Aavogaro
New member
- Jan 3, 2020
- 80
- 10
- Parrots
-
Fish & Blue - the budgie brat pack
Snoopy - lovable M whitefaced cockatiel
(Pending adoption) Paco - 25yo CAG
Long post alert.....
OK guys, really need your help with this. For those of you who don’t know how I acquired Paco here’s a brief summary. I found him through a secondhand rehome site on Facebook. Turns out his owner lives 10 minutes for me. He’s 23 years old single owner bird she hand fed him from a baby. However she has met a few unfortunate bumps in the road in life, divorce, financial issues etc. and felt she wasn’t giving him the attention he needed and deserved. During a few of the more major events in her life he plucked and that showed her that he wasn’t getting what he needed and she finally decided finding him a new home would be best. Enter me and my family. We took him in about two months ago. He’s a great bird. A little bit of plucking since we’ve had him but very minor. I feel for a grey he adjusted very quickly and well to our home. Formed a good relationship with the previous owner from the start. She asked to come see him after two weeks. I could tell she was really struggling without him in her life. I felt incredibly bad and prior to her coming to see him told her if she really was that devastated for giving him up that I would consider giving him back. She never acknowledged it, came to visit, spent 20 minutes with him, a lot of which was in tears, but left saying she couldn’t have found a better home for him. I decided that was that and we have moved on, I have worked very hard with him to help him overcome his fear of things like new toys and new environments. We’ve made great progress. In this past week he has finally decided my three-year-old can be his friend and will kiss her and step up on her arm which brings her a ton of joy.
Then 2 nights ago I get a Facebook message from his previous owner, the short of it being that she has thought about my offer since she came to visit him but with the coronavirus things have been crazy and she knew she couldn’t come over, but she would like to take me up on my offer and take him back. And now I am feeling really torn. I don’t think she has an awful home for him, but I don’t think she is the best for a bird of such high intelligence. I think I could teach her some things that would enable her to provide him a more enriching life like he has been having with us. But I also saw how bonded he was to her when she came to visit him. We are growing attached to him, as I just mentioned my three-year-old is beginning to develop a relationship with him, he’s relating to the different people in my family. What’s eating at me is that I did offer at the very beginning, mainly because that’s the way I was raised and I was doing it out of the goodness of my heart, but now this far into it, which really isn’t that far at all, I feel very torn. She is his original mom. She was for 23 years. I can’t imagine how hard it has been for her to give him up and that breaks my heart. Even though it was a legitimate sale and I bought him per the agreed terms I feel like not giving him back to her is my doing something wrong. And I want to clarify when I say giving I do mean returning for the same price that I paid, if not more since I purchased him a significantly nicer cage and have invested hundreds of dollars in toys for him which would go with him because he enjoys them.
Sorry, this is super long, I’m just trying to get everything out there. I really feel like a part of me is doing something wrong if I don’t allow him to go back to his original owner, but a part of me feels like I’m doing something wrong if I do. One because she’s not the ideal home for an African gray, two because we are growing close to him. Although it wouldn’t devastate me to give him back now in the same way as it has been to her and I think that’s why I feel so torn. Last night I saw a Facebook post of hers where she shared a memory from 2015 of Paco and her comment sharing it was “my life is empty without you”. Several friends commented asking what happened to him and suggested she ask his new home if he could come back to her. It was hard for me to read.
Ok, that’s all I can think to tel you. Please fire away with your thoughts and feelings, advice, whatever. I really feel stuck in this one. Thanks in advance!!!!
OK guys, really need your help with this. For those of you who don’t know how I acquired Paco here’s a brief summary. I found him through a secondhand rehome site on Facebook. Turns out his owner lives 10 minutes for me. He’s 23 years old single owner bird she hand fed him from a baby. However she has met a few unfortunate bumps in the road in life, divorce, financial issues etc. and felt she wasn’t giving him the attention he needed and deserved. During a few of the more major events in her life he plucked and that showed her that he wasn’t getting what he needed and she finally decided finding him a new home would be best. Enter me and my family. We took him in about two months ago. He’s a great bird. A little bit of plucking since we’ve had him but very minor. I feel for a grey he adjusted very quickly and well to our home. Formed a good relationship with the previous owner from the start. She asked to come see him after two weeks. I could tell she was really struggling without him in her life. I felt incredibly bad and prior to her coming to see him told her if she really was that devastated for giving him up that I would consider giving him back. She never acknowledged it, came to visit, spent 20 minutes with him, a lot of which was in tears, but left saying she couldn’t have found a better home for him. I decided that was that and we have moved on, I have worked very hard with him to help him overcome his fear of things like new toys and new environments. We’ve made great progress. In this past week he has finally decided my three-year-old can be his friend and will kiss her and step up on her arm which brings her a ton of joy.
Then 2 nights ago I get a Facebook message from his previous owner, the short of it being that she has thought about my offer since she came to visit him but with the coronavirus things have been crazy and she knew she couldn’t come over, but she would like to take me up on my offer and take him back. And now I am feeling really torn. I don’t think she has an awful home for him, but I don’t think she is the best for a bird of such high intelligence. I think I could teach her some things that would enable her to provide him a more enriching life like he has been having with us. But I also saw how bonded he was to her when she came to visit him. We are growing attached to him, as I just mentioned my three-year-old is beginning to develop a relationship with him, he’s relating to the different people in my family. What’s eating at me is that I did offer at the very beginning, mainly because that’s the way I was raised and I was doing it out of the goodness of my heart, but now this far into it, which really isn’t that far at all, I feel very torn. She is his original mom. She was for 23 years. I can’t imagine how hard it has been for her to give him up and that breaks my heart. Even though it was a legitimate sale and I bought him per the agreed terms I feel like not giving him back to her is my doing something wrong. And I want to clarify when I say giving I do mean returning for the same price that I paid, if not more since I purchased him a significantly nicer cage and have invested hundreds of dollars in toys for him which would go with him because he enjoys them.
Sorry, this is super long, I’m just trying to get everything out there. I really feel like a part of me is doing something wrong if I don’t allow him to go back to his original owner, but a part of me feels like I’m doing something wrong if I do. One because she’s not the ideal home for an African gray, two because we are growing close to him. Although it wouldn’t devastate me to give him back now in the same way as it has been to her and I think that’s why I feel so torn. Last night I saw a Facebook post of hers where she shared a memory from 2015 of Paco and her comment sharing it was “my life is empty without you”. Several friends commented asking what happened to him and suggested she ask his new home if he could come back to her. It was hard for me to read.
Ok, that’s all I can think to tel you. Please fire away with your thoughts and feelings, advice, whatever. I really feel stuck in this one. Thanks in advance!!!!