Seriously Idiotic Parrot Owners

[Brittanyv326]

WOW after seeing that video of the bird drinking beer, I just remembered a story I was told. I went to a small get together and brought my dog (I generally refuse any get together if they don't let me take her. Wonder how I will be now that I have a bird!) and people were drinking and smoking weed. I don't participate in either anymore by the way. The one person I didn't know at the party started trying to get me to feed my dog beer. I said "No, that's absolutely awful," and told him of how my stupid brother used to give my dog beer and blow her shotguns and how much it angered me when I found out. Then he tells me how his uncle's parrot (can't remember what kind now) used to drink his beer and it was *so funny* and it was okay for the bird, so it's okay for my dog. What gets me is how there's such comedic value in things like this to so many people. HOW is that funny? Please tell me, because I must be missing something, to me it's horribly disgusting and abusive. And so many otherwise "normal" people enjoy seeing things like this. I know people who have given their dog medicine for people because they couldn't afford to go to the vet. People like that should not have ANY pets, not even $4 hamsters or 50 cent goldfish! When you have a pet, their life is in YOUR hands, they trust you (hopefully), they need you, they rely on you to provide the best possible care and to throw that all out the window to for a cheap laugh makes me sick. Parrots (and all pets for that matter) are living, breathing, free thinking animals and deserve to be treated as such. Just because they can't say, "I'm scared out of my mind" or comprehend what can and will kill them, doesn't mean that it's okay to subject them to whatever you want like drinking beer, exposing them to toxic bacteria living in our mouths, dogs mouths, cats mouths, teflon poisoning, etc... I wish there was some way to weed out all of these awful people. I think before adopting ANY pet, they should be forced to watch a video informing them on the species they're adopting and sign something that says if it is ever reported and proven that you have threatened the lives of one or more of your animals, all will be confiscated and you will be fined and will serve a sentence in accordance with the severity of the crime in jail. Morals are traded in for a laugh and that laugh can be traded in for a ticket straight to jail. If only. Maybe one day laws will be more strict about animal abuse and videos of parrots drinking beer won't get high ratings, thumbs up, and encouraging comments; instead they'll be tracked to an ISP address and a uniformed officer will come and arrest the dumb owner responsible for the abuse.

I was going to say more about smoking around parrots, swapping saliva with parrots, letting your dog play with your parrot, but I've already made this quite long and I'm a little late on the topic so I will end this here. However sick all of these acts are, I hope they serve as some type of educational or informational purpose.

Edit/Add:
Just saw the "Teaching your bird how to burp". First off, I want to say GROSS! Secondly, I wanted to share this with you in case no one else saw it:
Someone commented on this video:

Saliva is really bad for them.

To which he responded:

So is booze, chocolate, spinach and avocado ~ yet he craves those things and steals them whenever he gets the chance. He is fighting fit, and getting more lively by the year.
I guess he disproves all the 'rules'.

REALLY GUY??? Just because he doesn't KNOW they can kill him means the "rules" are "disproved"??!?!?!?!?!?! I'm just disturbed. He's exposed his bird to all of those things without a care? Oh man...

[Natacha]

Edit/Add:
Just saw the "Teaching your bird how to burp". First off, I want to say GROSS! Secondly, I wanted to share this with you in case no one else saw it:
Someone commented on this video:

Saliva is really bad for them.

To which he responded:

So is booze, chocolate, spinach and avocado ~ yet he craves those things and steals them whenever he gets the chance. He is fighting fit, and getting more lively by the year.
I guess he disproves all the 'rules'.

REALLY GUY??? Just because he doesn't KNOW they can kill him means the "rules" are "disproved"??!?!?!?!?!?! I'm just disturbed. He's exposed his bird to all of those things without a care? Oh man...

He's just waiting for his bird to die with continuous feeding of avocados..of all thing, that is definitively the worst. I know someone who actually gave a few small pieces of this to a pet (not a bird) over a few weeks and it's going to cost her. She didn't know it was bad, knows now, and the pet was actually staying at the vets for a few days.

[alight15]

well since we're now talking about attitudes and personalities of owners...and going from "idiotic" to "arseholes"...

Here's some I found fitting into that category:

[pchela]

So what's wrong with these videos? I guess I am confused.

[notscaredtodance]

I can see the girl teasing the bird through the cage being rude, in the first video. I didn't bother watching the second video because I assume its a bird that has learned bad words, which bothers some people, but I'm not offended by it, because words mean nothing until you MAKE them have a good or bad connontation. The fourth video isn't even a bird! lol.

But I really have no idea what's wrong with the third video. It looks like two birds hanging out to me.

[Brittanyv326]

The only thing I see wrong with the third video is that the parrots ate the paint off the wall. Can't be good for them. Anyway, the laughing is really cute in my opinion.

Teaching your parrot to say bad words may be inappropriate, but not really harming the bird. Unless of course someone slaps your bird for calling them names.

But it is "idiotic parrot owners", not "harmful parrot owners", so I can see where the cursing one and the Budgie voice over with captions fits I suppose.

[entrancedbymyGCC]

The main problem with teaching parrots bad words is that it can cause problems if you ever need to rehome them. Less of an issue with short-lived species than those which are likely to outlive the owner.

[Brittanyv326]

I never thought of the whole rehoming scenario, that's really good point.

Alright to top off all the stupid parrot owners, check this craigslist ad... Rehoming a Blue and Gold Macaw, okay.. But the pictures? On a raft in the pool??? Can't comment on the others because I can't tell if the bird's in a screened in area. I really wonder if this bird is flighted. Can anyone tell from the wings?
http://fortmyers.craigslist.org/lee/pet/1773932541.html

Who even thinks of doing that? Can't the chemicals in the pool kill him easily if he managed not to drown?

[lzver]

The main problem with teaching parrots bad words is that it can cause problems if you ever need to rehome them. Less of an issue with short-lived species than those which are likely to outlive the owner.

We don't use a lot of bad language at home because we have kids around, so Lucy and Jessie don't say anything that is inappropriate, but they do mimic my husband and some of the rude noises he makes Being a Red-Belly, Lucy is a little show off and isn't shy to talk or make noises when people are around. It doesn't really bother us but I can just imagine what some people would think about us when Lucy and Jessie are making the noises back and forth and laughing at each other. I can't help but laugh, so I know it just encourages the behavior. But I've been working on getting them to say excuse me whenever they make those noises ... Lucy said 'excuse me' for the first time last weekend. It's hit and miss, but she's catching on.

There are definitely some things we work with them to say, but some of the things they say are just picked up from overhearing us. So in general I think parrot owners need to think about what they say and ask themselves if they would want their birds saying that. Listening to someone else's parrots talk can say a lot about the owners

[alight15]

well the 4th is a parrot technically..not a living parrot but you cant deny it is one.
The reason is "idiotic parrot owners" could be about those who harm their pets or let them get in harms way,but it's also wide enough of a term to include people who like to go downstairs backwards hopping on one foot, who also happen to own a parrot.Since the topic lately has been going towards that,I added the last video as a jest on this matter.

As for the rest, since parrots dont understand the stuff they say they often think they're getting closer when they imitate us,my mom and sister "kiss" one of our parakeets so much,that one learned to imitate that noise. When ever I need to clip its nails or grab him(which he's not used to) he makes the kissing noise and tries to get near my face as a way to say "stop ,i'm a buddy see" is almost kinda sad,at how he does this so desperately.

The cussing and stuff is "bad" cause the parrot owner is getting amusement out of hearing their pets cuss,it's like this video but the kid will grow up and learn the difference, where as a parrot will keep it in his vocabulary for a long time.

The laughing just creeped me out though,I can imagine they laughed while the parrot was imitating the laughing and reinforced it(as my sister does kissing back when her budgie "kisses")while the parrot is innocently trying to communicate with them.

To the parrot they seem to be just words or noises that get a response, imagine it doing that for attention,or cause it'd getting grabbed or it's nails clipped. -_-
The laughing one is gonna be harder to re-home than the cursing parrot, unless you like staying up at night gripping your sheets in fear of the hallway in which you put your new bird.