Dustbunny
New member
- Apr 7, 2014
- 190
- 0
- Parrots
- PB: Green Cheek Conure (hatched 2009);
Master Beaker: B&G macaw (hatched Aug. 2014)
Poor PB. The most horrible thing has happened to her: She has fallen in love. Alas, it is a star-crossed love doomed from the start.
One of our reasons for deciding to get PB was that she didn't seem concerned about cats or dogs being around her. Since we had 3 cats and a dog at the time, this seemed like one less thing we had to worry about stressing her. Be careful what you wish for though. From the very beginning PB made it abundantly clear she had zero fear of the cats. In fact, she made every attempt possible to be closer to them and to preen them - especially their feet, she seems to have a fetish... The dog she could care less about.
We were doing an ok, but far from perfect, job keeping them apart before her flight feathers grew out and she learned to fly (which we want). However, as her confidence grew, so has our fear. We have 8 cats now: 4 adults and 4 kittens from a stray we adopted. I thought it was going to be impossible to keep the kittens from trying to eat the bird. The kittens grew up seeing PB sit on my shoulder though and now I guess they see her as a family member. They leave her alone and mostly ignore her. When they're in a playful mood they may try to smack her tail but she turns around, tells them off, gives them a playful nip, and then proceeds to tease them with her tail again.
Please understand I'm not putting the bird and cats together. She's quick though. Really quick. She can be on our shoulder one minute and standing on top of the cat table, surrounded by cats, helping herself to their food before we can react. The cats? They either just watch her casually or ignore her now. I know my cats are well fed, but apparently their predator/prey instinct is broke - not that I want to take chances with that!
Now when I say PB loves our cats. I mean she really loves them and some days it's a full-time job keeping her from harassing them (not the other way around). She's taken to flight-teasing the cats. She'll fly over to them, swoop down, sometimes even circle them (!), and tease them to smack at her. She thinks it's a game and keeps getting bolder every time she does it and lives. Hmm...maybe she's some sort of adrenaline junky?
Anyway, last night I was a very, very, very bad parront. I was lying in bed reading online with PB on my shoulder, Master Beaker snuggled in his blankie on my stomach. Two of the cats, one adult (Bo) and one kitten (Mr. Bean) were sleeping next to my legs. I admit I got distracted and didn't notice right away that PB had meandered off my shoulder and was preening Mr. Bean - who only wished to be allowed to sleep. Since Mr. Bean was sleeping and not reacting I took a minute to take a picture. (Yes, I'll share it since I already admitted to being a horrible parront...)
I no sooner got the picture and PB did something new that I've never seen her do before...
She climbed on to one of Mr. Bean's back feet, held on really tight, squatted down, fluffed up and began rubbing against him. It took me a minute to realize what was happening, but yes ladies and gentlemen, my bird was masturbating on my cat. In the middle of this my husband came in and reached down to pet Mr. Bean and then have PB step up, but PB flew at him in a rage, bit him, and then flew back to guard "her" kitty. It was not easy separating the two. After putting PB in timeout, I have to be honest, I'm not sure I've ever laughed so hard in my life.
Now PB has to be locked in my husband's office for most of the day because it's the only room we can really keep the cats out of. Granted, he's in there three-quarters of the day because he works from home, but it's sad that she's her own worst enemy here. Has anyone ever had to deal with misplaced affections such as this before? Suggestions? Somehow life keeps throwing me very odd curve balls this year.
One of our reasons for deciding to get PB was that she didn't seem concerned about cats or dogs being around her. Since we had 3 cats and a dog at the time, this seemed like one less thing we had to worry about stressing her. Be careful what you wish for though. From the very beginning PB made it abundantly clear she had zero fear of the cats. In fact, she made every attempt possible to be closer to them and to preen them - especially their feet, she seems to have a fetish... The dog she could care less about.
We were doing an ok, but far from perfect, job keeping them apart before her flight feathers grew out and she learned to fly (which we want). However, as her confidence grew, so has our fear. We have 8 cats now: 4 adults and 4 kittens from a stray we adopted. I thought it was going to be impossible to keep the kittens from trying to eat the bird. The kittens grew up seeing PB sit on my shoulder though and now I guess they see her as a family member. They leave her alone and mostly ignore her. When they're in a playful mood they may try to smack her tail but she turns around, tells them off, gives them a playful nip, and then proceeds to tease them with her tail again.
Please understand I'm not putting the bird and cats together. She's quick though. Really quick. She can be on our shoulder one minute and standing on top of the cat table, surrounded by cats, helping herself to their food before we can react. The cats? They either just watch her casually or ignore her now. I know my cats are well fed, but apparently their predator/prey instinct is broke - not that I want to take chances with that!
Now when I say PB loves our cats. I mean she really loves them and some days it's a full-time job keeping her from harassing them (not the other way around). She's taken to flight-teasing the cats. She'll fly over to them, swoop down, sometimes even circle them (!), and tease them to smack at her. She thinks it's a game and keeps getting bolder every time she does it and lives. Hmm...maybe she's some sort of adrenaline junky?
Anyway, last night I was a very, very, very bad parront. I was lying in bed reading online with PB on my shoulder, Master Beaker snuggled in his blankie on my stomach. Two of the cats, one adult (Bo) and one kitten (Mr. Bean) were sleeping next to my legs. I admit I got distracted and didn't notice right away that PB had meandered off my shoulder and was preening Mr. Bean - who only wished to be allowed to sleep. Since Mr. Bean was sleeping and not reacting I took a minute to take a picture. (Yes, I'll share it since I already admitted to being a horrible parront...)
I no sooner got the picture and PB did something new that I've never seen her do before...
She climbed on to one of Mr. Bean's back feet, held on really tight, squatted down, fluffed up and began rubbing against him. It took me a minute to realize what was happening, but yes ladies and gentlemen, my bird was masturbating on my cat. In the middle of this my husband came in and reached down to pet Mr. Bean and then have PB step up, but PB flew at him in a rage, bit him, and then flew back to guard "her" kitty. It was not easy separating the two. After putting PB in timeout, I have to be honest, I'm not sure I've ever laughed so hard in my life.
Now PB has to be locked in my husband's office for most of the day because it's the only room we can really keep the cats out of. Granted, he's in there three-quarters of the day because he works from home, but it's sad that she's her own worst enemy here. Has anyone ever had to deal with misplaced affections such as this before? Suggestions? Somehow life keeps throwing me very odd curve balls this year.
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