We walked to a hardware store to pick up some materials for toys. Just inside past the entrance was a woman standing and talking to the employees. I couldn't pass unnoticed. The woman got all excited and was saying how she had a cockatiel. She abruptly started petting Truman very roughly. She was just running her hand down Truman's back and roughly scratching his head. I could just tell she knew nothing about parrots and was probably more of a dog person. Sure enough she spent more time talking about her dog than parrot. Truman was a bit uncomfortable but I allowed it to go on as part of his desensitization/socialization training. If she had dared done this to Kili, she would have had a bloody finger no doubt. I feel bad for her bird.
Continuing down our journey, I stopped by a bakery. I didn't want to take the parrots inside so I asked them to bring me a loaf of bread up to the door. All the employees ended up coming out and checking out the birds. Most of the questions were about how much they cost and if they could talk. I left the bakery and split some bread with my parrots. While standing outside hand feeding Truman some bread (I can't believe he doesn't know how to eat bread on his own!), some people came by with children and wanted to take a picture with me.
I kept walking toward home and a guy came up to me saying how he used to have two parrots but one died and the other flew away. Once again, this really depresses me what kind of owners we have out there. He flung his hand in really quickly towards Truman's legs to try to get him to step up. Truman is really easy going and non-aggressive so the guy got away with it. Once again, Kili would have taught him a good lesson. I'm just amazed how people don't even have any basic handling skills. I always try to explain that all motions must be slow and deliberate. But so many people try to treat parrots like dogs. Quite an insult to a parrot I am sure.
Finally, nearly home, I wanted to put Kili down on a fence so that she could poop but discovered that she already helped herself to my shirt instead. I put Truman down and started wiping my shirt (yes I carry paper towels with me for this). Turns out the owner of the house on whose fence I had put Truman down on was just walking in. He saw this and immediately started calling his kids over to come see the birds. The kids couldn't give two cents but the dad was kind of interested. He explained that they had a small parrot but doesn't even know what it's called. I asked "budgerigar" and he had no clue. I tried again, "parakeet?" And he hesitated for a moment but showed the size with his fingers so I think it had to be a budgie and not a cockatiel. He said that they basically don't do anything with it at all. I said to check my Duke videos on youtube but doubt he'll remember the channel.
I gotta start carrying cards around with URLs for my forum, blog, and channel cause I end up meeting lots of crappy parrot owners on a regular basis and some learning would do them some good.
