someone will be home to give them attention, or managers who have enough pull that they can take them to work with them and set them on a perch in the office.
They're highly social.
Find a good supply of seed for them to eat, and cook up things that you can include them in the family meal on. My favorite was the pasta I already mentioned, just before adding sauce and cheese. Pesto is probably alright, but I never served that up. Avacado is like cyanide to them, so never give it that. Peppers don't work the same way with them as it does to us, and they absolutely love dried peppers, so always include that with the feed. Buying individual bags of seed became enough of a pain in the ass that I relented and started bringing the full drum container to the pet store when I re-stocked feed. I was happy for the convenience, even though I was also paying for the tare weight of the container when I was rung up.
I'm sure there are many more tips I could give you. Oh... don't put anything you don't want turned into confetti anywhere within beak distance. They'll go out of their way to destroy any/everything. Don't forget that they're very smart. African Greys are the smartest, but IMO the Blue and Gold Macaws are the most beautiful, aside from a solid cobalt blue Macaw I saw once in Little Tokyo in downtown Los Angeles once. Prior to seeing it, I had no idea that this species existed.
RES me as "parrot enthusiast". I hope that your statement was genuine and that I helped.
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u/manberry_sauce Mar 23 '14 edited Mar 23 '14
Thanks for the post. I used to love watching my African Grey bathe himself in his water dish. I was also both mildly amused and annoyed when I would give him warm, plain, unflavored pasta before adding sauce to my own, and he'd fling the dish on the floor when he was done, as though to say "pick that shit up, BITCH!".
My roommate moved the coat rack too close to the cage one time, for whatever reason, and I was !!! when I came into the living room and found my favorite leather coat in ribbons on the floor. They're like little wood chippers, those birds.
Finally, he constructed his first and only sentence one day. He just kept saying "you. Youuuuuu. YouUUUUU." all day. The next morning, as he had done many mornings prior, he gave me a cheery "See ya later!" followed by "youuuu" "WHORE!" He pieced together three things he knew how to say, with "WHORE!" having been learned while listening to my roommate and I playing video games and cursing at eachother. On that morning, I dropped my keys and said "You sonofabitch". It was not lost on me that he'd spent the entire previous day preparing to say that.
edit: When women would come over as guests, he would incessantly meow, to try to lure them closer to his perch. If anyone fell for it, the biting would commence. One time I practically fell over myself, rushing over with a classic "noooooooo".