Hi! :-)

[JayBird]

Yeah, I'm definitely going to have to watch what I feed him, since I'm used to giving something pretty much anything if it eats pretty much anything (the dog).

The smell is around his big cage. I don't know about the small one since he hasn't been in it since he was brought to us almost two weeks ago. I haven't actually been around the small cage enough to find out if it has the same smell on it as the big cage.

I've actually been considering trying to clean it off a bit though with him on it, since he doesn't come off of it. Although, night before last, he climbed down the side of it almost to the cage legs before climbing back up. In another week or two, who knows; he might decide to venture off of it on his own.

I found out this morning that I don't think he's too crazy about the big dog (the Lab). I try to keep her outside on the screened-in porch because of all the shedding; I don't want it in the house. But this morning, my brother let her come in. I heard Sammy downstairs screaming so I poked my head out to see what was going on and the dog was in the house.

[Wolf]

Pay attention to the way it sounds. It is most likely his intruder alarm call. They will use different calls for different things. He will actually use a different call for each person and / or animal in your house and in this case If he doesn't know the dog it is probably the general intruder alert.

[JayBird]

There was actually so much going on Friday morning. The dog was in the house and my brother's girlfriend was here. Sammy's met her a couple of times before though. But the dog was right in front of Sammy's cage, three or four feet or so away while he was screaming. He doesn't scream at the little dog, but the little one is in the house more than the Lab is.

I am really glad to say that the smell around Sammy's cage isn't coming from Sammy. I cleaned his cage out today and tried to wash off what I could of it. I didn't get everything off of it but I did get a lot of it and just from what I managed to get off of it, it does smell a lot better. It still needs to be taken outside and washed but I'm glad to have found out that I can get the smell off of the cage, even with a beak pecking at the top of my head and a yellow face occasionally popping in and out of mine asking me what I'm doing.

[Pajarita]

LOL - Yes, the 'Whatchudoing?' is one of those things that, apparently, all owners say to their birds because they all pick it up. Good for you on the cage cleaning! People swear by steamers and it should be fairly easy to use one even if he is on it (just be careful he is on the opposite side of where you are applying the steam because it'll burn him). I am actually considering getting one even though I have few cages (most of mine live cage-free) but it would be useful for the canary ones (I have a number of those and, even though they never get anywhere near as dirty as the parrots', I hate washing them).

[JayBird]

My U2 hasn't caught on to "Whatchu doin'?" yet. He knows "Huh?" and "Uh-huh" really well though.

So yesterday was supposed to be my bird cage cleaning day but it took a quite a bit longer than I had thought it would to clean up Sammy's cage and I wasn't able to get to Krystal's yesterday. I was going to do it today, along with some other things that I needed to do. I went downstairs and played with Sammy for a few minutes before letting Krystal out for a bit and while I was playing with Sammy, I have no idea if he meant to do it or if it was a complete accident, but Sammy came off of his cage and perched on my hand. So, instead of cleaning out Krystal's cage and whatnot today like I had planned to do, I got to spend most of the day on the screened-in porch with an Amazon pulling at my ear and sitting on top of my head.

I wasn't expecting him to let go of the cage. He's nearly fell off of it a few times while chewing on my fingers but he's always held on to it with either a beak or at least one foot. I wasn't trying to make him come off of it either. It really surprised me. He seemed to be well behaved too; never once tried to bite or get aggressive (but he hasn't been aggressive at all in the two weeks that we've had him). The only bad thing was that the entire time that I was on the screened-in porch with Sammy, I felt like I was neglecting Krystal but I knew that I couldn't have both of them out there at the same time, in case something happened and one of them suddenly decided to get mad or jealous. I let Krystal out later after Sammy was back on top of his cage.

[Pajarita]

Congratulations! You have now discovered a fact about parrots that most people do not take into consideration: if you treat them well, respect their wishes and allow them to set the pace, they will take the first step toward bumping the relationship up to a new level. Kudos to you!

[Wolf]

Wonderful, sounds like Sammy's plan worked perfectly.

[JayBird]

Sammy has come off of his cage twice now - Sunday afternoon and again Tuesday night. I was surprised he came off of it Tuesday because after Sunday, I didn't think he'd be doing it again for a while. So, since Krystal had already gone to bed, I let Sammy ride around on my shoulder while I finished putting things away in the kitchen.

We're planning on going to my grandmother's this weekend. Krystal always comes with us and we're planning on taking Sammy too...if we can get him to come off of his cage before we leave. It's just going to be a day trip (it takes about three hours to get there), so we won't be staying the whole weekend. It will be interesting to see how it goes if we can get him to come off of his cage so he can come with us.

[Pajarita]

I think it's too soon to take him on a trip unless it's to the vet. Parrots usually take about three months to begin to get comfortable in their new homes.