Of parrots and dogs

I am lucky enough to share my life with some pretty incredible animals, dogs and parrots (well and chickens too, but this post isn't about them). There is never a boring moment in my house and although dogs and parrots seem like an unlikely pair, you are wrong.

From the very beginning our dogs were taught (trained) to understand that our birds were not play things but other members of the family. They have all complied and part of me wants to believe not just from the training. I wouldn't leave my dogs and birds alone loose in a room together because I know instinct is greater than self control but as long as I am around I don't fear my dogs lunging at the birds. There have been many times when our birds have gotten spooked and flown off their cages. The dogs come running only to see the commotion, but stay a respectful distance away. Granted, I have herding dogs and a lion hunting dog; birds really don't register on their radar.

But for one of my birds, Weiser (the Congo African Grey), the dogs are always on his radar. He loves dogs. He likes watching them and talking to them and doesn't seem to have any fear of them. Now I don't think he would cuddle up and fall asleep in their lap, but he doesn't run or scream in fear when they get close. He is so curious! Weiser actually knows how to bark like a dog and does this regularly when our dogs start barking about something. He also loves to tell them "get off" when they jump up on us.

Today while I was making pancakes for breakfast I decided to share a little pancake with the parrots. Weiser is always thrilled to eat people food and settled into munching on his pancake piece. Sydney, my Australian Cattle dog, knows that when the birds have food sometimes they drop it and so she was at the ready near Weiser's cage. And then he started talking to her. It was the sweetest thing although I have no idea what he was saying. Something along the lines of "jawa, bla, bla, bla," but I could tell that was meant for Sydney and not me. My heart swelled at this wonderful intimate moment.

Here's Sydney patiently waiting for her partner in crime to share the rewards:

I decided to let Weiser out of his cage so he could better see Sydney and this is him bending over to get a better look at her. Grey's (well most parrots) get puffy around the face when they are happy and Weiser was all puffs for Sydney.

Nothing quite warms my heart as watching inter-species communication...I am not a scientist so some would argue if my dog and parrot were actually communicating but I would like to think so. For a very long time, I had wanted to study inter-species communication and interactions because I found creatures that have no evolutionary reason to interact do, but I decided I would rather spend my time with animals than in a lab crunching numbers. Its beautiful and wonderful and maybe something humans should pay a little closer attention to...we could learn a thing or two from our wild and domesticated brethren.

As I am writing this Weiser is talking in the background saying "Paco" (the name of one of our other parrots), "step up" all interspersed with whistles and kissing noises. Never a dull moment!