New owners journey: a week in

[chris-md]

I've now had my Parker for a week, and what a week! It's been more pluses than minuses, and definitely a journey of learning!

VET
Parkers blood work came back, and everything looks great except having tested positive for clamydia. But lymphycytes are a tad low so it's not likely an active infection and more previous exposure.

DIET
This has been both easy and difficult, and is my biggest source of stress. The diet is very straightforward, but being the lazy person I am, I'm looking at ways to do bulk so I'm not chopping daily. However, every attempt to store bulk food results in disgusting wilted looking food after a day. I have a few other things I need to try that might help, and I've only been working with a limited palette (occasional treats not withstanding), so there's still some discovery to go.

SOCIALIZATION
this has been the most revealing and most fulfilling. I am STUNNED at how gentle this bird is. And even more is the patience HE displays, a trait I never contemplated a parrot could have. I've had some nervous nelly moments early on with the beak, and he kept a steady temperament and taught me how gentle he really is. A big lesson, as I learned about macaws, is sometimes you have to take the beak in order to understand.

WATER
He came hating water. One hesitant shower later he's more accepting. I'm taking him into the shower with me every other day or so, and he's come to not hate it. When I hold him and back slowly into the stream, he opens his mouth to drink some water. I hold my arms in a way that gives him an escape tore from the water but he doesn't take it and sits in the stream.

He really is something special to me, and I'm thankful he came to me. Even DH, who never wanted a parrot, is very amused by his chatter and says he's a really sweet parrot.

Welcome to the family Parker! Here's to many happy years together

 

[DexMom]

What a wonderful story! I'm so glad you found each other and I can't wait to hear about more of your adventures.

I'm a new ekkie owner, too. My Dexter is a baby, just came home from the aviary 3 weeks ago. We've had our ups and downs, but my whole family is already quite smitten with him .

 

[chris-md]

Thanks DexMom.

Congrats on your little dexter, his photo is so adorable . What sort of challenges are you finding with him?

 

[DexMom]

The first few days were terrific, he was stepping up on all of us (myself, my husband and both kids), we were taking things slow and making sure we tried to read his body language and respect the fact that he was scared and getting used to a whole new world. Of course, there were a couple of oopses when one of us went a little to far or fast and we had a few bites, but nothing major. The second week he seemed a little less responsive and willing to come out of his cage and play as often, unless it was with my daughter who he clearly adores. We gave him the space he needed and he was coming around.

The third week I made, what I can see now, a pretty bad decision. My husband had to go out of town on business and my children and I had to take a 3 day trip for a figure skating competition my daughter qualified for. I asked if the breeder whether he thought it was better to have Dexter board with him for that 3 days or travel with us and he recommended having him travel with us. We brought him along in a travel cage that the breeder not only recommended, but sold to me for the specific purpose of taking this (and future) trips. It was a 3-ish hour car ride and 3 days in the hotel. I got a pet friendly hotel so that there would be no possible troubles at check-in and I could let Dex out of his cage as much as possible while we were there.

The trip was not good. Dexter clearly did NOT like being in the travel cage, but I had no choice but to have him in there when we were not in the room. He got pretty aggressive and bit me quite a few times during the trip (mostly when I was trying to get him back in the cage, even though I was using a perch instead of my hand to have him step-up on).

Then, once we got home, he didn't want anything to do with any of us. This went on for about 3 days and it was heartbreaking. If any of us tried to reach into his cage he would strike and bite hard, no matter how slowly the approach. He wouldn't even take treats from any of us. So, I would open the cage to let him come out on his own. Mostly he just stayed inside, but when he did fly out, he would immediately climb up to the play center on top and get very aggressive, hissing, spitting and charging anyone that came anywhere near him. It was clearly very territorial behavior and one time putting him back inside I got a very, very bad bite. I practically could not get him off of me.

I have SO much guilt because I know the change in demeanor is because I traumatized him with the trip. Day by day he's getting back toward his old self, but honestly it's going to take a bit of time for me to feel comfortable handling him again. I do it, he lets me take him out and I let him perch on my hand, we chit chat and I give him treats to try and rebuild our bond, but I'm nervous doing it and I think he can sense it. He's still biting, but more tentatively, so I won't let my children handle him right now until he's a bit more docile again.