by Wondertwin » Sun Aug 03, 2014 1:42 pm
Thanks very much for the animal cohabitation stories! I will take them to heart and learn what I can from them. It was a busy weekend here with bird meeting, and it was awesome! I didn't realize they had kids too, 3 boys ages 10, 7, and 1 year. Their CAG, Mike, is 7 and they've had him for 5 years. The senegals are a relatives birds they're on a long term care arrangement with. Their owner was in an accident that mangled his legs up a bit and he's been through surgery. When he's done with rehab they'll return the birds when he can care for them.
I'll start with the senegals since I didn't interact with them much. They've been there 6 weeks and are like two little "bros." Very goofy with each other, seem kind of feral in their play, it's rough but they make happy noises. They wouldn't step up for the family at first, but after a couple weeks they did. They're clipped as is the owners preference so they are not out with the CAG, who doesn't like them much but puts on a show of not caring about them-until he does. They rotate out of cage time. While out they like to chase balls that are rolled on the floor, throwing scares them. Their sons roll the balls on the floor for them and then they play with it with each other rather than the human. They do talk to the people though, just not ok with lots of touching and prefer each other.
Okay MIKE, who is sometimes called "Lord Mike" was the best animal meeting I've had in ages. He was fantastic. I really wanted to give him treats and do what he allowed me to do, but I was very cautious at first being new and kept my distance. Well, that's not how Mike rolls. He was very gregarious and silly. He says "awww don't be like that." Which is what the boys say to him when he's being testy about stepping up. He said it looking at me and my husband when we gave him a ton of space. He also says "Shhhhhhh" to the senegals lol. He wears his harness and eats outside with the family and he's quite happy to walk around the table and help himself despite having his own bowls. He does "shoo!" if you tell him to though. He waves, turns, says "Hi" and "yum!" in between he makes little chirps and sing-song noises. He loves it when people sing, and sometimes dances spontaneously to the music they play outside. His favorite person is the husband. When he tells Mike to "shoo" Mike says "okay okay!" and then comes right back 3 seconds later haha. He then gets told "Go eat your food!" to which he responds "Your food!" right back at you, it's a back and forth as he heads back to his own food. He spent time in the tree by the table on a low branch as well or preening. They have a pool so he also says "Marco!" but no "polo" for some reason, they're guessing it's a hard word or something. Mike is flighted, and he mostly listens to who is calling him and flies over. The boys he finds very fun, he likes to watch them do stuff a lot and they get to actually throw the toy balls for him, he's into it. He also knows he can get treats when hes shut down by the adults from the boys sometimes, he's crafty.
The dogs are old, very old. They just want to be with the family too. Mike only knows the name of one dog, Dirk. He's figured out if he tosses food the dogs go for it so that's a super fun game. For my own dogs I brought a clean rag and wiped the cages with it to bring home. I let them sniff it but they had to do it gently, no actual nose contact with the fabric. We'll keep doing that for a bit and then move on to leave it with the rag. It was a good weekend meeting the birds, Mike did take a scratch and some treats from us, he was very ok with the visitor situation so it was a nifty experience.
is MUCH louder, and the larger birds are louder still. Budgies also don't exactly "hang out" much. They are busy birds who like to be doing something, preferably with other budgies. 
