What a day! I spent so much time shaking my head in disbelief that I'm convinced my brain dislodged from it's stem and is currently just rolling around in my skull unsupervised. I'm a little concerned about that, but in all honesty, I'm too tired to deal with it right now.
Now I've learned a lot in my 42 years. One of the things I've come to find out that while all living creatures thrive on routine, it's not always a positive thing. Sometimes predictability can wear on you, particularly when you know something unpleasant is coming, and like it or not.. you're gonna have to cope with it. I'll get into that later. None the less, success of any level usually stems from just that... a routine. Unfortunately for me, all the success lately seems to belong to Blue (this is what my kids have taken to calling her. Obviously they have no imagination.)
So I've established one of my own and day by day have expanded on that idea, trying to find something that works for me. I've come to the conclusion that I need to hire a maid, a chef and a chauffeur to drive the kids to school and run my errands. I also need a pet psychic so I can figure out what the heck this bird is thinking. Then again, she's a baby still and I might not want to know what's going on in there. She's slightly neurotic, a bit of a sociopath and there's some psychosis going on as well. No wonder we get along so well. I have all those features too! I'm having the same issues with my 9 year old son. I've come to the conclusion that the only purpose his brain serves is keeping his head from caving in. Blue is looking similar in comparison and every day brings me something new to laugh about. From her 'bat bird' impression where she dangles from the top of the cage by both talons to her conversations she has with herself in the middle of the afternoon, there's little doubt that her mom dropped her as an egg.
The day didn't exactly start off on a positive note. Since cooked foods are relatively new to her, I've been taking that slow, but offering new things periodically to see what she likes. It's important to me that she continues to eat, and eat well. This morning it was oatmeal with chunks of fresh fruit and walnut pieces mixed in. I guess maybe I should have thought that out a little better. I let it cool to a slightly warm temperature and put it in the cage. I stand back in pride of my efforts and was immediately met with a "what the &#$! is THAT?!" look. Uh... That's not quite what I expected. I mean, I wasn't expecting her to actually say thank you, turn cartwheels or balance blocks on her head, but a little gratitude would have been nice. I encourage her to try it by putting a small dab on her beak. She shakes it off, grabs the stainless steel bowl (must buy heavier crocks!) and wings it onto the carpet. OooooKaaaay! So we don't like oatmeal. You didn't have to be so dramatic about it.
*sigh* I scramble her some eggs. This is going to be a fantastic day!
But today I had an agenda. We're starting clicker training. The big blue chicken has been here 2 weeks and I want to cuddle, dammit!
I get out my chopstick, clicker and the motherload of walnuts, almonds and dried fruit I got from Costco yesterday. I'm excited. She's curious as to what the heck I'm doing. This is going to be good, right? I just want her to step up once. Just ONCE! Though, I understand we're not quite there yet. Stick with the basics, they say. Take it slow, they say. What could possibly go wrong, they say? Well let me just tell you what could go wrong.
There I stand with the clicker and stick in one hand and a few miniscule chunks of walnuts in the other. She wants the walnuts. I mean she REALLY wants the walnuts. Perfect! I have her interested... motivated... excited. I extend the stick and ask her to touch it. Here we go again. The official, unadulterated, no holds barred statue contest! We go through another 3 minutes of total silence and no movement. She's just sitting staring at me. I'm staring back. Eventually she bumps it with her beak. PERFECT! I click at precisely the right moment. That's what I'm supposed to do, right? I mean, according to the internet I'm supposed to click whenever she does something I want, even if it was an accident. And everything written on the internet is true. We all know this. The result? She jumps back in complete shock as if to say "What the heck was that?" Well... hmm. Ok. She's never heard a clicker before. I suppose it stands to reason that in her mind, it might eat her. So I commit the ultimate mistake. I show it to her. I figured if she saw that it was just a colorful piece of new, shiny, fun plastic she'd be a bit more receptive to it's presence.
We try again. "Touch it, Blue!" Another statue contest. This one didn't last as long but she still gave me the "You gotta be kidding, lady." look.
She took the stick. I don't really want to get into to many humiliating details about how she swiped the second most important component of clicker training. We're just going to leave it at 'she got the freaking stick' and move on.
I clicked. I mean, she touched it so I clicked. I know she threw it and that wasn't ideal, but in all honesty, I was getting tired of holding the walnuts. Then she realized I had the clicker. This brought forth a whole new game. A wild, wonderful unwritten game... for her. Forget the walnuts. She decides she wants the clicker! And much like me, once she wraps her head around something, it's going to happen. She stretches as far as her neck could take her to get it but it's just out of reach. Seriously, it was probably her best impression of a turtle yet! Then a talon hit my arm. It's still out of reach. So I stand there waiting to see what happens. I'm the one who's become curious. The next thing I know, both talons are on my arm. The desire to get the clicker was bigger than her resistance to step up.
*sigh* She took my clicker, retreated rather quickly back into her cage and I believe if she could have slammed the door, she would have. Right! So... uh.. I guess training is over for today, huh? Back to Petsmart for another clicker. That one didn't survive. But hey... she stepped up voluntarily. So is it alright if I count that as progress?
Blue - 2
Gina - 0
Now remember what I said about routine not always being a good thing? Yeah... about that.
I cook dinner every night at the same time. Blue can see me from her cage as I'm standing by the stove. But tonight, I wasn't really paying that much attention. At least not at first.
She starts talking to get my attention, but I was busy trying to wrap up this whole cooking thing. One by one she runs through her entire vocabulary... Hello...hi...cracker....hi baby... and so forth.
I didn't respond.
Now her cage is an Island cage with the covered feeder boxes that hang off the outside. They're kinda nice in the respect that they don't occupy any real estate inside the cage, as well as the fact that you're not having to put your hand inside to swap out bowls. Kinda nice to have when you have an aggressive bird and safety is a concern. However, I didn't realize that when Island designed these feeders, they also designed them with entertainment in mind.
You see... after a while her normal chattering/screaming just sounded different. I couldn't quite put my finger on why, but it seemed like every other word or sound seemed like a different pitch... some louder, some softer, some slightly muffled and some crystal clear. She rocked back and forth between screaming and vocalizing. It was out of the norm... or at least what I've come to expect as a norm in the short amount of time she's been with me. I peek around the corner in curiosity.
Getting my attention was no longer a concern. Obviously it didn't work anyway, so she decided to entertain herself for a minute. As appealing as the concept is, we need to have a talk about the difference between acceptable and unacceptable forms of self entertainment. So there she stood, perched ever so gracefully by her feeder, ADHD in overdrive, poking her head inside, screaming as loud as she could and then extracting her head and saying 'hello' in a normal, quiet tone. The feeder box has become a megaphone.
Awesome. Macaw screams in stereo...
I do win this game in the end, don't I?
Now I've learned a lot in my 42 years. One of the things I've come to find out that while all living creatures thrive on routine, it's not always a positive thing. Sometimes predictability can wear on you, particularly when you know something unpleasant is coming, and like it or not.. you're gonna have to cope with it. I'll get into that later. None the less, success of any level usually stems from just that... a routine. Unfortunately for me, all the success lately seems to belong to Blue (this is what my kids have taken to calling her. Obviously they have no imagination.)
So I've established one of my own and day by day have expanded on that idea, trying to find something that works for me. I've come to the conclusion that I need to hire a maid, a chef and a chauffeur to drive the kids to school and run my errands. I also need a pet psychic so I can figure out what the heck this bird is thinking. Then again, she's a baby still and I might not want to know what's going on in there. She's slightly neurotic, a bit of a sociopath and there's some psychosis going on as well. No wonder we get along so well. I have all those features too! I'm having the same issues with my 9 year old son. I've come to the conclusion that the only purpose his brain serves is keeping his head from caving in. Blue is looking similar in comparison and every day brings me something new to laugh about. From her 'bat bird' impression where she dangles from the top of the cage by both talons to her conversations she has with herself in the middle of the afternoon, there's little doubt that her mom dropped her as an egg.
The day didn't exactly start off on a positive note. Since cooked foods are relatively new to her, I've been taking that slow, but offering new things periodically to see what she likes. It's important to me that she continues to eat, and eat well. This morning it was oatmeal with chunks of fresh fruit and walnut pieces mixed in. I guess maybe I should have thought that out a little better. I let it cool to a slightly warm temperature and put it in the cage. I stand back in pride of my efforts and was immediately met with a "what the &#$! is THAT?!" look. Uh... That's not quite what I expected. I mean, I wasn't expecting her to actually say thank you, turn cartwheels or balance blocks on her head, but a little gratitude would have been nice. I encourage her to try it by putting a small dab on her beak. She shakes it off, grabs the stainless steel bowl (must buy heavier crocks!) and wings it onto the carpet. OooooKaaaay! So we don't like oatmeal. You didn't have to be so dramatic about it.
*sigh* I scramble her some eggs. This is going to be a fantastic day!
But today I had an agenda. We're starting clicker training. The big blue chicken has been here 2 weeks and I want to cuddle, dammit!
I get out my chopstick, clicker and the motherload of walnuts, almonds and dried fruit I got from Costco yesterday. I'm excited. She's curious as to what the heck I'm doing. This is going to be good, right? I just want her to step up once. Just ONCE! Though, I understand we're not quite there yet. Stick with the basics, they say. Take it slow, they say. What could possibly go wrong, they say? Well let me just tell you what could go wrong.
There I stand with the clicker and stick in one hand and a few miniscule chunks of walnuts in the other. She wants the walnuts. I mean she REALLY wants the walnuts. Perfect! I have her interested... motivated... excited. I extend the stick and ask her to touch it. Here we go again. The official, unadulterated, no holds barred statue contest! We go through another 3 minutes of total silence and no movement. She's just sitting staring at me. I'm staring back. Eventually she bumps it with her beak. PERFECT! I click at precisely the right moment. That's what I'm supposed to do, right? I mean, according to the internet I'm supposed to click whenever she does something I want, even if it was an accident. And everything written on the internet is true. We all know this. The result? She jumps back in complete shock as if to say "What the heck was that?" Well... hmm. Ok. She's never heard a clicker before. I suppose it stands to reason that in her mind, it might eat her. So I commit the ultimate mistake. I show it to her. I figured if she saw that it was just a colorful piece of new, shiny, fun plastic she'd be a bit more receptive to it's presence.
We try again. "Touch it, Blue!" Another statue contest. This one didn't last as long but she still gave me the "You gotta be kidding, lady." look.
She took the stick. I don't really want to get into to many humiliating details about how she swiped the second most important component of clicker training. We're just going to leave it at 'she got the freaking stick' and move on.
I clicked. I mean, she touched it so I clicked. I know she threw it and that wasn't ideal, but in all honesty, I was getting tired of holding the walnuts. Then she realized I had the clicker. This brought forth a whole new game. A wild, wonderful unwritten game... for her. Forget the walnuts. She decides she wants the clicker! And much like me, once she wraps her head around something, it's going to happen. She stretches as far as her neck could take her to get it but it's just out of reach. Seriously, it was probably her best impression of a turtle yet! Then a talon hit my arm. It's still out of reach. So I stand there waiting to see what happens. I'm the one who's become curious. The next thing I know, both talons are on my arm. The desire to get the clicker was bigger than her resistance to step up.
*sigh* She took my clicker, retreated rather quickly back into her cage and I believe if she could have slammed the door, she would have. Right! So... uh.. I guess training is over for today, huh? Back to Petsmart for another clicker. That one didn't survive. But hey... she stepped up voluntarily. So is it alright if I count that as progress?
Blue - 2
Gina - 0
Now remember what I said about routine not always being a good thing? Yeah... about that.
I cook dinner every night at the same time. Blue can see me from her cage as I'm standing by the stove. But tonight, I wasn't really paying that much attention. At least not at first.
She starts talking to get my attention, but I was busy trying to wrap up this whole cooking thing. One by one she runs through her entire vocabulary... Hello...hi...cracker....hi baby... and so forth.
I didn't respond.
Now her cage is an Island cage with the covered feeder boxes that hang off the outside. They're kinda nice in the respect that they don't occupy any real estate inside the cage, as well as the fact that you're not having to put your hand inside to swap out bowls. Kinda nice to have when you have an aggressive bird and safety is a concern. However, I didn't realize that when Island designed these feeders, they also designed them with entertainment in mind.
You see... after a while her normal chattering/screaming just sounded different. I couldn't quite put my finger on why, but it seemed like every other word or sound seemed like a different pitch... some louder, some softer, some slightly muffled and some crystal clear. She rocked back and forth between screaming and vocalizing. It was out of the norm... or at least what I've come to expect as a norm in the short amount of time she's been with me. I peek around the corner in curiosity.
Getting my attention was no longer a concern. Obviously it didn't work anyway, so she decided to entertain herself for a minute. As appealing as the concept is, we need to have a talk about the difference between acceptable and unacceptable forms of self entertainment. So there she stood, perched ever so gracefully by her feeder, ADHD in overdrive, poking her head inside, screaming as loud as she could and then extracting her head and saying 'hello' in a normal, quiet tone. The feeder box has become a megaphone.
Awesome. Macaw screams in stereo...
I do win this game in the end, don't I?
