I admit I can get carried away with my replies.. I find much of it happens in the breeding parrots subforum or when members buy an unweaned baby and have problems helping baby thrive.
I try my best to give advice and help, but there is a difference between asking for help and taking it to heart, changing your mistakes made and asking for help but refusing to take the advice given because you don't think you're doing anything wrong. When it is between life and death for a baby bird, it becomes very frustrating when a parrot owner doesn't realize the severity of the issue until its too late.
Ha Ha Itzjbean, I think we were separated at birth, as we both seem to agree on most topics, and we are both equally-passionate about our birds and in our responses...for good or for bad :16:
For the most-part I've found that on this forum, even when a post becomes hostile, members are typically not disrespectful or nasty, and people are far-more able to express themselves than in a lot of other forums, even if what we are saying is not "popular" or what the OP wants to hear, just as long as we do it in a way that is respectful and not juvenile or just plain ridiculous. And that's a fact that is not wasted on me at all, being a long-time member of other forums where the senior-members cannot "criticize" or point-out a new-member's behavior, mistakes, neglect, etc., for fear that the new member will simply leave and never come back. While that should be a concern, if you can't even respectfully tell a new member who is new to keeping a pet that what they are doing is harmful, dangerous, irresponsible, etc., or telling them that there are no "home remedies" that will help their pet and they need to get their pet to a vet ASAP or they are going to die, then what's the point in the first-place? How much good can you do if you cannot give constructive-criticism? And there are some other pet-forums/communities online who literally do not allow ANY respectful, constructive-criticism of a new-member who has only joined for emergent help. So this forum is unique in this way, and I am grateful and thankful for this...
****What I will say is this (I couldn't not-post a little bit of friction-inducing text, it wouldn't be like me
)...What I absolutely, positively REFUSE to do (yes, I'm screaming in this particular instance), under ANY circumstance, is to "coddle" an OP who has had the ****s to write about the way they are neglecting and/or abusing their bird. And we have had a bit of that, one recent post in-particular that most are very aware of, and it got ugly (Though had one of the happiest and most beautiful outcomes in history, thank God!). That is the only post that I can remember from this forum that got to that point, and if I'm being completely honest, it happened with good-cause, in my own, personal opinion. Now I'm not condoning some of the words that were used or the names that the OP was called at all, and if I'm being completely and totally honest, I had to step-away from my computer and go snuggle with Kane a bit to calm myself down, or I too would have ended-up posting something that I would have very much regretted and that would have gotten me suspended/banned from this forum. And I was actually quite proud of myself for handling it the way that I did, as i did literally force myself to step-away from the computer and take a deep-breath, and think about how lucky I am to have my birds and the extremely-close bond that I have with all of them, and how happy I am that I am able to understand how special my relationship with my birds is. It's a very foreign thought to me and to most people in this community that there are people in this world who are lucky enough to own a beautiful, highly-intelligent, highly-affectionate parrot, yet they think of them as nothing more than "property"...this is unfortunately very, very common, and it's another situation where I have to check-myself and try to put myself in the other person's shoes/situation, and try to understand where they are coming from...Sometimes this is warranted... But again, I refuse to "coddle" people such as that one, or anyone who is not only admitting to neglecting and physically abusing their bird, but who also state that there's nothing wrong with the way they are treating their bird, that their bird deserves the abuse and neglect they are getting, etc. That doesn't fly with me at all, and never will. Birds cannot advocate for themselves, so it's up to us to advocate for them, to protect them, and to help them when they cannot help themselves...
However, the point is that there are ways to do this that don't involve name-calling, swearing, or puffing your chest out in a showing of dominance. And I've recently just been learning this, at the age of 38...and the reason I've been learning this and actually practicing it on a regular-basis is completely and totally due to my participation in this community...no joke. So for that I will forever be grateful....We're never too-old to educate ourselves and learn from others...
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