Plagued by a Cat

Unfortunately, others in my apartment complex amuse themselves with feeding the feral cats. Due to this, there has been a large increase in the number of wild kittens running a muck. The kittens from the past litter are nearly full grown. One of them, I'll call him Smokey, is intent on harassing Hercules, my sulcatta tortoise. When it warms, Hercules gets full run of the garden on my patio. I am worried that Smokey might hurt poor Hercules so I chase him away any time I see him enter the patio. Today, Manzi was preening on his cage top when he let out a warning shriek and took off way too fast. He couldn't stop, but the cupboards in the kitchen helped him to do so. After a thump, he flew back up to his cage breathing very hard. Usually when this happens, I will see a tractor or some large vehicle outside the window. In this case, it was just Smokey. I chased Smokey away and Hercules, who was outside at the time, came back out of his shell.

Manzi is just fine. He is not hurt at all, he just had a scare. Right now he is back to running around on the floor wrecking havoc.

Blood and Terror

First, I want to apologize for the delay in updates. Things have been hectic in my life so I haven't done as much training with Manzi.

Here is the blood story: Manzi's nails began to scratch me and that means it's time to clip them. I clipped them as usual and he was just fine with it. After about 30 minutes, he began to fly all around while I was working. He was flying and running around for a few minutes when he landed on me. I noticed that there was blood on his foot. I must have clipped his nail very close to the quick and then Manzi chewed it the rest of the way. I looked up and noticed that he spread blood all over my living area. There were little bloody footprints everywhere. It looked like a mini blood bath and I am glad no policeman randomly showed up or he might not believe my story. I looked at Manzi's nail but couldn't do anything about it and within a minute or so it stopped bleeding anyway. I was a bit concerned about the amount of blood, but Manzi seemed no worse for the wear. It took me nearly 30 minutes to clean up the blood and then sanitize my place. What a bloody mess!!! (get the pun?)

Terror: Lately Manzi has found silverware to be his mortal enemy. I'm not sure why. I think that he wants some of my food and even though I usually give him some, it is not enough so then in frustration he goes after the culprit. Over the past couple weeks I have had spoons and forks tackled, knocked to the floor and then flung around. Manzi flies out of no where at the silverware. He got my finger on accident a couple of times. When I am eating cereal it causes a big mess. Needless to say, now Manzi is locked in his cage for the duration of meals. He is still allowed to hang out with me while I cook, but once the food is ready to serve, he goes in his cage and then it is safe to take out the silverware.

Freeflight: There are still many hawks in the area, but their numbers are diminishing. I am going to resume indoor recalls either today or tomorrow and hopefully within a few weeks we can do outdoor flying again.

Manzi and Drifter

My friend came over with her dog, Drifter. Her dog is a large, 80lb, champion duck hunting, English Laborador Retriever. If you notice in the pictures, he is being held by his collar. This helps prevent teeth marks in Manzi. Luckily, Drifter is one of the best behaved dogs I've seen. I would not trust other dogs to be in this close of proximity to Manzi. Manzi thought he could take on Drifter. He was biting Drifter's fur while on his back and then got distracted with a the brake on my friend's wheel chair.
I like Drifter's look that seems to say, "Do I have to put up with this?"

Also, Manzi has stopped waking me up with the alarm beeps and then the barks, but as soon as he hears me get up, he proceeds with his routine (alarm, whistle calling dogs and then barking). This goes on until I uncover him every morning.

Barking Mad

I am at my sister's house again. She has a shih-tzu/poodle cross. This morning, while I was still in bed, I could hear the dog barking at Manzi. After a while, my sister got upset with her dog and brought him downstairs. Soon enough, the barking upstairs continued. At first I thought her dog, Peanut, had gone back upstairs, but then I heard him howling downstairs while the barking was going on upstairs. It seems that Manzi now has perfect mastery over barking like a little dog. Manzi has been barking all day long. I hope he forgets how to do it soon enough after we get back. There are worse noises, but I can see his barking getting annoying. I have heard of many other parrot-hound households telling stories of their African Greys barking, but since I don't have a dog I never thought I'd have a barking parrot.

Traveling

We are on vacation. Manzi usually hates his travel cage. On the first leg of our journey (a three-hour drive) Manzi began to bend the bars of his travel cage. I moved a toy in front of them to divert his attention. I am going to have to get a new travel cage in the future as he has damaged his current one quite badly. Anyway, after arrival at my sister's house, Manzi immediately began imitating the sound of their house alarm beeps. It beeps every time a door opens. It was funny because my nephew, Benjamin, keep asking, "Who's here?" as he heard the door "open." My sister kept having to answer that it was just Manzi again. There was a party on the day we arrived. Manzi was so loud, but the party was louder so it wasn't a problem. There were many inquiries about him and he seemed to be a pretty big hit.

I stayed with my sister a couple days. By the time we left he was saying her name.

Now we are in L.A. Manzi did much better on the last 3.5-hour drive and just sat contentedly. I let him out of his travel cage for much of the day as he always wants to be right with me. He is being a good sport and letting others hold him. He even laid on his back in my brother's hands!

I would like to devise a better travel system for Manzi in the car. He doesn't like being in his travel cage. I think a perch of some sort would be better. One that buckles into the seat belt and then just stick newspapers underneath him. It might take some getting used to, in order for him to learn not to leave the perch. Any volunteers to build me that perch?

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!