Did your dog ever learn to accept your bird as part of the family?

[buurd]

I went to check on the bird and found the bird and the dog in a Western-style stare-down....

Lol, so NOT funny, but funny! Ive had my male bird bend forward and yell at me in the morning before, and even with a teeny bird, you can see the wrath from those tinysaurs :24:

An aside but, I never knew there were so many people afraid of birds, before a few years ago. And they've all been men, which I find weird. I wonder why that is.
Anybody know any women afraid of birds?

 

[SammyAndyAlex]

My bird never fully accepted the dog as part of the family!

(The bird came first)

 

[greytness]

Some dogs simply have a high prey drive, that no matter what you do they're still locked in on that bird or other pet. That drive can be ingrained in some dog breeds' psyches.

I have 3 german shepherds. 2 are ok, and one can on occasion fixate on a bird flying by. I absolutely won't take any chances with my birds' lives and keep them separated while they're out and about. Because my birds are all flighted, they don't have any desire to walk around on the floor, but would rather remain high up at all times. Which is a good thing!

 

[SailBoat]

Regarding Humans; I have found that there seems to be an equal number of both sexes that have a fear of being close to Birds. The combination of Tales of Old, Movies (The Birds), the fear of being Bitten and /or in tangled in ones hairs. I have found no patterns regarding just who is or does not have a fear of Birds other than its out there and the numbers are large enough to require that one asks prior to having one's Parrot around people.

For me, I have experienced the serious pain of an Amazon's bite. I have also so experience a like pain from a dog's bite. I would not want to place myself between the two to off-set such a confrontation. Mixing the two is just dangerous in my mind and I assure that I never place anyone in that position. The end results on either or both sides is too horrific. I liken it to taken the front plate off a Home Electrical Panel and playing around with the wires with the master switch 'ON.'

 

[buurd]

Regarding Humans; I have found that there seems to be an equal number of both sexes that have a fear of being close to Birds. The combination of Tales of Old, Movies (The Birds), the fear of being Bitten and /or in tangled in ones hairs. I have found no patterns regarding just who is or does not have a fear of Birds other than its out there and the numbers are large enough to require that one asks prior to having one's Parrot around people.

For me, I have experienced the serious pain of an Amazon's bite. I have also so experience a like pain from a dog's bite. I would not want to place myself between the two to off-set such a confrontation. Mixing the two is just dangerous in my mind and I assure that I never place anyone in that position. The end results on either or both sides is too horrific. I liken it to taken the front plate off a Home Electrical Panel and playing around with the wires with the master switch 'ON.'

My experience is totally anecdotal, so I knew there had to be some women out there who were afraid of birds. It's just amazing to me that I never knew there were are people who fear small birds, in the way that I fear spiders.

But you can have a fear of anything, I guess. I remember reading that BillyBob Thorton has a phobia of Victorian era furniture; the carved feet on the tables and chairs freak him out. Unless he just made that up because he knew it would stick in people's minds, like mine :33:

I rescued a crow once with a huge pointed beak and when I brought it to the vet and it popped its head out of the box, the receptionist shot across the room like she ignited a jet pack. I hadn't feared it. I dont know if that was just pure ignorance, but it never made a threatening gesture to me, so I was pretty relaxed with it.

So its not the beak so much that spook me. Ive held a medium-big parrot before, and I used to visit a Mac in a store on my lunch breaks.
What scares me now are the stories I read where the person says they got bitten out of the blue. Getting a hunk of skin punctured, clipped, with no warning, makes me second-guess ever wanting to be around a bird with a sizable beak. Which I am sad about. I hope there's more to it than just getting nailed without warning. I love all birds, but I especially love Pionus, and it's a dream of mine to adopt in the future.