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Sorry for not writing for awhile but it's pretty boring and normal around here but now I'll update you all. Sammy says Good Bird, word up, and can whistle the entire, yes I said entire, Andy Griffith tune AND if we start to whistle it, Sam will chime in at the appropriate time!!!

We took him to the vet, who is also the breeder and Sam was not fond of Glenn after his examination. Did you know that you take a bird's temp just like you do for dogs?? Me neither. Glenn was thrilled to see Sammy again and kissed him and talked to him. Sammy is hale and hardy. And as soon as I can get Paul to do it for me, I'll have video.

Bye

Just a quick note because Val says I need to get back to work...

Paul was leaving for work the other day and I was already in the office/bedroom and on his way out the door I heard "bye" clear as day, in my voice. Paul replied "bye" and walked out. I called him immediately and told him that if he thought that was me, he was wrong....it was Sammy!!! Paul said he knew that but I don't think he really did.

Also Sam is learning "good bird". He has the "ird" part down already. He's so smart!

Sorry for my bad....

Sorry it has been so long since I've written but it's been pretty hectic around here. On Monday night the dogs killed a skunk in our back yard but not before the skunk got even. Paul woke up around 4 a.m. saying that something smelled funny....like burning plastic. I could just barely smell it so I thought nothing but "go back to sleep". Paul got up before me, as usual, but came back into the bedroom insisting that I come out into the house and go back into the bedroom to smell this "burning plastic". I turned off the heater and told Paul to go check it out which he did and all he saw was water on the pan below the hot water heater. I called and made an appt with a plumber but then.....

Paul said "I think there's a body in the back yard". He was looking out the window that is over the sink and I have seen at least two "dead" stuffed animals out there so I poo pooed him off. HOWEVER, when I went to look....yep it was a black and white heap. At about this same time, Paul saw that Lulu had been sprayed on the chest because she had a very yellow substance on her. Being the IDIOT I can sometimes be, I bent over to take a whiff and thought I was absolutely gonna vomit and then certainly pass out. Paul went out to check on the black and white heap and sure enough it was a skunk. After taking one more moment to be an IDIOT I discovered that Misha had a little on her between her eyes and Marty probably was downwind from the spraying.

Paul and I both had a doctor's appointment at 10:30 a.m. The time was now 9:00 a.m. and already he was trying to weasel out of helping me with the dogs......"I've got meetings all day long....Jack is coming into town today and we're going over the budget...etc...etc...etc..... I asked him to at least look through the phone book to see if anyone would come to our house to clean the dogs, but he "was busy". His "busy" was taking papers out to his car, going to the bathroom, and moving his car. HE WAS TRYING HIS BEST TO GET AWAY!! Ladies, you know what I mean. He didn't want to have to deal. Bad Bad Bad Man.

He gave in after a few hours and we found out the recipe for de-skunking and I suggest you have this on hand if you have a dog. It works pretty good...they still kinda smell but not as bad.
1 qt hydrogen peroxide
1/4 c baking soda
1 tsp dish soap.
Cover dog with this..let it sit for 5 mins or so
Repeat
Rinse off.

Now, for Sammy the Bird, the Bird's the word, WORD UP!! He's in a squawking phase right now so he screams WORD UP in various low gutteral and high shrieking tones. But today he said Good Bird for us. And he mimics my laugh...ha ha ha ha....that's cute.

Wow!

Friday afternoon I had Sammy in my office (bedroom) sitting happily on his perch, when seemingly out of the blue he flew off screeching his head off. I didn't know what happened until it happened again today. After I went to get Sammy, I just happened to look outside and saw a large hawk in the front yard eating something. I have a few bird feeders next to the window and I bet both times the hawk flew at a bird on or near the feeder and Sammy thought he was a goner. Poor baby. I'll remember to close the blinds when he's in here.

On another note, I was visiting youtube.com looking at parrot videos worthy of you, my few readers. I watched a lady make cornbread for her birds. She put chopped up veggies in there too and her birds just snarfed it up. So I made some today and Sam love love loves it. But I think it has too much sugar in it so from now on I'll make it from scratch.

FYI: The new Chips Ahoy! 100 calorie pack candy bites are to die for.

More later.

Talking Parrot Paka Upside Down

I thought this was interesting....why upside down??

Funny parrot dance

Turn up the speakers and enjoy.

Organic Food for Sam

I've ordered a sample bag of organic parrot pellets for Sammy to try. He hasn't liked any other pelleted food that we give him and I've read that you shouldn't give him all seeds that these could cause fatty liver.

I ordered it from www.birdtricks.com. This site has been extremely helpful in every aspect of having and keeping a happy bird. They actually say that even picky parrots love this stuff. So I'm waiting to see if it is the cure all it professes to be. I read that this food can make happier birds and also can keep some feather pickers from picking. Here is the testimonial that I got.

"31% of Parrot's Biting Problems Are Caused By Being On A Seed Based Diet"

"I want let you know how much I enjoyed receiving your new organic pellets. My cockatiel, who is a very picky eater, actually devours them! It’s the first pellet any of my birds have touched.
We are working on getting the Senegal to eat them but the ‘tiel really needed the nutrition as he has been doing some plucking. I’m not sure if it has anything to do with it, but he has not been plucking since a few days after he began eating the pellets! Thank you for giving us an affordable choice of pellets."
-- Maureen
We'll see.

RUBY THE TALKING PARROT (WITH SUBTITLES) PART 2

I do have video of Sammy saying "word up" but I have to figure out how to get it on this blog. In the mean time, here's #2 of Ruby. Enjoy

RUBY THE TALKING PARROT (WITH SUBTITILES) PART 1

I realized when I saw this video that we can't go to sammy and say "Can you say Terri?" Ruby, the parrot on this video says all of that....funny stuff.

Dirty Toys

This morning Sammy was on his perch in our kitchen and I noticed that he was dunking his toy in his water bowl. He did it over and over again and even did it when I gave him a new toy. Does he have a little racoon in his family??? I usually leave Animal Planet on the tv when I leave to run errands. Did he see a racoon on the show?? I don't know but it's amusing to watch. LOL I'm going to try and see if he wants to get a real bath in a rubber tub since he's doing that. He hated getting in the shower and we've never been able to get him into a tub of water. We spray him down with a product that is supposed to work like a bath. I'll have my camera ready if successful.

Oh oh!!! and also he gave me kisses last Friday!! Just offered it right up!!

Word UP

Sam the bird is really really close to talking. I've been singing a part of the song called "word up" to Sam. I say "the bird's the word, (du du du du du dooee) ...word up" and he's getting really close to saying word up. You can definitely hear the up part and I swear he said "good bird" plain as day the other day. Paul heard it too but we can't get him to repeat it.

Sam was being a real pill this morning to Paul but when I came in he regurgitated to me. Awe! I need to find something that he can play with for at least an hour or so because when I'm working, he sits on the back of my chair and then goes down my arm to my desk where he proceeds to tear up all of my pens, binder clips and tries to eat my phone cord. Then he crawls back up my arm until he drops the prize and then it starts all over again. Plus he walks across my keyboard and screws up my typing. I tried a baby toy that when you push the button a little song comes on but he's scared of it. I'm going to find something. Jason told me to put him up but I can't do that. I'm his human during the day.

I think I've got it figured out why Sammy was such a 2 year old this past week. Paul usually gets up about 7 - 7:30 and this past week it's been 5:30 or so. Sammy is sleepy still. Me too. But we both had to adjust to Paul's schedule because "I have to see my Sammy before I leave". Paul's in Branson and so this morning I didn't get out of bed until 7:50 and I really didn't get Sam out until around 8 and he was just fine. Very nice..although he was NOT excited about his cinnamon oatmeal. Note to self: get peaches 'n' cream oatmeal.

The picture is Val at Sheiki's restaurant. Isn't she cute??

I got an email today from a guy who teaches you how to teach your bird tricks and he was talking about his Cockatoo, Linus, ususally was very very sweet and just suddenly one day waas a holy terror. This is what they figured out.

(Sorry the pic is sideways)

"So I tell you this because it could save you a lot of grief. If
your bird's behavior has suddenly switched around, think back
and try to remember what you changed in your bird's surround-
ings around the same time he started biting or acting differently.
Then begin changing things around, one at a time, testing each
change to see if your bird responds to that change. Believe me,
he'll let you know when you've 'corrected' this invasion into his
little world! Move sofas, TV's, plants, or even a new center-
piece on a coffee table. Try to think if a certain color is bothering
your bird. It could very well be that the fix to your problem is as
simple as moving your sofa or not wearing a certain piece
of clothing."

These guys found out that a new black curtain near the cage was what bothered Linus. So our mission, should we decide to accept it, is to find out why Sammy has been a little booger for the past few mornings. This morning I thought Paul and Sammy were going to kill each other. Paul was dressed to go out of town and was hot from loading his car and Sammy wanted to be on his shoulder. Paul had to put one of my coats around his shoulders because Sammy couldn't hang on to his cotton shirt. This lasted about 10 seconds and Paul became extremely hot and Sammy would not get down. He was biting and biting hard both Paul and me. Paul yelled loudly and Sammy finally got on his perch. I was thinking to myself, "maybe Sam will like me better now" hahaha

How sweet

This picture is kinda hard to see but Sammy has turned his head over backwards rubbing on Paul's neck. I wish you could have been there....it was like Paul had been gone and Sammy thought he would never come back and then, a miracle!!!!!!!!! He just couldn't get close enough or be rubbed enough by Paul.

I bought a package of precooked brown rice and Sammy loves it. I also took some frozen corn and thaw it and he loves it too. You know he doesn't like anything that's cold. Even if it's supposed to be. He likes bread, pancakes, packaged noodles with sauce, steamed brocolli. But he still doesn's like strawberries, and he'd much rather tear apart any soft fruit rather than eat it. He makes a huge mess with that. But for the most part he eats soak seed, regular seed and some pelleted food.

I'm still trying to get a video/audio of his purring. More later.

Sammy started making a new noise...not a whistle or a word. He purrs. It sounds pretty much like a cat's purr except that it's louder and sounds more rattlie (is that a word), and he did it when Paul had Sam on his shoulder and was scratching his neck. It was so cute!! And then the other day when Sam was out on his perch with me at the breakfast bar reading the paper, he was very content and started to purr a little then. I'll try to get video of it and you can then hear him.

Other than that, not much else is new.

Sammy has a lot of sandy perches in his cages. These are the perches with sand stuck to them and they work really well for keeping his claws clipped. But it also is very hard to him to hold onto a smooth surface. I usually wear a chunky sweater when he's on my shoulder, that way he can hold on to the open weave. I devised the above to fit my work chair. Val and I safety pinned the back to form a pocket and this catches all the toys that Sammy drops. And let me tell you what a genius I am. He drops a toy about every five minutes...less time if he throws them down when he's pissy. Then you can see that I used those clothes hanger satin things to secure the sweater to the front so that it doesn't fall off the back. That did happen one time. I'm thinking I should patent this thing..I haven't seen anything like it. What do you think?

Peek a Boo

Hi guys! I have been getting up in the morning and leaving the dogs in the bedroom and Sammy is still glad to see me. I now open my mouth so he can clean my teeth (thanks for showing me that, Shannon) so I get my "kisses"... it's just a little scary. He puts his beak against my lip and the underside of my teeth so I guess if he's pissy with me, he could essentially make me need plastic surgury. The picture is of him in the shelves at my desk. There really isn't much room for him there but for about an hour now, he's been in there making all sorts of noises...some little, some big. He's all fluffy and so I was able to scratch his head. That doesn't happen very much for me so it's a treat.

The other day Ida came to clean my house and Sammy growled at her like I have never heard before. It was scary and I was truly afraid he was going to attack her. She hid in the bathroom until I could get him out of the room. You see Ida unfortunately vacuumed the floor next to Sammy's cage when I wasn't home and everytime he sees her, he fluffy and growls. I thought he had forgotten the incident, but I was terribly wrong. Seriously the sound he made was chilling! It sounded more like a wild wolf growl. Maybe he learned that from one of the dogs.....maybe

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LULU??????

Enjoy