Training Your Person: Baths

If you are a parrot, you love water,  especially bathing in it.  So it's very important to train your person to provide you with frequent bathing opportunities, whether it's a shower under spray bottle or a chance to splash around in a dish. In my case, the best chance for bathing comes every evening. One of my people washes the dishes every night after dinner, and it's my job to help him out by sitting on his shoulder while he washes. If I happen to be in the mood for a bath at this time, which I usually am because, I mean, what parrot can resist the sound of running water, all I have to do is squawk and chirp and flap my wings, and my person gets the message that it's bath time. He knows to set a pan of water on the counter and let me jump in.

I find that frying pans and cookie sheets make excellent bath tubs because they give me plenty of room to spread my wings, but I'm not above bathing in a saucepan or even a water glass if that's all that is available.

It's My Hatch Day!

Twenty-one years ago today I hatched out my egg, and I've been squawking ever since!  Here's photo of me enjoying a special hatch day lunch. Yum! I love cornbread.

Training Your Person: TV

The best perch to watch TV from is the top of your person's head. Actually, it's a good perch for many things -- watching out for predators, keeping an eye on your other person while she's in the kitchen in case she brings out the seed bucket, checking out visitors you haven't met before, and just generally watching what's going on around you. So it's a good idea to train your person or people to get used to you sitting on their heads. One of my people is quite tall so his head makes a very good perch. I usually sit there when we're watching TV. I just love the TV. It makes all kinds of interesting sounds - especially music. Whenever the theme song of a TV show comes on, I squawk and chirp and whoop right along with it. It's so much fun! I recognize the theme songs of all the TV shows we regularly watch. We parrots have a great appreciation for music.

Training Your Person: Snacks

Snacking throughout the day is an important activity for a pet parrot, so it is important to train your person to provide you with snacks as needed. For example, if you happen to come across a bowl of tangerines on the table, you should stand and stare at them.  If that doesn't get your person's attention, then touch a tangerine with your beak. If that doesn't do the trick, then just use your beak to start peeling the tangerine yourself. That way your person will surely understand that it is time to peel the tangerine for you and offer you as many slices as you like.

As every pet parrot knows, the best place to eat a tangerine slice is on you person's shoulder.

Training Your Person: Breakfast

Don't you just love oatmeal? It's my favorite breakfast, especially since my people serve it with sunflower seeds and nuts. Sometimes they add berries, which are also very tasty. As you can see, I have trained my person to share his breakfast with me. Some people are easier to train than others, but you've got to keep working at it. I find that a few ear tugs often help my people understand how I want them to behave, and if that doesn't work, a loud squawk or two usually does the trick. Not always, though, alas. I'm having a bit of trouble with my other person. I have tried to train her to share lunch with me but she usually locks me in my cage instead.

Cozy

If you were a parrot. . . you would spend your days cozily snuggled up on the back of your person's neck!

Nailbrush!

My duties as a pet parrot keep me busy from morning till night. My biggest responsibility is protecting my people from predators. It's astounding sometimes how clueless they seem to be about this danger. The other day, one of my people brought this home:

She calls it "nailbrush." But I know that a predator by any other name is still a predator. As soon As I saw that thing sitting on the bathroom counter, I flew out of there as fast as I could go. But my person didn't follow. She stayed right there next to that thing. Lucky for her, it didn't attack. So far, it has been spending its days just sitting there quietly, but you never know with predators. I keep a wary eye on it at all times. Somebody's got to protect my people, after all.