Pickles The Parrot Returns: My Continued Adventures with a Bird Brain Read online

  Pickles

  The

  Parrot

  Returns

  Georgi Abbott

  Copyright 2011 Georgi Abbot

  Smashwords Edition

  Cover By

  TAMBERLEE KING

  Thank you for being so sweet, so talented,

  And for doing such an awesome job on

  Both of my books!

  This Book is Dedicated to My Mom

  Zoe Clemens

  Thank you for your encouragement.

  If I have talent, I got it from

  You.

  ~ ~ ~

  And, of course, my husband

  Neil

  I couldn’t have done it without you babe.

  You’re my inspiration.

  Introduction

  At the time of this writing, 2011, Pickles is 9 years old. We got him from a breeder when he was exactly 3 months old, already speaking a few words. For several years, we owned a flyfishing shop and Pickles accompanied us to work most days. We no longer have the flyshop but have been fortunate enough in our careers for one or both of us to be able to spend most of our time with Pickles.

  Pickles has playstands and/or rope/boing set-ups throughout the house and he’s usually in the same room that we are in. His cage is set up in the livingroom with a playstand made of tree branches and attached to a table, right next to his cage. He is out of the cage from the moment we take him out in the morning, until he goes to bed at night – and he decides when bedtime is. He isn’t usually clipped but does not fly, as a rule, unless startled.

  He has an outdoor aviary but only spends time out there if we are in the yard to supervise him (fear of theft). From the aviary, he can overlook most of the yard – small trout pond, many trees and shrubs that are grown for wild bird habitat (of which we get many) and pedestrians can be spotted between the perimeter trees however, it’s difficult for them to see Pickles – which makes for some sticky situations. We all (including our 6 pound, rust colored Min Pin, Neeka) spend a lot of time puttering in the yard or sitting pond side in spring, summer and fall.

  We live in Logan Lake, British Columbia, Canada – a high altitude (3500 feet), semi arid small town of about 2200 people. We have long winters with snow and short growing seasons which sometimes make it very difficult to have a successful garden. Trees and shrubs are slow to grow and fruit trees are especially hard to fruit before the frosts come.

  Pickles is opinionated, head strong, cheeky, demanding and bossy but he can also be sweet, cuddly, friendly and fun loving. He likes new people and will readily chat it up with them and also sit on their hands or knees. He’s a well-adjusted, intelligent Congo African Grey with well over 100 words in his vocabulary. He is content to sit in a room with us, sit in a room alone and chat to himself or be left in the house alone and is basically a happy bird.

  In my first book, ‘Pickles The Parrot’, published in the fall of 2010, we skimmed over a few issues we had over the years but mostly it was humorous stories about life with Pickles. This book is basically the same but we will delve a little further into his/our every day life, some issues relating to health and behavior and how we deal with them. It’s not a book on advice for your parrot but hopefully it will give you some ideas. Each chapter will begin with Pickles’ past FaceBook posts, and his perspective on life, and then I will take over.

  Humorous stories about Pickles are peppered throughout this book and are not necessarily in chronological order. I have kept a journal about Pickles since day one but mostly his antics are scribbled on scrap paper only to be lost and then found again months or years later. By rewriting his stories, I am able to recall all the details from my journal or scraps of paper so that they are accurate, even though they may have occurred years ago.

  Pickles does not talk and make sense at all times. He’s pretty smart but we don’t have fascinating events and conversations every day. The stories you’ll read throughout the book are an accumulation of things that have happened in the span of 9 years. Pickles does entertaining things every day but, while they are amusing and interesting, they’re not always book worthy so it took years to get enough stories for two books.

  Chapter 1

  Poop

  “Mommy likes my poop. She's always picking it up and then she saves it in a container under the kitchen sink. After awhile, she takes it and puts it in a bigger container outside. Once a week, a big truck comes by and I think he takes it to a storage place or somewhere safe cuz I think she's afraid it will get stolen.”

  “Do you ever poop and a little bit doesn't come out? It kinda just hangs there and waves in the air? And your mommy chases you around to make sure you don't drop it somewhere? And that just makes you run faster? And along the way, it picks up dust and stuff? I do.”

  “My mommy's a little loopy, her mind is kind of soupy

  She’s quite the quack, I won't take it back

  But at least she cleans up my poopy”

  “So, I'm sitting down below on the corner of my cage apron, all fluffed up and content when suddenly I have to poop. I let one fly on the carpet below & asked for my snack. Mom said - you don't get a snack for that, there's no paper there. Okay fine. I stuck my head in the cage door and pulled out the paper from the bottom of my cage, dragged it out, over to the corner and dropped it below. Now, I realize the poop is now below the paper but really; it's just a matter of semantics. Paper - poop, poop - paper. What's the difference? You wanted paper so now you gots paper. Give me my snack!”

  “Mommy gets dizzy when she stands up really fast. When I stand up really fast, I poop. Good thing mom doesn't.”

  “Admit it, you humans are fascinated with our poop. Always looking for it, wiping it up and saving it in Kleenex, practicing poopology to learn more about what it means when it's a different color or texture. And you're always taking pictures of our butts and plastering it all over the Internet. This is why you put our food in deep bowls instead of plates, so you can cop a peek. Don't bother denying it.”

  “Mom pulled the hair out of the hairbrush, threw it on top of the full garbage under the sink and washed the brush. Later, mom took me for a walk on her hand and half way through I had to poop so she held me over the sink. I missed the drain (usually I get a bullseye) so mom wiped it up with a kleenex and when she opened the cabinet door to throw it in the garbage, she screamed! I didn't know what she was screaming about but I wasn't about to hang around to find out so I beat it out of there, fast as my wings would carry me! Then I heard her laughing and she came to find me but when I saw that dead animal in her hand, I ran for the hills again. I don't know what kind of things live in her hair but maybe if she washed it more often she wouldn't find ugly rodents nesting in there.”

  “I pooped on the counter and mom said "Jeez Pickles, how'd you like it if I pooped anywhere I felt like pooping" and I said "I don't care - you're the one that has to clean it up so how'd YOU like it?" I haven't noticed her pooping anywhere so I think I made my point.”

  Pickles talks a lot about poop. He’s interested in it, I’m interested in it and it’s a big part all our lives. To him, it represents snacks so each time he goes, he alerts me with “Poop on the paper” and then lets one fly. If he does indeed poop on one of the mats that we keep below a couple of perching areas, he’s rewarded with a pine nut and he knows that if he poops elsewhere, he doesn’t get a reward. That’s okay with him because now it becomes a source of amusement.

  When he’s pooping for snacks, he squeezes them out so often that he basically runs out and then he’ll start saving
it up. Once he’s got a nice load ready, you can just see it in his eyes. He suddenly straightens up, eyes wide as if thinking “Whoa, I think I got enough!” He starts shaking his butt, but this isn’t your regular Grey butt shake, his whole body will vibrate violently as he grips his perch tightly and bends backwards and down so far that you’d think he was doing push-ups. Sometimes he’ll lose his grip and have to right himself to start all over again.

  When he finally lets it go, and before it actually hits the ground, his head is cocked to watch its descent. Then he leans forward and stares admiringly at his work of art. After he’s finished inspecting it, he fluffs up with wing flaps and shakes his tail in good cheer. Job well done! And a snack to boot!

  I’m sure other parrots do this and I have to wonder what is so attractive to them about their own poop. The sound of the plop? The size, shape and texture? The pretty colors, depending on what they’ve been eating? Obviously, those things are important to us parronts for determining their health but even we don’t stare at it as long as they do.

  Luckily, he doesn’t eat it and he actually gets quite disgusted if a little nugget sticks to his butt and he has to remove it with his beak. It rarely happens but God forbid he gets a long hangy! I’ve watched Pickles run growling and screaming in a rage trying to get away from a string of poop hanging an inch or so from his back-end.

  I’ve watched Pickles when we’re in the livingroom and he’s sleeping on top of his cage with the playstand between him and the couch. His eyes suddenly pop open, realizing he has to poop and that he hasn’t had a snack in a really long time, he scrambles across his cage, jumps on his playstand, traverses the branches and encountering his large bell along the way – which he can never, ever pass without at least slamming it with his beak – he smacks it as if to say “Not now! Can’t you see I’m on a snack mission!” - but then politely announces over his shoulder that he’ll “Be right back”, grabs a branch by the beak and swings like an acrobat down a series of other branches and toys, to the base of the playstand and hollers “Poop!” to get our attention. A wiggle and a shake and out it comes, onto the mat below. A long trek, but worth a pine nut.

  I’m sure most bird owners realize the importance of poopology, and it really is important to inspect daily. It’s an important tool for watching for health problems that we might not know about otherwise. Parrots are extremely good at hiding symptoms of illness, probably a throwback from the wild. A sick or injured bird is noticed by predators and shunned by flock mates.

  Pickles is trained to poop on paper, whether it’s below his perch or if we’re holding him and ask him to poop on an old TV Guide (which we sometimes get mixed up with a new one and are stuck with it for the 2 weeks the Guide is good for) and he’ll always tell us “Gotta poop” if he’s on us or the furniture. I can’t remember the last time Neil or I were pooped on, it’s been years but no matter how well trained a bird is, you still have poop to clean up – off perches, toys, cage floors and sometimes their food and water.

  I think our non-bird friends are disgusted and to tell you the truth, so was I before we got Pickles. It was the one drawback to getting a large bird. I’ve had budgies and cockatiels in the past and they just flitted around pooping helter-skelter. The thought of a large bird doing that was revolting to me. But very soon after Pickles joined our family, people would ask, “Do they poop a lot? Are they messy?” and quite frankly, I found myself pausing because I had ceased to think of it that way. Naturally, you end up answering “Of course! They’re birds!” and while they’re thinking “How disgusting”, I’m thinking, “What’s the big deal?”

  Poop covered mats littering the floors around all Pickles’ play areas, discarded feathers and food cluttering the floors, dark furniture that appears grey from dust dander and a TV screen we can barely see through, all seem commonplace to us now. I’m not proud, I’ll admit I’m a lousy housekeeper and I really don’t care what people think when they come to our house these days. I am officially one of those ‘bird people’. As Mark Twain once said (and by the way, he’s my great, great, great – or something like that – uncle), “She was not quite what you would call refined. She was not quite what you would call unrefined. She was the kind of person that keeps a parrot.” Good old Uncle Mark had us pegged way back in the 1800’s.

  I had a lady stop by the house one day for a business meeting. Maybe she didn’t like birds, I don’t know, but I was a little putt-off that when she entered the livingroom, she never even acknowledged Pickles. I mean, it was hard to ignore him because the minute she walked in, Pickles was doing his loud, happy chirps and calling out “Good morning!” But she didn’t even glance at him as she walked straight to the couch and took a seat with her back to him and facing me in the rocking chair.

  As we talked, I could see that Pickles was getting more and more agitated and he was trying his darndest to get her attention. “Helloooooo! Good morning!” he shouted, to no avail. His wings started splaying out of desperation as he sat on the bottom corner of his playstand until he finally allowed his wings to carry him to the couch arm opposite the snotty lady. Being intent on our conversation, she never noticed Pickles land then race across the back of the couch to the back of her head. Just as Pickles arrived, she sat back to get more comfortable and Pickles screamed in her ear “BUGGERBUTT!” Well! She about hit the ceiling! She spun her head, found herself eyeball to eyeball with Pickles and freaked again. She flung her arm, quick as a wink to swoosh him off which startled Pickles into flapping a foot or two in the air before he plunked down right in the middle of her lap. She froze in horror, trying to melt in to the couch as Pickles crapped on her skirt. “He POOPED on me!” she cried in disgust.

  I jumped up to grab Pickles saying “Don’t wipe it off, it’ll just rub right in to your skirt” and she spat “Don’t WORRY!” as she wasn’t about to go near it anyway. As I picked up Pickles he announces, “Everybody poops” (which caused me to burst into a laugh) then added, “Wanna snack”. He doesn’t get snacks for pooping on laps but man, I sure wanted to reward him for that because she deserved it! I cleaned off her skirt (without apologizing) and we finished our meeting as quickly as possible. I’m not sure who was more icy and indignant, her or me.

  Had she just glanced at Pickles and made some polite remark, it would have made me more sympathetic to her situation but she not only ignored him, she almost hurt him to boot. I know it was just a reflex on her part but I was in no mood to feel bad about the situation. Poop on her, I say.

  There’s someone else who loves Pickles’ poop. Our little, six pound Min Pin, Neeka, will awake from below a couch blanket at the sound of plopping bird poop. This is snack time for him. Now that, I admit, is disgusting. No matter what we try, we can’t get Neeka to stop. For awhile, he was trained not to do it when we were in the room but the minute we weren’t, he’d go for everything on the mats below Pickles’ areas. Finally, we just gave up. Guests are revolted and I’ve even witnessed the odd gag reflex. I recently heard about a product available from veterinarians that you can feed to dogs to keep them from eating their own poop, or another dog’s poop. I really must look into that.

  Pickles even tried to train him. One day, while on the corner of his playstand, Pickles started shaking his booty while calling “Neeka. Neeka, come.” He called, shook his body in poop preparation and waited, called, shook and waited until Neeka arrived, staring up at Pickles to see what he wanted. “Poop” said Pickles, then he pooped and spun around quickly to watch and just as Neeka went to lap it up, Pickles hollered “NO POOP! BAD!” Neeka didn’t heed him, Pickles didn’t punish him, so the dog got a snack and Pickles had a good laugh.

  Pickles spends a lot of time on the back of the couch, staring out the window and when he needs to poop, he warns us with a rapid “oh, oh, oh, oh, oh!” so we have time to get the TV guide under his butt. If we’re walking around with him on our hand, he’ll let us know it’s time to poop so we can get him above some paper, or above a sink. He like
s to get it down the drain and shows his delight with a little ‘chew’ sound. I’ve often wondered if other Greys make this sound because Pickles always expresses pleasure with this remark. It sounds sorta like the back half of a dainty little sneeze – ah-choo.

  Yes, bird poop is so precious; our friend Tamber even makes Poop Jewelry for us to wear around our necks.

  It was quite easy to train Pickles and we trained him from a very early age. The way we did it was to wait for a time that we knew he was due to poop, hold him on our hand with paper below and tell him “poop on the paper” and keep telling him until he did. We knew he had to go every 15 minutes or so, so it didn’t take long for him to poop. The second he did, he was rewarded with “Good Boy! Poop on the paper!” and simultaneously handed a snack. He’s not really what you would call potty trained. He doesn’t always go to a matt that is situated beneath his play areas but more often than not, he does.

  A typical conversation around here is …

  Pickles: “Wanna poop?”

  Me: “Nope.”

  Pickles: “Doncha hafta poop?”

  Me: “Um, I don’t thinks so.”

  Pickles: “Hafta poop.”

  Me: “Fine, go ahead.”

  Pickles poops.

  Pickles: “I did a poop – wanna snack.”

  Me: “Good for you – here’s your snack.”

  Pickles: “Wanna poop.”

  Me: “Yeah right.”

  Pickles: “Wanna poop for a potato.”