A Bird Called Guppy
Sep 8, 2008 Pets & Animals
Guppy, our new Quaker Parrot
Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages. Please welcome the newest addition to the fur and feathered family of Mel & Shawn: Guppy.
Guppy came to us via a lady, whom I have never met nor do I know her name. She contacted my husband’s sister, Kim, who works at a pet store trying to find a good home for him. She said that she simply didn’t have time to spend with Guppy and could no longer look after him. Her two dogs, however, were apparently far easier to look after than a quaker parrot.
We were told via Kim, from the lady who previously owned Guppy that he was a sweet bird if but a little bitey. She said that Guppy came to her from someone else when he was roughly a year old and that she’s kept him maybe 3-4 years, making Guppy probably four or five years old. This lady also said that she had trained him to step up onto a perch. She was reluctant to give up his cage and toys too and only wished to give away the bird, but Kim put her foot down and simply told her that if she wasn’t willing to bring the cage then Kim wasn’t willing to take the bird.
It took her nearly two weeks to finally decide that she was going to bring Guppy in.
On Friday, September 5th, The Guppinator finally made his confused and frightened way to his forever-home with us. On a torn out loose-leaf piece of paper was a small list of things she wrote down that Guppy could say. She estimated that his vocabulary consisted of: Hello, Guppy! I love you! Here Kitty! Guppy’s Momma’s naughty boy! and one or two more small phrases.
So to cap that off she said Guppy was: trained to step up, a little bitey, and said a small bit of things.
We’ve had Guppy for four days, I can tell you without a doubt that this bird has not been handled in a very long time and that he has never stepped up onto a perch nor been trained to. Guppy is deathly afraid of his own perches, has put, to date, 13 now-scabbing-over holes in my fingers from biting, and is extremely aggressive with and about his cage.
He can say, “Guppy’s a good boy!,” and within two days has already clearly said and picked up my, “Up, up?” from trying to get him to step up, as well as “Ow!” when I won’t remove my finger even if it’s bleeding and push back, mimicked the camera shutter not four minutes after hearing it, picked up Shawn’s father’s smoker’s cough, picked up laughing, plays Peekaboo, and has been out of his cage twice.
The latter bit of info about him being out of his cage is important. I have been marginally upset by Guppy’s behavior because for me, everything about it screams neglect and perhaps even, abuse–probably the not on purpose kind of abuse either. I am very sure it’s the I-don’t-know-a-damn-thing-about-birds kind of misinformation and handling which have ingrained Guppy with some extremely negative behaviors; there’s a band of feathers missing from around his neck, healed, which tells me he at one point was plucking due to stress and neglect as well. Back to the part about her saying he was trained to step up onto a perch?
I called bullshit and told everyone this. Kim apparently confronted the lady who called Sunday night to see how Guppy was doing–she told her that we didn’t think he was handled at all. She confessed that Guppy hadn’t been out of his cage in two years.
Seriously, is it any wonder this bird is a handful?
Now he’s ours and I am happy that he is. Four years of mistreatment will take a long time to ease and it may never truly go away. Guppy may forever be a little bitey, or he may never truly trust humans because of his passing from owner to owner–but he is here now and I will do my damnedest to make sure he understands that no one will hurt him here ever again. No one will keep him locked away in his cage to become a pretty display piece. No one will hit or scream at him.
It blows my mind how seriously uninformed some people are when it comes to birds as well as pets in general. Seriously, all it takes is a single Google search to start you in on the path to everything you and your pet needs to ensure a happy, healthy relationship…Or even finding out if you two are made for one another.
Save yourself the holes in your fingers I am sporting right now, the bruises behind the scabs, and the heart break. Research your pet choices. Ask someone who owns the same animal you are looking into, read, know. There aren’t any excuses in this day and information age for ignorance.
“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated”
–Mahatma Gandhi
Dog Lovers Beware: Dangerous Toy.
Aug 23, 2008 Pets & Animals
I would like to introduce you to Chai, and Chai’s Story.
Chai is a special dog, who is double lucky. Lucky to survive and lucky to have an owner that loves Chai regardless of the work and effort it now takes to care for Chai.
Chai’s toy, called The Pimple Ball with Bell, (Item #20227-001, UPC Code 0 4566320227 9) made by Four Paws, broke when Chai bit down on the solid sealed rubber ball. Manufacturers had forgotten to include a small hole within it. Chai’s Veterinarian believes the ball exploded under pressure and created a vacuum which trapped Chai’s tongue. The wound was bad enough that despite efforts to save it, Chai had to have his tongue amputated.
If you have this ball, or products like it in your home you can do one of two things immediately: check to make sure there is a small hole within the ball. You can even create one for yourself to stave off injury before it’s too late. If you have the time, spread the word about Chai’s story and inform fellow dog owners. Take a visit if you wish, to your local pet store and let ‘em know about this product. Take a second and let fellow pet owner’s know. I think Chai would appreciate it. Thanks!
Credit: Photos of dog toy and dog are © The Chai Story
Tags: Pets
Litter Box Queen
Jul 30, 2008 Pets & Animals
Flora, the litter queen
Our once-shelter cat, Flora, brings me so much frustration, kitteny-cuteness and laughter everyday.
Flora is not at all like Cleo, who still lives in our hearts and minds long after her heart breaking battle with CRF. Cleo was the accordion cat; pick her up, flip her to her back, squish her a bit and she’d lay there lazily with a rather let me know when you’re done, ‘kay? expression. She was the sleep-under-the-covers-knead-your-arm-pit cat. She was also fond of sticking her little cat-mouth and nose in your eye or on your forehead after spending seven hours licking it, to sleep.
Flora is not a cuddle-cat. You have to handle a few friendly bone-deep bites and artery seeking claw swipes on your way to scratching her to turn her into melty-purr kitty. Flora doesn’t like to be picked up too much either. Unless, of course, it’s to pick her up and hold her to our kitchen doors so that she can see the outside.
She’s very much atypical Siamese in some of her behavior. There are some pretty insane boughts of energy where she’ll tear through one end of the house to the other as if the devil himself were on her tail. She sproings, too. Random things that startle her—you cough, sneeze, make a noise or something moves she isn’t expecting? SPROING! Up several feet goes the kitty cat.
And play. Lawd, does she play with everything. With feet, with my hair, with toes, with the strings on my pajamas, with the fifty some odd cat toys sprinkled all over the floor, with wires, attempts to play with the bird, pouncing on Raven’s tail. It is all very little-kitteny behavior that makes me grin like an idiot and laugh.
But there’s one little thing…One heart breaking little thing she will do from time to time that just makes me almost turn into mush.
You see, when we found her at the shelter, she was in a cage like every other cat there. In these cages, there is enough room for a cat to sit up, lay down, and enough room for them to use a tiny little paper litter box with water and food bowl near a wall. That’s it.
A lot of the cats were laying in their litter boxes, old ones and little ones alike. I guess that age-old mysterious attraction. Cat + box = bed of win!
Flora was no different when I came to her cage. She was all cat-muffined in her tiny little make-shift paper litter box, giving me sleepy/pretty eyes through the bars of her cage. She was so bastet-poised beautiful when she sat up and stretched when I said hello, I fell in love with her on sight.
But you see, on occasions after I change the kitty litter I will catch her sitting in it. She’s not using the bathroom, she’s not digging about or any of that—I will come ‘round the corner and peer down to see her giving me half sleepy/pretty eyes as she is either muffin-laying on, or sitting bastet pretty on the litter. Part of my heart squeezes a little when I see it and I am taken back, instantly, to when I found her on the shelter.
My mind wonders: Does she do it because she remembers the shelter? Does she do it and think back to her tiny little cage? Does she remember the sound of other cats meowing all around her, the smell of them and the sickness? Does she sometimes hear the sound of phones ringing and hold the memory of people passing by her cage everyday?
I think about this every single time I catch her sitting in her litter box looking so very far away. I bend down and pet her and tell her what a good kitty she is, but I cannot help but feel a knot in my heart.
I keep seeing all those other cats and kittens, sitting in their litter boxes, waiting for someone like me to come along and take them home.
Tags: Flora
Good night, little guy
Jul 24, 2008 Pets & Animals
Good night, Wibbles.
Shawn was handing me things to put up on the shelves that used to hold the billion hamsters we once had. We’ve moved the two cages the three little ones shared down to the huge head board we have (we have one of those ancient water bed head boards that doubles pretty much as storage/shelves.)
That’s when I noticed Wibbles laying on the bottom of the cage right near the tube to go up to the nest and wheel. I knew something was wrong right away because these little guys never lay on the bottom. They come down to run on the wheel, sleep IN the wheel, and occasionally will nap on the shelves, but NEVER directly on the bottom of the cage.
I told Shawn right away I thought something was wrong and opened the cage door. When I opened the cage door I did not get a single reaction. These guys are pretty jumpy, that’s when I told Shawn I think he might have died…I was right as I reached in and pet him and he didn’t move.
He was still warm.
I won’t go into details–it was pretty obvious what had killed him once I lifted him up and out. Or at least, it wasn’t as if he laid down and died.
We put him in a lil’ box and buried him with the alarming amount of other lil’ guys we’ve had to bury.
It’s never easy with rodents, huh?
Night night, Wibbles. You were soft, so amazingly dumb and cute. Sleep well.
Tags: Hamster
She’d rather have a cat.
Jul 12, 2008 Pets & Animals
Early evening Florida light streaming in through the dirt-stained glass of our kitchen’s double doors. Since it’s summer, Florida’s early evening light generally tends to waddle from bright through clouds, or bright yellow sun though clouds. It’s a particular shade of the sun too that you don’t see in the morning or afternoon due to the angle of things, all the shadows are long except for those in the kitchen. Electric lights above chase them away.
My cat comes silently stalking from around the corner with her tail straight but for the very tip, which always quirks to the left or suggests the shape of a stretched out question mark.
If I am at the kitchen window she will wind around my legs and make a high pitched, short kitteney sort of meow at the window. If I am not, she will make the same sound and then tilt her head over a dainty shoulder then up, expectantly at me.
I pad over in my bare feet and scoop her up from the bare terrazzo floors, letting her front paws dangle over me left fore arm and letting her tail and butt be supported by my right.
She’s tall enough to look out the window now and her pupils grow predator-huge. Her tail starts swishing back and forth, thumping over my stomach and hip as she stares at our back yard. Some times there are birds or squirrels and she’ll lift a paw excitedly to the window and chatter her teeth to make little purrrt-mew-meh-mew-mew? noises at them. Some times, there’s nothing in the back yard but she still watches it like it’s the best thing evar.
She’s warm and heavy in my arms. I always take the time to remember how pencil-thin and skinny she was when we got her from the shelter and compare it to how round, sleek, and solid she is in my hold now. She’s incredibly smooth; I imagine this is what silk or satin might have been created and fashioned after and her fur is always spotless. I am probably messing up the seven hours of licking she does every day to get her fur to lay just so but at that moment I don’t care and she doesn’t appear to, either.
And then she purrs. It’s not a loud purr like our other cat Raven, who sounds like she’s swallowed a diesel engine with some wheezing. Flora’s purr is deep in her chest and belly, more often felt than heard. You have to be very close or it has to be very quiet for you to hear it. She purrs and it travels up and down my arms, rumbles ticks lightly against my chest and that is when I wonder if this is what true peace feels like.
There are no expectations. There are no arguments. There are no judgments, she doesn’t care if I’m lumpy, having a bad hair day, or forgot to brush my teeth after eating something heavily sprinkled with garlic. There are no misunderstandings, no heated words by mistake, no yelling, no expectations, no broken dreams, no self-hatred or regrets. She is not human, there fore, I have no faith to lose in her.
People often wonder why I don’t have friends or wish to go out or wish to go through the rigmarole of finding them–I think it’s because I’d much prefer my kitchen window and the rumble tick of a contented cat.
A Series of Unfortunate Naps.
Jun 29, 2008 Pets & Animals
That is what my sleeping habits and patterns have become. It is not, however, due to insomnia which has generally been an off and on problem for most of my adult life.
It is due, in many great parts, to a large eighteen pound cat we put on a diet the end of last year.
It can start any time at night, some times it starts as early as midnight, some times we catch a break and it starts around 5am. Most nights, it starts around 1am to 3am, and is constant until one of us says some rather nasty crap and gets out of bed to feed the land beast we call Raven.
The ritual for the cat begins with her claws on the side of our bed which she uses to haul herself up. The edge of the bed she uses is now a mess of pit marks, claw swipes and the california King cotton sheets are plucked from her claws; making smooth look knubbed. Once she manages to haul herself onto the bed, she begins her rounds. These start at the feet.
Since Raven is some how physically unable to retract her seven foot long claws, having her walk over our feet every morning is a study in how well we can stand bleedingdeathpain. See figure A:
Figure A
She used to do this on our heads, but I grew wise to this, so as you can see with Figure A, I scoot down the bed every night I crawl into it. I sacrifice my feet for my head–I figure thinking is just as important as walking.
Once she is thoroughly finished leaving new holes within our ankles, she makes a 3/4 circut around the bed, trundling up the left side and across the head of the bed. The delightful part to remember while picturing this is that she is an old cat, and tends to bring gifts with her when she gets up on the bed: some times litter is clumped on the back of her legs, some times my hair. It’s always an adventure in ew, great, now I have to wash the entire bed again. Thanks. While she is doing this, she will often sniff for any random pieces of food that may have mysteriously rained down from heaven and landed on our pillows. The approximate sound I can compare Raven’s sniffing too is the sound of an elephants trunk shoved into your ear. See figure B:
Figure B
Now that I am good and wide awake, contemplating honorable suicide or becomming a nun, Raven will gracefully heave herself to the floor, wait anywhere from five to ten minutes and do it all again.
My sleep at night has turned into a series of unfortunate naps. I long the for the days of sleep that lasted two hours or more before some sort of interruption–Flora, get off the ceiling fan. No, Flora, the blinds are not a jungle gym. Flora! Stop knocking the computer on the floor!
For now I guess I’ll just have to stock up on really good band aids and get used to curling into a fetal position in the middle of my bed while the demented snuffleupagus that is my cat shark-circles around us and I wonder what it’s like to get a full night’s sleep.
