Hi all,
Happy festivities and all that.
I am a very reclusive person - I don’t have people visit my house ever aside from when absolutely necessary (eg: electrician, landlord). As it being Christmas Eve, my aunts and little brother were due to come visit so we could exchange our presents.
My aunts were the ones who originally had Bobby, my African grey that I was reunited with earlier this year.
Unfortunately my brother is sick (as am I - negative on COVID but seasonal flu is like wildfire around here) so he and one of my aunts were ultimately unable to come, leaving delivery swap service duties to my remaining aunt.
The aunt with my brother was the one who primarily cared for and had the only partial relationship with Bobby. The aunt that visited today absolutely hated Bobby’s guts.
With how different Bobby has been living with me vs how he was with them, I thought him being in his comfort zone would make the visit go pretty smoothly.
I was not correct in this assumption.
My aunt came up the stairs, passing the baby gate only to realise as she was passing it that Bobby was perched upon it, right by her hip. It seemed he also hadn’t registered who had come into the house because he was also frozen in place. She quickly scooted past him and begged me not to let him come in after us. I promised he wouldn’t because he knows the dogs free roam on this side of the house so he never trespasses.
This remained true, but he started rocketing off old and loud vocalisations he had from their home. He’s gotten much quieter over the course of living with me - using much less words and more comfortable exchanging whistles and clicks. Now he was back to loud yelling.
It was clear he wanted off the baby gate and he’s definitely trained me a bit into a taxi because he likes to wait for me to ferry him away to his cage. I offer my arm and he climbs aboard - but he climbs on slow and exaggerated- not like himself at all. Fully fluffed out and his head swinging out around the bend to eye at my aunt across the room.
Basically put - he was NOT happy to see her.
I took him back to his open cage and set him atop, but he didn’t settle even with her far out of sight. Ultimately I went back in the other room to catch up with my aunt and hoped he’d calm in his comfort spot atop his cage.
He didn’t move from the spot, didn’t settle his feathers, and didn’t cool down his vocab.
After an hour I thought perhaps doing some of his cues and some treats might help him focus elsewhere, so I brought his favourite monkey nuts. I walked up to him and presented it even as a lure (cheating at this point - I’m asking for just his attention at this point) but he won’t even approach the treat.
No, he’s eyeing my aunt poking her head in from the doorway. She’s the entire way across the room from him and he is on high alert. I was actually worried that if I pushed too much that I could end up getting inadvertently bitten so I gave up and backed off. He was so peeved off the entire time.
Ultimately, my aunt left and once out the house I thought - finally he can calm down - but he wouldn’t. His feathers had lessened in the puffing but I couldn’t get him to go back into his cage for the evening. He refused to eat any of his dinner or any treats, and after an hour of failure I had to turn off the light and pressure him in so I could close the door.
I’m in bed now but I feel like the night was a bit of a failure - like I’d sent Bobby to a really bad place that he couldn’t fight out of. I just hope he isn’t mad still in the morning. I know birds can memorise a great deal of faces, but I didn’t think they could hold such a strong grudge.
Pics of him days prior being not stressed and pretty chill.
Happy festivities and all that.
I am a very reclusive person - I don’t have people visit my house ever aside from when absolutely necessary (eg: electrician, landlord). As it being Christmas Eve, my aunts and little brother were due to come visit so we could exchange our presents.
My aunts were the ones who originally had Bobby, my African grey that I was reunited with earlier this year.
Unfortunately my brother is sick (as am I - negative on COVID but seasonal flu is like wildfire around here) so he and one of my aunts were ultimately unable to come, leaving delivery swap service duties to my remaining aunt.
The aunt with my brother was the one who primarily cared for and had the only partial relationship with Bobby. The aunt that visited today absolutely hated Bobby’s guts.
With how different Bobby has been living with me vs how he was with them, I thought him being in his comfort zone would make the visit go pretty smoothly.
I was not correct in this assumption.
My aunt came up the stairs, passing the baby gate only to realise as she was passing it that Bobby was perched upon it, right by her hip. It seemed he also hadn’t registered who had come into the house because he was also frozen in place. She quickly scooted past him and begged me not to let him come in after us. I promised he wouldn’t because he knows the dogs free roam on this side of the house so he never trespasses.
This remained true, but he started rocketing off old and loud vocalisations he had from their home. He’s gotten much quieter over the course of living with me - using much less words and more comfortable exchanging whistles and clicks. Now he was back to loud yelling.
It was clear he wanted off the baby gate and he’s definitely trained me a bit into a taxi because he likes to wait for me to ferry him away to his cage. I offer my arm and he climbs aboard - but he climbs on slow and exaggerated- not like himself at all. Fully fluffed out and his head swinging out around the bend to eye at my aunt across the room.
Basically put - he was NOT happy to see her.
I took him back to his open cage and set him atop, but he didn’t settle even with her far out of sight. Ultimately I went back in the other room to catch up with my aunt and hoped he’d calm in his comfort spot atop his cage.
He didn’t move from the spot, didn’t settle his feathers, and didn’t cool down his vocab.
After an hour I thought perhaps doing some of his cues and some treats might help him focus elsewhere, so I brought his favourite monkey nuts. I walked up to him and presented it even as a lure (cheating at this point - I’m asking for just his attention at this point) but he won’t even approach the treat.
No, he’s eyeing my aunt poking her head in from the doorway. She’s the entire way across the room from him and he is on high alert. I was actually worried that if I pushed too much that I could end up getting inadvertently bitten so I gave up and backed off. He was so peeved off the entire time.
Ultimately, my aunt left and once out the house I thought - finally he can calm down - but he wouldn’t. His feathers had lessened in the puffing but I couldn’t get him to go back into his cage for the evening. He refused to eat any of his dinner or any treats, and after an hour of failure I had to turn off the light and pressure him in so I could close the door.
I’m in bed now but I feel like the night was a bit of a failure - like I’d sent Bobby to a really bad place that he couldn’t fight out of. I just hope he isn’t mad still in the morning. I know birds can memorise a great deal of faces, but I didn’t think they could hold such a strong grudge.
Pics of him days prior being not stressed and pretty chill.