FoxersArtist
01-17-2008, 09:34 PM
Sometimes doing rescue requires making hard decisions. Those decisions are especially hard once you have grown attached, which is why Andy and I try to take on the outlook that none of our fosters will be staying (even if this doesn't always end up being the case.)
We fell in love with Uriel right away and started talking about the idea of keeping him right out of the gate. We broke the rules when we decided we would like to keep him before he had even finnished honeymooning. Uriel's past owners kept him outdoors a lot during the summer. In the winter he had a playgym inside the house, but was allowed to wander. His parront loved him to pieces but her life circomstances changed, and where she was going didn't allow parrots. He is a well adjusted, sweet, even tempered macaw, though his only catch is that he cannot be caged. We tried to ease him into the idea of sleeping in a cage at night but Uriel got so much anxiety that he scaled the bars, frantically looking for a way out or trying to chew his way out. When he finally settled down enough to stand still, he started plucking his legs. We decided to drop the idea.
So, recently Uriel has been showing more of his true colors, since his honeymooning is wearing off. He is growing restless and for some reason, Gabe's exhuberant activity has been scaring him. The concept of toys has not been interesting enough lately and so Uriel has been climbing down off of his play gym to go exploring, unsupervised. We sternly returned him to his perch whgen we found him walking on the floor saying "no" but his frequency has only increased.
So what does one do with a wandering parrot that cannot be caged? He could hurt the birds in the aviary. He could hurt the children inside. He could hurt himself if he got into something toxic. We considered building Uriel his own enclosure outside, but that would be a huge advertisement to the public that we own parrots, since we live on the corner of a highway. I contacted a few of the top choice homes who had applied to adopt Uriel a little under 3 months ago (have we really only had him for 3 months?...it seems like forever!) One of the applicants currently has a macaw (their only bird for the past 10 years) and they have been patiently searching for another macaw. Their macaw has never been caged and spends most of his time on a gym, but they also have an outdoor enclosure on their 10 acre ranch. The family came to meet Uriel tonight and he took right to them, even tried to regurgitate for them. They promised Uriel a forever home and told me that someone would be around to supervise his activities.
I'm going to interview one other person who sounded like a great home, but I have a feeling that Uriel would do very well with the family he met tonight. In fact, I think he would probably be happier than he is at our house, and with that I know that we will be making a wise choice. We're going to go do a home inspection to make sure the environment is suitable, and if it is, I know Uriel is going to love spending his summers outside, where he really seems to want to be. Sometimes we just want something so badly, but our parrots have a different idea about the way things should be. We're really, really, going to miss him.
-Anna
We fell in love with Uriel right away and started talking about the idea of keeping him right out of the gate. We broke the rules when we decided we would like to keep him before he had even finnished honeymooning. Uriel's past owners kept him outdoors a lot during the summer. In the winter he had a playgym inside the house, but was allowed to wander. His parront loved him to pieces but her life circomstances changed, and where she was going didn't allow parrots. He is a well adjusted, sweet, even tempered macaw, though his only catch is that he cannot be caged. We tried to ease him into the idea of sleeping in a cage at night but Uriel got so much anxiety that he scaled the bars, frantically looking for a way out or trying to chew his way out. When he finally settled down enough to stand still, he started plucking his legs. We decided to drop the idea.
So, recently Uriel has been showing more of his true colors, since his honeymooning is wearing off. He is growing restless and for some reason, Gabe's exhuberant activity has been scaring him. The concept of toys has not been interesting enough lately and so Uriel has been climbing down off of his play gym to go exploring, unsupervised. We sternly returned him to his perch whgen we found him walking on the floor saying "no" but his frequency has only increased.
So what does one do with a wandering parrot that cannot be caged? He could hurt the birds in the aviary. He could hurt the children inside. He could hurt himself if he got into something toxic. We considered building Uriel his own enclosure outside, but that would be a huge advertisement to the public that we own parrots, since we live on the corner of a highway. I contacted a few of the top choice homes who had applied to adopt Uriel a little under 3 months ago (have we really only had him for 3 months?...it seems like forever!) One of the applicants currently has a macaw (their only bird for the past 10 years) and they have been patiently searching for another macaw. Their macaw has never been caged and spends most of his time on a gym, but they also have an outdoor enclosure on their 10 acre ranch. The family came to meet Uriel tonight and he took right to them, even tried to regurgitate for them. They promised Uriel a forever home and told me that someone would be around to supervise his activities.
I'm going to interview one other person who sounded like a great home, but I have a feeling that Uriel would do very well with the family he met tonight. In fact, I think he would probably be happier than he is at our house, and with that I know that we will be making a wise choice. We're going to go do a home inspection to make sure the environment is suitable, and if it is, I know Uriel is going to love spending his summers outside, where he really seems to want to be. Sometimes we just want something so badly, but our parrots have a different idea about the way things should be. We're really, really, going to miss him.
-Anna