Zippers, mechanical pencils, and other delightful tidbits

or
An incentive to put it away.

As with most humans, I had spent years developing habits that could be mistaken for slovenliness. I was accustomed to draping jackets over a chair, and piling things on the kitchen table. Cluttered areas of the house were common, and I would pile things up in a convenient corner until I figured out what to do with them. Eventually everything would get put away, but I was never in any rush.

Ever since she moved in, Jackie has been working diligently to train me not to do any of this. She has been moderately successful in her efforts; but I have to confess, I still slip up more often than I'd care to admit.

One of my first lessons involved a coat. I went to wear it one day, and found the slider for the zipper was gone. A few days later, I found half of the slider on the floor. I thought it was odd that it should split like that, but shrugged it off as another example of how cheaply things are made these days.

Then I found a second piece of zipper. The two didn't go together, which meant there were two zippers without sliders. This was really peculiar, but both jackets were old, so I reasoned the zippers had probably just fallen apart.

It was a day or two later that I noticed a key missing on the satellite remote control. The keys were made of rubber, and the missing one looked as though someone had sliced through it with a razor. I was the only one home at the time, so this was considerably more than peculiar. I pondered for a time on a number of possibilities ranging from poltergeists to a husband with weird habits, but was forced in the end to discard all but one. The remote had been on the couch, and the two jackets had been draped over chairs. I had a suspicion, and resolved to pay more attention in the future.

My resolve proved inadequate for the task at hand. The next item to undergo transformation was my reading glasses. I had foolishly left them on the kitchen table, and came back to find one ear piece gone, one mangled, and both nose pieces missing. I later found the nose pieces, or what I thought might be them, but the glasses were beyond repair. Tell-tale signs indicated my suspicions were now substantial, but I still hadn't caught my suspect in the act.

I was pretty sure the culprit was Jackie. It was summer, and during an average day, I probably ducked out the back door several dozen times on errands that might take up to five minutes each. Taking her with me just wasn't worth the effort; and when I came back in, she was usually still doing whatever she'd been doing when I left.

I have a fondness for mechanical pencils, and frequently use them when I'm doing paperwork. I've tried with only limited success to train myself not to take the pencil with me if I get interrupted, simply because I have a tendency to put it down. Backtracking myself in an attempt to find it can waste hours. Coming back to what I was doing to find my pencil gone was always a source of frustration, but all of a sudden it had taken on a sinister aspect. If my pencil was gone now, did I take it with me, or did something happen to it while I was gone? Now I not only had to backtrack myself, I had to extend my search to include areas the pencil could have got to in my absence.

I was still pondering on most of this when I went outside one day, only to return almost immediately because I had forgotten something. I arrived back in the kitchen in time to see Jackie running like a bat out of hell through her bedroom door. I was immediately suspicious, and went to investigate. By the time I got there, she had already scooted under her bed. Certain she was up to something, I got down on my hands and knees to get a better look. There she was, fluffed up and defiant, my favourite pencil at her feet.

I grabbed it in triumph, only to have my jubilation immediately dashed. The pencil was already modified beyond repair. This set me to thinking. It had probably taken less than a minute for me to get outside and back in again. Jackie had been playing on the floor in the kitchen; I was sure the pencil was in the living room. In order for her to get it and get to her bedroom door in the time she had, she had to have started for it as soon as I left. As incredible as it seemed, her crime had to have been premeditated. She had to have seen the pencil earlier, and waited for me to leave so she could get it.

Needless to say, it didn't take any effort on my part to convince myself I was nuts. I'm the first one to declare animals are a lot smarter than we humans like to think they are, but there's no way they have the ability to plan ahead. The only reasonable explanation was that I had left the pencil where she could see it from the kitchen floor.

A day or two after this, I happened to notice Jackie was playing with something that was making a peculiar clicking noise against her beak. Most of her toys were wood or plastic, so whatever she had was probably something she shouldn't have. I decided to take a look.

Macaws use their lower beak the way humans use pockets. Offer them a handful of something and they will stuff as many as they can fit under their tongue. If they have something they don't want you to see, they hide it in the same spot. When I approached, Jackie looked up at me with angel-like innocence. I could see nothing in her mouth, so I checked the floor. Nothing there either. I picked her up and put her on her chair. She made a turd, so I gave her a treat. I watched while she ate it, and could see nothing else in her mouth. It was obvious I was mistaken. We both went back to what we were doing.

Before long, I became aware of the strange clicking noise again. This time, I decided to use a different approach. Fishing something out of her mouth that she didn't want to give up didn't strike me as a good plan. She had only bitten me seriously once – at the vet's – but she could make putting my fingers in her mouth uncomfortable. Besides, this was only the first of what could easily become hundreds of incidents in the future, and it was possible the day would come when I would need her to give up something that might hurt her. The solution was obvious: I had to teach her to give me whatever she was hiding.

The strategy I came up with was simple. I would coax it out of her, and give her something as a reward for giving it up. The first hurdle would be to convince her that I knew she had it. I held out my hand and told her to give it to me. She ruffled her feathers and preened a wing. I tried tempting her with the reward. She feigned disinterest. I insisted. She tried to leave. I told her she wasn't going anywhere until she gave it to me. She ignored me. Finally, I told her I would turn her upside down and shake her. I knew this would be ineffective, but I was getting desperate. Fortunately, she thought it over, and then flicked her treasure into my hand. I gave her the reward, and praised her for being a good girl.

What I had in my hand was the metal button off a pair of jeans. I remembered I had left mine on the clothes hamper in the bathroom, and went to look. Sure enough, the button was gone. I made a mental note to always put my jeans away. Then I started thinking about when she had had an opportunity to get the button. I was accustomed to keeping an ear tuned to what she was doing, and as far as I remembered, she hadn't left the kitchen. I had made numerous trips outdoors, but why would she go in the bathroom looking for buttons while I was gone? At this point I remembered the pencil, and began to wonder. Was my original theory right?

If I was half as smart as a Macaw, I would have pursued this immediately. Being a mere human, it was a considerable time before it occurred to me that I should be able to determine exactly what was going on. All I had to do was go out the back door, and then watch her from the kitchen window. The first time I tried it, Jackie was watching me from the kitchen floor. It was immediately obvious that more stealth would be required.

After several failed attempts, I finally timed it right, arriving at the window to see her disappearing into the living room. I sneaked back into the house and caught her with pencil in beak. She saw me coming and ducked under the coffee table, emerging from the other side without her prize. As I retrieved my pencil, I made a mental note to look for a coffee table with a glass top.

I'd like to be able to say that was the last pencil Jackie ever got, but it wouldn't be true. It wasn't the last button or zipper slider either. Despite the best of intentions, they still appear in pieces at regular intervals. Over the years, it's become painfully evident the Macaw is far more vigilant than I. She has the patience to wait as long as it takes for the human to forget, and it's a foregone conclusion this human is eventually going to forget.

The Learning Curve

12/03/09


As anyone who has ever brought another species into their home can attest, there's a huge learning curve. We humans refer to it as training, but we're careful not to specify which one of us is being trained. We approach the new relationship handicapped with expectations, out of which we have created a whole list of rules. We are absolutely certain we are not going to make concessions when it comes to our demands. What we fail to understand is that our new bundle of fluff has come hard-wired with the only rule that counts: Cute is always trump.

Hopefully, before you even enter into the relationship you already know the newcomer has specific requirements, which have to be met. I had owned Cockatoos for a long time, so I felt I was well prepared to provide for a Macaw. I was sure the essentials, food, water and a safe environment, would be a snap.

My education, and training, began the first day Jackie came to live with us. I remember getting her up that first morning and being somewhat surprised to find she had gone the entire night without making the expected biological deposits on the floor of her cage. If I'd thought about it at the time, I might have realized she was thinking nestbox, not living quarters. It's been my experience that most parrots keep a very clean nestbox. If I'd made the connection, I wouldn't have made my first major mistake.

For some reason, I thought I could make a quick trip to town on her first day in her new home. After breakfast, I put her back in the cage to keep her safe while I was gone. It was only for about three hours, but when I returned I discovered she had sustained a number of injuries that were a direct result of trying to force her way out through the bars. Although I fully suspect she was registering an objection to being confined, to this day I wonder if the instinct to keep the nestbox clean wasn't also a factor. Regardless of her motive, my own lesson was painfully clear: What I had thought a safe environment obviously wasn't.

After dealing with the trauma, I put her on top of the cage. In less than thirty seconds, she was running around on the floor. I found her some toys, and returned her to the top of the cage. It took about a minute and a half for her to get bored and shinny down the side of the cage to the floor. This was a huge new space to explore, and she was adventurous. She was also determined. So was I. A certain amount of mess was expected, but biological deposits scattered about the floor were not an option. I was accustomed to well behaved birds that stayed where you put them. Jackie would have to comply.

It was a classic case of irresistible force meets immovable object. Which of us was the more determined remained to be seen.

I got busy and built an elaborate perch for her. I knew enough to know that if you want the bird to sit on the perch, there has to be room for the tail – more than two feet of tail, in this case. There also has to be stability, easy access, and a place for toys. Another consideration is the potential mess. If you've ever cleaned a barbecue or oven grill, you'll know what I mean when I say you don't want the bird sitting above all that wire. You only have to clean one cage to know bird biological deposits probably have a half-life in the vicinity of five thousand years.

I called on my considerable experience with birds in general, and, after several hours, eventually came up with a well planned perch arrangement. Jackie very obligingly showed her appreciation of my efforts by taking almost five minutes to go back to exploring the floor. She had found a mirror, and I had foolishly provided something to stand on so she could see herself. Nothing on her fancy new perch could even compare.

Needless to say, by this time I'm starting to think there wasn't a lot wrong with playing on the floor. The biggest issue, or so I thought at the time, was going to be learning to go back to the perch every twenty minutes or so to take care of business. I thought this out, and figured she would learn if I just kept taking her back and making her stay there until she had complied with my request to 'make a turd'.

All of this occurred nearly eight years ago, so I don't remember the exact sequence of events. At some point I moved Jackie into her own room, and created a 'chair' for her at the kitchen table. This was essentially a perch on a stand, with newspapers on the floor underneath, and well below, that beautiful tail. It worked very well, and we still use it today. She still preferred to run around on the floor, stopping for brief naps whenever she became tired. Much to her delight, her friend in the mirror [we named her Jill] showed up every time she did. I would dutifully carry her back to her chair at specific intervals, and she soon learned to 'make a turd' whenever she was there. We occasionally had accidents, most of which seemed to appear on the carpet between the kitchen and her room. I covered the carpet with some inexpensive plastic tablecloths, which more or less solved the problem - the accidents were much easier to clean up.

Eventually, I began to notice that when I looked after Jackie, we had very few 'accidents'. When my husband looked after her, it was a different story. Soon after arriving home I would discover accidents all over the house. This led me to question my whole approach, and it didn't take long for me to realize which one of us was trained to use the chair.

It became clear that if I wanted Jackie to wait until she was on her chair to make a turd, she had to have a reason. She obviously didn't care about leaving them on the floor, so unless I wanted to spend a significant amount of time cleaning them up, I had to provide her with incentive.

I had seen live shows where trainers got parrots to do all sorts of tricks, and then rewarded them with a peanut. I wasn't much interested in teaching Jackie tricks, but I thought the concept of a reward might work in my application. Unfortunately, she didn't like peanuts. I knew I would have to be consistent, and that whatever I used would have to be convenient. A trip to the grocery store was in order.

I wasn't sure what she would like, so I selected two – cashews, and Reeses Pieces [peanut butter insides]. My approach was simple. Every time I carried her back to her chair, she got a treat, along with lots of praise for being a good girl, as soon as she had complied with my request. The difference between the result I was hoping for – fewer accidents – and the one I got, forced me to realize my little friend was a lot smarter than I had given her credit for. After only a few trips to the chair, she started going there herself; and she was so certain about why she was there that she would actually wait until she was sure I was paying attention before carrying out her task. She obviously wanted to be sure she got the treat.

The speed with which she made the connection still amazes me. In less than a day, accidents became exceedingly rare – even when hubby was looking after her. My participation was more or less reduced to popping up to provide the treat – much easier than cleaning the floor. Occasionally, when we're busy doing something and I think she may have forgotten, I will carry her back; but most of the time, she just goes back herself.

Looking back on it now, it seems to me the first two lessons are obvious: As old as I was, I could be trained; and it is not humanly possible to be more determined than a Macaw.

The Macaw Clock

According to the calendar, it's only eleven days until the first day of spring. Judging by the blowing snow and insane cold the last week, Mother Nature hasn't checked her calendar.

Global warming notwithstanding, it's been another long, cold winter in Alberta. Just ask Jackie. She's going stir crazy. She wants to get outside, and obviously can't. Don't ask me how, but she knows exactly what time of year it is. I expect it has something to do with the longer days. Usually, by March, she's getting a few hours out in the greenhouse almost every afternoon. She has lots of room out there, and really enjoys the change. This year, it's just too cold, and I can't start the greenhouse up. Not to mention that getting the Macaw from the back door to the greenhouse is out of the question. She won't wear a snowsuit, and stuffing her under my jacket is comparable to snuggling up with a lobster.

I have to say that this particular Macaw knows the time of day right down to the minute, the days of the week, and the seasons of the year. We have a daily routine, and when it's time to do something, she expects me to do it. If I'm busy and late getting started for some reason, she makes a real nuisance of herself to get me to get going. She can be a real pest about it, getting in the way of whatever I'm doing. Being a mere human, it took me a long time to figure out what she was up to, and even now, I can be really dense.

I'm sure she knows the days of the week. Take the regular shopping routine for example. For years, I went to town on the same day every week. Jackie would get a new toy, and a treat, because I would have to confine her to her sunroom. The first few times shopping day came and went, and I stayed home, Jackie was beside herself.

Another part of our routine that Jackie seems to know is bathday. In the winter, creating a soggy wet macaw is a major production, so we only do it once a week, on Wednesday, right after lunch. We have a wood stove, so I usually build up the fire, and get the house nice and warm before we start. If I haven't just done it, I vacuum, too. Dry dust cleans up easier than wet dust, and trust me: The dust is going to get wet.

Once in a while, I just forget all about bath day. Life is so exciting here in the winter, with so much to do, that it's quite common for me to lose track of time. In fact, I've actually been known to check an electronic device to find out what day of the week it is. Some people tell me that's indicative of boredom and drudgery, but what do they know?

If Jackie doesn't see me getting ready for her bath, she kicks into nuisance mode. She usually starts by inserting herself between me and whatever I'm doing. If I ignore her or keep pushing her away, she switches tactics. Flying back and forth over top of my head works sometimes, but if I'm being particularly dense, it won't work either. That's when she starts doing things she's not supposed to.

Yesterday morning was one of the two mornings in the year when everything changes. Humans went on daylight savings time, which seriously changes the way I do things. Convincing the Macaw that the routine has to change is just about impossible. She just doesn't see the point.

I use my cell phone for an alarm, so the stupid thing went off when it was supposed to, getting me up an hour earlier than the day before. Jackie usually gets up thirty to forty-five minutes after she hears me moving around – she likes the house to warm up first - which she did yesterday. The trouble was, it was still dark outside. The chores I would normally do first thing, before breakfast, are easier in the daylight. The horse I look after wouldn't be expecting me for another hour, and the wild birds counting on the food and water I provide were still asleep. I decided to have breakfast first. This was fine with Jackie. She was hungry, and didn't mind a change that had me looking after her. It was after breakfast that the trouble started.

I poured a second cup of coffee and sat down in the living room. Jackie went into nuisance mode. She started by sitting on a chair nearby and making a repetitive, annoying noise. I thought maybe she was cold, so I moved her chair over by the fire. She kept it up, so I got up and found her some toys to play with.

That lasted all of two minutes. I had gone back to my coffee, but soon noticed she wasn't playing with the toys. In fact, she had gone into her room. [Yes, she has her own room. She shares it with my plants, but it's her room.] I could see her, and watched her go to her pot of dirt. [More on that another day.] She sat on the edge, scooped up a beak full of dirt, and threw it on the floor. I decided to ignore it, reasoning that I could sweep it up without too much trouble. She kept this up for several minutes, watching me after each beak full went flying. When I continued to ignore her, she flew over to one of my plants. Needless to say, this got my attention.

I put her back in her bed [cage] while I cleaned up the mess. When I finished, I gave her my standard 'how would you like to live in there' lecture, and then let her out. She listened intently, but as you can see from the second picture, didn't show much remorse. By this time, my coffee was nearly cold, and it was light outside, so I decided to do the chores. This is when it finally occurred to me that the Macaw clock was still on standard time.

As soon as I started to put on my coat, Jackie came running with her stainless steel bowl. This is probably her favourite toy, and apparently the game I call fling the bowl is an important part of her morning routine.

Because it is extremely cold here in the winter, I try to keep the tropical bird away from the door any time I open it. I do this by flinging the bowl into the kitchen, where it makes a loud noise as it bounces across the floor. Jackie chases after it, and brings it back. In the morning, I might have to do this two or three times before I get outside with all the food and water I need to do the chores.

Jackie usually waits at the kitchen door for me until I get back, or arrives there soon after. When I come in, I toss the bowl into the kitchen again, which I did this morning. This seemed to satisfy her, as she spent a little while amusing herself.

The reason I'm certain she's expecting the weather to be milder is also related to her behaviour. For most of the winter, she will usually keep herself occupied. She has stashes of toys scattered around the house, and visits them frequently as she goes about her day. It doesn't usually take a lot of effort on my part to keep her busy, but I've noticed the last week or two that her already short attention span is shrinking. Nothing keeps her occupied for long, and she's spending a lot of time being a nuisance. It's obvious she expects me to fix things for her. Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do about the weather; but right now, Jackie is nagging at me to do something. I just have to figure out what.

Jackie Moves In

When it comes to life altering experiences, having a Greenwing Macaw move in with you has to be right up there on the top of the list. For those of you unfamiliar with macaws, think two year old with wings. Four feet of wings, actually, so there's no place you can put it that's out of reach. And by 'it' I mean anything you happen to own, from the television remote to the snap on your pants. Both will be reduced to what my youngest son refers to as shrapnel in a matter of seconds. The keyboard I'm using right now is missing five – no, make that seven – of the shortcut keys. I didn't see them go, but I occasionally found them – in pieces – scattered around the house. Most of my jackets are missing parts of the zippers, and if you'll excuse me for just a minute.... had to rescue my purse and car keys.

Jackie came from an aviary south of Calgary. My husband and I drove down to get her on the 17th of July. She was just ten days short of four months old, and a hand fed baby. I can't imagine what she must have thought when we loaded her into a highway tractor, drove back to Calgary and hooked up to a Super B cement bulker. The noise alone must have been terrifying. I had taken a pet carrier with me, but opened the door almost immediately. When I put my hand inside, she took my thumb in her beak, and just held on. She's been holding my thumb whenever she gets the chance ever since.

Jackie will be eight years old on the 27th of March, and she is a joy to have around. We spend all of our time together. I decided early on not to keep her caged – the day after she moved in, as a matter of fact. I left her in her cage, and she freaked trying to get out. She actually wore the feathers off the front edges of her wings and damaged her beak in her efforts to escape. Whether that was because she was afraid of being left alone or objecting to being caged I never figured out. It wasn't worth it to me to put her through it again. Since that day, the only time she goes in a cage is at night, when she goes to bed.

We were assured by the breeder that our new friend was a male, so we named her Jack, after Jack O'Neil from Stargate SGI. [Yes, I'm a space nut.] It was a couple of weeks before the DNA test came back, and we found out he was wrong. By then, our smart little friend knew her name, so we decided to feminize it.

The breeder also told us she was too young and inexperienced to fly. This seemed proven by the fact that she wasn't flying around the house, so when we took her out, we took no precautions to keep her safe. That changed in short order.

Jackie's first escape was spectacular. We had gone garage saling, and had just got out of our pickup. I was carrying her on my hand, and had my thumb over her feet. The wind came up suddenly, and she launched herself out of my hand and right into the wind. I was racing after her instantly, but she flew around a corner and was gone. Lucky for me, I managed to get after her in time to see her land – about sixty feet up in a black poplar! I expect the people having the garage sale are still talking about that day. They found us a ladder long enough to reach the lower branches of the tree, and I climbed the rest of the way up to get her. I think by then she must have been pretty scared, because she waited for me.

So you'd think I would have learned my lesson, right? I wish I could say yes, but the truth is, I lost her two more times – once for more than four hours – before I finally clued in. After the first time, I clipped a wing, following the recommended procedure. Part of the beauty of these birds is the magnificent wing structure, which has the primary feathers crossing at the base of the tail. To keep that and prevent them from being able to fly away, you clip the secondary feathers of one wing. They can still fly enough to keep from getting hurt, but the missing feathers keep them from gaining altitude. This is great in theory, but it didn't work. I'm pretty sure Jackie didn't read any of the instructions. By then we had an outside playhouse for her – basically a gazebo that we had enclosed with chain link, with a cloth roof, if you can believe it. I was bringing her in for supper, and once again, she launched herself out of my hand. A storm was coming from the west, she caught the wind again, and this time, got out of sight. I immediately got on the phone to everyone in the family, and had a search party out in the woods in short order. It was my husband who finally found her. He took Frank, one of our Cockatoos, and went walking the neighbourhood. Frank got to talking and carrying on, and pretty soon, Jackie answered him.

It was obvious I hadn't taken enough feathers, so I tried again. Before she went outside again I attacked her with the scissors, feeling confident that this time, I would get it right. To make a long story short, I didn't. It took several days for me to find it out, but eventually, she got away again. I was forced to conclude the only solution was to take the primary feathers, something I really didn't want to do. After all, if I did clip them, and that didn't work either, what would be next?

I decided instead to get her a harness. They are readily available at most pet stores, and I reasoned that started young, she would get accustomed to it. Jackie had other ideas. Although she tolerates the harness, she definitely hates it. Her entire attitude changes whenever I put it on her, and she frets with it constantly. I do occasionally make her wear it, but like her, I soon found the whole thing tedious. Putting it on her to make the short trip to the playhouse, for example, was time consuming and annoying. And if the weather changed suddenly, and I had to get her into it in a hurry, we would both get frustrated. An alternate solution had to be found.

With all that in mind, I designed what I call a tether. Essentially, it's a clip that attaches to her leg, with a strap that I slip around my wrist. Vets will tell you this is a bad plan, because if the bird flies, it will dislocate or break the leg when it comes to the end of the tether. I believe I have a design which prevents that, and so far, she has not sustained an injury. And believe me, she's tested it plenty of times in the almost eight years we've been using it. Although she's very attached to me now and less likely to fly on a whim, there's always the fear factor, so we never venture outside without it.