a bird and a beagle

[TooLove]

Hi all..
I've lurked for a bit but I figured I should introduce myself. I have an umbrella cockatoo (male, 9yrs old, had him since he was 5 mos) and a recent addition of a beagle. Currently in vet school in Canada, and travel back to the US along with my bird for visits. I've worked for an avian vet for 6 years.

[liz]

Welcome to the forum.

[Wolf]

Great! Glad to have you here and I hope that you enjoy this place.

[Pajarita]

Be extremely careful with the beagle and the too. Beagles are doo-doo head, very stubborn dogs that would go after a bird without a second thought. The pet ones are better than the field or show ones but some of them still show a strong birding instinct despite the breeders efforts in breeding it out of them.

[TooLove]

Be extremely careful with the beagle and the too. Beagles are doo-doo head, very stubborn dogs that would go after a bird without a second thought. The pet ones are better than the field or show ones but some of them still show a strong birding instinct despite the breeders efforts in breeding it out of them.

I appreciate your concern Pajarita, but this isn't your typical beagle. He is a retired teaching beagle from the vet school I attend, he was born in a facility that breeds laboratory beagles and other animals for research facilities, and had spent the first 5 years of his life in a caged research type setting. He has zero prey drive whatsoever. I specifically chose him in fact, because I knew that he would be a good dog to have with a parrot given his personality (beagles were never on my lists of dogs I would consider getting). He will happily let my cockatoo gnaw on his ears and toes without protesting. My bird has also had experience living with and being around other dogs including beagle mix, pug, lab, border collie mix, husky etc and is pretty savvy towards dog behavior. He has also been the boss of a few cats as well. That being said I would never consider leaving the two unsupervised together as they are both animals and anything could happen (although I'd be more inclined to expect a beak wound than other!) and I'm always vigilant when they are together.

[liz]

Poor doggie. He was kept in a cage like a lot of parrots have to endure. Your Too will probably be the pushy one. Rambo is in charge here.

[Pajarita]

Awwww, poor, poor baby! Isn't it terrible what we do to animals?!

[TooLove]

My too is most certainly in charge. I've seen him run dogs and cats right out of a room before. Funnily, he is slightly more easy going on the beagle, maybe because he senses his naivety. The dog had really no understanding of the world when I first adopted him. He didn't know what stairs were, that other dogs besides beagles existed, and certainly not what birds were. I think my too kind of took him under his wing ( ) and took it upon himself to show him the way things worked (with the added bonus that he got to be in charge this way). Animals are good like that.

[liz]

My daughter always kept her birds caged. When she moved in Rambo just considered them an addition to the family. One dog followed him and too close. I saw Rambo spread his wings, puff up and let out a squawk that even scared me. It worked.

[Matt Alyk]

Welcome to the forum.