A little side story, I found my bird some 8 years ago. Yea, FOUND. It was during the Avian Flu period, and she was abandoned by her previous owner. My neighbour's golden retrievers found her in the middle of the road and watched over her. I was wondering to myself "Why in the world are the two doggies sitting in the middle of the road?!!?" and went over to take a look, only to find Birdie sitting between them, flightless. Her wings were clipped.
So I brought her back and gave her a home. I found out later that her owner probably abandoned her not just cos of Avian Flu, but cos she had a tumor as well. Her numerous operation cost me probably 10x more than then cost to buy a pet bird her breed. But no way I'm gonna let her go!
Well, all good things have to come to an end though... Her tumor recently relapsed. We scheduled her for another operation, but now being 11 years old *vet estimated* (birds of her breed live between 18-20 years), the vet thinks that she is too old to undergo and survive another operation and advised again it. We were told that she might outlive her tumor as a matter of fact (i.e: she'll die of old age before the tumour can actually claim her). So yea, she's back at home, happy (snappy at times, she really has character!) and we are just enjoying our time with her. Every extra day is a blessing!
Oh oh oh! Talking about snappy, I remembered that we let her out to roam in the garden once, and it rained. We forgot to put her back into the cage, under shelter. And by the time we realized, she was drenched. We opened her cage door for her (she returns home by herself after she have had enough fun, but couldn't do so that day cos the door was closed), and stretch our hands out for her to step on so that we can save her the walk back to her cage. She snarled at us, fussed and hissed under her breath, refuse to stand on our hands and walked back to her cage herself while grumbling, and ignored us for two days. HAHAHAHAHAHA. Parrots are so intelligent lol
