by Natacha » Sat May 29, 2010 8:19 am
Sorry about bringing this up but I'm finally looking through some older posts that I haven't looked at before and came by this..
I have always loved animals and as a kid wanted a lot of pets but since we moved a lot, my mom wasn't too keen on the idea. We once went to visit a friend of hers that had a budgie; this adorable little bird spent most of the afternoon on me and I was in total awe. This, combined with the stories my mom had about one of the budgies she had growing up convinced me that I would have a bird when I got older (back then I was probably thinking budgie since I was totally oblivious to other parrots people could own; the internet either didn't exist or wasn't used by the general population and I knew no one with another type of parrot).
This stuck with me and I did continue to "harass" (as a kid can do) my parents for a budgie. Nothing. Then we found this stray cat (who had clearly been a pet; my mom thought her previous owner probably just abandoned her when they moved like so many other cats) and she came back to our house often (my mom would always allow to go back out) so eventually became "ours", we even brought her with us when we moved. Now with this cat, who was quite the hunter in the beginning, my mom had a perfectly valid reason to say no to a budgie and I stopped asking, happy I finally had a pet.
Jump forward a few years and my mom keeps talking to me about a friend of her's Lovebird. How utterly sweet and fun it is, bla bla bla...She would talk about it A LOT so I thought I would start looking around for baby Lovebirds so I could offer her one for Mother's Day. I did found a few, not knowing better, they were available in the neighborhood pet store. Of course, I didn't just give her one, I did expose my plan, brought her to the pet store (she was reluctant at first) and then she totally fell in love with a creamino Lovebird she named Nicky.
Ah Nicky.
He started all of this.
When we got Nicky, I started, as well as my mother, to look up other types of parrots.
We all fell in love with Nicky. He was a bit, er how to say, "dumb" in some fashion (more like clueless about how to do some things) but this just added to his charm. But he was so full of love, how could you resist a bird that enjoys your presence and wants to be with you when you are there?
One Lovebird became two Lovebirds a few months later when my mom added Sydney to the growing flock. Then came an African Grey. These were all "family" birds (aka really my mom's but as long as I was living there, I could consider them my pets as well).
A year or so later after Nicky joined, I was looking for *my* first parrot.
I almost got a green cheek conure at a pet store but then came Piper (and I'm so happy he did since green cheeks are really not for me). Piper chose me and and to this day is still one of the sweetest most loving parrots I could ask for. I loved my family cat, her passing was one of the hardest things I had to go through, and I do love cats, hence why I have another, but birds bring something different than cats. I'm not sure I could describe it properly so I probably won't even try, but where I could imagine not having a cat for a while, I don't think it would be the same as no birds. I am perfectly content with one cat, can't say the same with birds; they are much more "addictive".