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We decided we should join the current century and start our own blog as a fun and/or interesting place to get and share information about our store, community and the pets we all love.
This is a place we can update as we go - like an ongoing newsletter for all of you. Plan on hearing a little something from each of us at one point or another, as we all get excited about different subjects and news items that come our way. Enjoy!
Check the side bar for previous months' blog entries.
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Friday May 30th, 2008
Special New Flash!
The little blue puppy is officially coming to live with me in June!
 I got the word yesterday and plans are in the works for getting him here on the 17th of June. Hopefully the weather will be moderate so he can make the flight from Indiana. I can't wait to meet him!
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Lorna has graciously agreed to add to our blog by giving us some tips on Springtime bird behavior. Especially parrots. She shares her experiences in the section below.
Spring has sprung and love is in the air!
Well, at least something is in the air. This year my African greys have successfully laid eggs and raised three babies! Needless to say, with 6 parrots in the house, drama is sometimes front and center along with the hormones that come along with spring time.
Birds this time of year are going through a lot of changes, molting (dropping old feathers and growing new), hormonal changes and depending upon how old they are this can mean more unpredictable behavior in some than in others. Think of it this way, young parrots coming into maturity act like teenagers and how unpredictable are they? Need I say more?
There are things that you can do to curb certain behaviors. This time of year there are a lot of birds laying eggs, with or without a mate. Unless you are actively breeding the pair my recommendation would be to discourage this behavior. This can be done by cutting back on the daylight hours they receive.
First and foremost, cut back on the daylight by covering your bird at night with a dark cover for 10-12 hours a night. Longer days for birds signal spring and warm weather and raising babies. My own cockatoo, who is a single girl can’t help herself from the nesting behavior she is doing, from chewing large amounts of wood (including my cupboards) to newspapers, shredding every little scrap of paper she can get her beak on. If she sits on my husbands arm at night and he forgets to watch her actions and starts petting her back she starts all types of mating behavior. Even with me covering her cage every night for 10 hours minimum she is still feeling the effects of the hormones surging through her body this spring.
There is one thing that we need to get through our heads and that is parrots are not domesticated. They have all the instincts that occur in the nature, from protecting their mate (aka person they are bonded to) or the bird they are paired with.
Two years ago I made a huge mistake and went downstairs to turn on the full spectrum light by my African greys cage and leaned against it. (I didn’t have my coffee yet so I wasn’t really fully awake) It was at that point in time that I saw the female on a perch by my hand; I thought to myself, can the male be very far behind? The flash of grey answered my question. I pulled away from the cage and before I could get out of reach the male he bit my eye lid and sliced it open. There was blood everywhere and I thought I had lost my eyesight. Luckily for me I had pulled away in time to save my eyesight but I still had to call 911, go to the ER and then plastic surgery to stitch up my eye lid.
The lesson learned was this, no matter how long you have known parrots (I am a behaviorist) accidents happen and they have the power to inflict damage to your body. I have been bit on the hands more time than I can count but biting a person on the eye can really make you wake up, literally!
To also help with some of the unwanted behavior feeding parrots a little less warm cooked food can also help with some of the behaviors. This does not mean that you need to cut down the veggies and fruits offered; just the warm cooked food needs to be cut back.
Birds in spring can start some more irritating noises like screaming. Screaming can be dealt with by not showing any attention to that behavior, don’t flinch, yell, throw things at the cage or cover them to stop this. My advice is to take a deep breath and calm your self down, then when the bird takes even the slightest break go in praise them for being quiet. You may even want to take them out of the cage for a head scritch or a treat of some sort. It is just like with children who are having a tantrum, you want to reward the good behaviors only. I didn’t say this was going to be easy or quick. Most of us know that if we think back, we created the little monsters in the cage, now it is also our duty to do what we can to fix it.
One of the biggest mistakes people can make is to keep a bird “flighted” meaning it does not get its flight feathers clipped. A bird can develop a huge attitude when it is flighted. Guaranteed that most parrots’ aggressive behaviors can be managed and attitudes nipped in the bud by just simply keeping the wings clipped. That being said, there are a few birds out there that can be left flighted but they are few and far between and are exceptions to the rule.
I recently was babysitting an Amazon with out wings clipped, I knew that he was hormonally charged and thought I could handle it. I was thinking of everything from don’t open doors when the parrot is out, keeping him far away from my own birds who’s wings are clipped and keeping the energy of the house calm as well as keeping my distance from his face and him being help lower than my eye level. It was the first night he was there he was very low and sitting on my right hand and in one instant his eyes flashed, I saw it and raised my other arm to block my face, he flew up and over my arm and bit a large chunk of flesh out of my face. This bird is one that I have babysat before, he loves me and he regurgitates to me (the ultimate compliment) he has always be very gentle with me. Like I said before, parrots are not domesticated, no one expected this from him including his owners or me, but it happened. I found myself once again into the ER and then on to a plastic surgeon. Am I mad at the parrot or the owners? No I am not. The parrot was acting on instincts and I was the one that didn’t insist on the wings being clipped, I knew the danger that could happen but I underestimated the birds natural tendencies and thought because he loved me like he did he would not bite my face. WRONG! I now sport a nice prominent scar on my face to remind me of the fact that I was not thinking…. again.
Other than behaviors in the spring there are other things to be addressed at this time and that is nutrition. Let me put it to you this way; to replace a large wing feather will take the nutrition that this bird would eat in two weeks. If you figure that this bird is molting out large and small feathers all over its body, we as owners need to give this bird more nutrition during this time than we would think of give them.
Foods high in calcium should be in order from dark leafy greens, broccoli, egg food, cuttle bone, cooked egg shells, scrambled eggs and the like. The diet of seed and water for a bird is missing huge amounts of vitamins and nutrients to keep these birds feathers, bones and organs in good working order. Does this mean I’m against seed in the diet for birds? No, it doesn’t. I think there are some great oils etc. in seeds and nuts that I give my birds a nice big dish of seed each week when I strip their cages down to do a thorough cleaning. During the week I keep the bottoms clean and wipe down the big spills but on the weekend everything gets a wipe down. They all love cage cleaning day!
I also recommend that to keep a bird healthy and happy toys need to be a big part of their lifestyle. Changing the toys they play with and giving them things to DESTROY is good for their mental well being. In the wild they would have wood, leaves, lots of change of scenery at their disposal. In a cage we need to change that scenery as much as possible as well as giving them different textures, materials etc. to play with and chew up for a happy bird.
I could go on all day but then I wouldn’t be giving my birds what they need and I’d bore you to death so I’ll recommend an few books for you to read. Guide to a Well Behaved Parrot, by Mattie Sue Athan; Feeding Your Pet Bird, by Petra M. Burgmann, DVM; First Aid for Birds, by Julie Rach and Carry A Gallerstein, DVM; The Healthy Bird Cookbook, by Robin Deutsch; My Parrot My Friend, by Bonnie Monro Doane and Thomas Qualkinbush and Natural Health Care For Your Bird, by Bernard Dorenkamp.
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Friday May 16th, 2008
In the constant poking around I do to better the lives of my own pets, as well as my customers', I revisited the spay and neuter issue this week.
We all know that spaying and neutering is such an important part of keeping dogs and cats out of shelters, and away from the euthanasia needle. In the same breath, we also are seeing the incredible increase in juvenile spay and neuter at as early as 4 to 8 weeks of age.
This has always concerned me a great deal due to the inability of the pet’s body to complete its growth cycle physically without the appropriate hormones provided by the reproductive organs. I don’t care who you are, you cannot deny that if we did the same to our own human children the noticeable effects would be unacceptable.
Think of a dog who lives for 10 years. A dog who is spayed or neutered at 8 weeks (two months of age), would be the equivalent (for this approximation) to a child that is approximately 15 months old.
Now, I’m not saying we are the same as our dogs and cats. What I am saying is that there is no way anyone can convince me, as a free-thinking, relatively intelligent person, that spaying and neutering at 8 weeks old is not harmful to the development of the puppy or kitten subjected to it.
It is interesting to note that all the major shelters and organizations that see the influx of unwanted pets on a daily basis, as well as the veterinarians who perform the operations, are the first to hop on the proverbial band-wagon for early spay and neuter. Almost universally their websites and literature quote identical information regarding lower pet populations, no additional risks due to age, and no ill effects physically as the animals mature. They quote information regarding cancers and tumors that are seen in un-spayed and un-neutered pets. They also tend to note that animals are less likely to mark, roam or be aggressive when they are spayed or neutered.
While some of this, namely the behavior aspects, are true in SOME dogs and cats, they are not usually problems until the animals become mature by the age of one or two years. It is true, some dogs may have more “dominant” personalities, but early training is a safe solution prior to physical maturity. In some instances, dogs have been noted as more aggressive, fearful, or sexually acting out if they are spayed or neutered prior to maturity.
The physical information that is often quoted, such as the likelihood of cancer and tumors, or no physical risks at all, are simply not true for the majority of animals who are spayed or neutered after they reach maturity. Personally, I believe it is irresponsible to only focus on the aspect of animal care that is perpetuated by irresponsible pet owners, rather than looking at the whole animal that we ARE responsible for keeping alive and well. We cannot base animal health care on the lowest common denominators. I believe that is why it is in such a poor state today.
Organizations and individuals who support early juvenile spay and neuter are not quoting the percentages of say- testicular cancer in un-neutered dogs. They don’t tell you that the rate is only about 7%, and that’s in dogs that are never neutered. They also don’t tell you that it is easy to manage and/or prevent after maturity.
They don’t tell you that the risk of prostate cancer is quadrupled (that’s 4x’s greater) in a neutered male dog, than an un-neutered one. That sounds bad doesn’t it? Well, what I can tell you is that “studies have shown” that the risk of prostate cancer in intact male dogs is < 1%. That doesn’t sound so bad now, right? So if we quadruple that it’s only < 4%. Sounds pretty passable, eh? It’s less than the 7% risk of testicular cancer.
But that’s only a small portion of the picture!
Why don’t they tell you about the increase in bone cancer, heart tumors, hypothyroidism, urinary tract cancers, orthopedic disorders and adverse vaccine reactions in male dogs that are neutered prior to maturity?
What about the bone cancer, spleen tumors, heart tumors, hypothyroidism, urinary incontinence, urinary tract infections, vaginal dermatitis, orthopedic disorders and adverse vaccine reactions in females spayed prior to maturity?
Why not let you know the whole picture? Because they think you won’t ever spay or neuter your dog or cat.
Think about it.
If you knew that you could even POSSIBLY avoid bone or heart cancer, cruciate ligament surgery, hip dysplasia, constant urinary tract infections, immune system (allergy) reactions, incontinence, and geriatric problems in your dog’s lifetime, wouldn’t you be willing to manage your dog, for the year or two (depending on its breed) until it was mature enough to safely neuter or spay?
Wouldn’t you also be ready to go ahead and spay or neuter after that year or two of maintenance?
What is the cost of spay and neuter? A good one maybe $300- $400? Maybe less for males.
What is the cost of treating the above illnesses? $10,000? $20,000? $30,000?
Hmmmmm? Wait a year or two, deal with maintaining training and good manners, maybe two heat cycles from a female, and save about $29,700? Sounds like a good deal to me.
I know I tend to be one to get on my soapbox a bit, but I believe that juvenile spay and neuter is a high ranking factor in the exploding incidences of lingering illnesses, frequent injuries, and early deaths in our dogs and cats. We need to be responsible, and encourage others to do the same. Spay and Neuter your dogs and cats! Just give them a chance to mature and stabilize their bodies first. That’s all.
If you’d like to read a few good articles on collected information regarding early spay and neuter findings, take a look at these for a start.
Take some time to look up more information on your own. Your new puppy or kitten will appreciate it.
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Thursday May 8th, 2008
Just thought it would be fun to update the puppy pictures. They grow so fast.
 I'm not sure if this is the blue boy (can't really see that), but we can pretend for now. At two weeks the little blue eyes are open, and the pups are starting to play.
Friday May 2nd, 2008
Puppy update of my own today.
So, you know Abby's puppies arrived on April 23rd. They are doing great! The big unknown is that there was only ONE male blue, which is what I wanted. I found out today that I may have a chance at getting that puppy!
The puppies still have another several weeks before they will be evaluated for their show potential. I don't get a show puppy- so we hope the blue boy is not a totally perfect blue boy. The one other step will be temperament evaluation. If he is suitable for therapy work he could be mine. It's totally up to the breeder, but there is a chance I could have a puppy by June!
The other news is that Heidi is not pregnant, and Bizy may not be either. Not what we hoped for. So....if the little blue boy from Abby's litter doesn't end up being mine, then I may have to wait until fall or winter, OR.....take a fawn. I just don't know. They sure are cute though.
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