Thursday, January 29, 2009

Velcro greys

First, I want to thank everyone once again for your thoughtful responses to my ethical dilemma. I will mention the options to my friend and see what she will do. The neuter will definitely take place, so hopefully that will take care of it; if not, she'll have to explore these other options. I was half expecting to be raked over the coals for even suggesting euthanasia, so thanks for sparing me that!

Both of my greys have been very velcro-ish lately. Actually, that sentence might be a bit misleading as they're perfectly happy playing in the same room as me, but as soon as one of them is on me, they don't want to get off!


After dealing with this several times yesterday, I decided to film Max's attempts to stay on me. I just find this so funny. Half of the time, they'll look at me, as though they don't understand that I want them to go on the perch. Sorry, ladies! I know you know what I want!

Sometimes I'll give in and give them a little extra attention before having them step up on a perch. Usually this extra scratch is enough and they'll go where I place them. I know, I'm teaching them that they just have to be difficult and then they get an extra scratch, but I'm OK with that.

Other times, I'll toss the grey towards a stand, like I did in this video. Yet another benefit of a flighted bird!

I didn't get a video of this, or even get to witness it, but Thomas told me that while I was in the shower, Stella kept flying over to his shoulder and then bonking him on his head with her beak. It makes me laugh just thinking about this!

I told him it was because he was in a bad mood this morning (and holy cow! did he ever wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning!) and she was trying to knock some sense into him. It may have worked since he was laughing when he told me about it. Once again, this obviously is not behavior we want to encourage. She's not a woodpecker, so I worry she could be doing damage to her brain knocking her head into Thomas's like that! But if it hurt, she wouldn't do it, right? In any case, it was good for a laugh!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This makes me laugh! We call Harley a "Klingon" most days.

Anonymous said...

I just love your gray "ladies." And don't I know that stick to your fingers tactic. They always look into your eyes so innocently, as if to say, "But why would you want to leave me now? I'm just so adorable and cuddly." They know full well what I mean. The mental visual of Stella bonking Thomas made me laugh out loud! Thanks for making my evening.