Good suggestions from Gail above...
It's hard to leave a parrot alone for 3 weeks, especially since they aren't going to get much out-of-cage time. Too bad there isn't a room in the house you're going to be staying in that you could make totally off-limits to the Kelpie by keeping the door shut 24/7. Then you could let him out of his cage every day, and he wouldn't be alone or in-danger of the dog either, something like a spare bedroom. I'm assuming that you don't have to be with the Kelpie 24/7 while you're there (if so, then you're going to have your hands full, lol). Just a suggestion....
If that isn't possible and he has to be left at home alone for that length of time, then you're going to have to make sure that he has plenty of different types of toys to hold his interest, and make certain that when you come back to see him that you rotate new ones into the mix. For example, one toy for chewing on, one toy for shredding, one toy for foraging, one toy for swinging/climbing on, etc. That way he has an array of different activities that he can do all day long.
Also, making him some Foraging Activities before you leave and putting them inside of his cage is a great way for him to pass his time (I'm hoping his cage is large enough that he has a lot of room to play, climb, forage, etc.). For example, a very simple Foraging Activity you can cheaply and quickly make for him is a "Foraging Box", which is simply a cardboard box that you can jam-pack full of crumpled up paper and the like, and then that you'll hide his favorite treats all throughout, so that he has to actually dig through the box to find them all. If you do this, it helps to place a few of his treats right on the top of the crumpled-up paper so he can see them, which will entice him to go to the box, and then usually they just go to town foraging all through the box once they realize that it's full of treats, as foraging is a natural and innate instinct of all birds. That keeps my guys busy for literally hours and hours...
Another activity that keeps my guys busy for hours is giving them a paperback book to shred apart...I learned this from a fellow Budgie breeder when I was a teenager, and every bird I've done this for has absolutely loved this and has spent hours and hours excitedly tearing away...What you do is find a thick paperback book (those thick romance novels from the grocery store are fantastic). Make sure that the cover on the book is also paper/cardboard, so that they will be able to start out chewing the cover off...Also, make sure there are no staples in the book binding (usually not a problem at all, but always check)...Then you can either hang the book in his cage from the bars, OR what I found easiest was buying one of those "Treat/Food Skewers" for birds that they sell at most pet stores, they are metal and they are specifically made for you to make a "kabob" of treats/veggies/fruit for your bird, and they have a cage attachment on the other end. I have a ton of those, I give my birds fresh veggies and fruit on them all the time, but they are also great to stick right through the paperback book, and then you just attach the skewer to the cage bars, essentially making a shredding toy out of the paperback book...My Green Cheek Conure and my Quaker become entranced when I give them a book to shred apart...i'll put a new book on a skewer first thing in the morning around 7:00, and by the time I get home around 5, they have both been working on their books all day long without stopping! It's a great time-passer, it's safe, and they love it!
My mom makes the paperback book skewers for her African Grey, but she also recently tried giving him an old phonebook to do this with, and he went absolutely crazy for it, working on it all day long for about 7 hours straight...Unfortunately, with a phone book, the ink comes off, lol...He looked like he had black stripes for a day or two...But the regular paperback books work great with no issues.
The other thing that you can buy at the pet store, I know Petco sells this, is called "Shreddables", it's in the bird-toy section, and it comes in a brown box for around $5-$6 I believe, and you get a ton of it, like 50-100 feet of it. It's a long roll of really thick paper that has been braided together to make it very strong and reinforced, it's different colors, and essentially looks like a braided streamer of very thick, strong paper that you can weave in and out of the bars of his cage. My Senegal loves this stuff, I'll just weave it in and out of his cage bars, all over his cage in different patterns, and he spends hours at a time both chewing/shredding it, but also trying to "unweave" it from the cage bars...So it's both a "shredding" activity as well as a mind activity/game where they really do try to figure out how to get it unweaved from the bars of their cage...I'll buy 2-3 boxes of the "Shreddables" at a time at Petco, and it lasts Kane for months and months. He just loves this stuff, and it's great busy-work for them...Can't recommend the "Shreddables" enough...And the box that the roll comes in looks small, but you'll not believe the size of the roll you get once you pull it out of the little brown box it comes in...Highly recommended...
So activities and toys like this, that will keep BOTH his body AND his mind occupied for long periods of time is what you're looking for...
Momo will be coming with me and able to come out of the cage (when the dog is outside, it'll be shifts haha)
