I almost don't want to do today's post for fear I will look like an incompetent parrot owner, but I feel I must as maybe someone out there will learn from my mistakes.

Incident #1:

The day before yesterday I was cleaning house, and had gotten to the vacuuming portion. Nani was out on her stand, and has recently learned how to fly (quote, unquote) to the couch and will either climb down to the floor or go running to her cage. But she never leaves the tree when I'm vacuuming...until now. I was knelt down on the floor trying to vacuum under her cage, the disaster zone as I call it. I didn't see that she had come over to investigate and was standing on the arm of the couch right next to me. I went to vacuum part of the food mess she had left on that very part of the couch (using the attachment hose) and flooooop! She was sucked in!!!!!! Thankfully her body is pudgy and she got stuck there. I quickly turned it off, within a second, and my poor bird was making that noise they do when they hate something (like nail clipping), kind of a growl. So I went to pull her out and guess what...stuck! I was panicking, but pulled slightly harder and ploop, out she came! I brought her up to my face with my hand around her body and she immediately started making kissing noises. I kept telling her "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry" while tears were rolling down my cheeks. She seemed flustered but otherwise fine, I couldn't believe it! After babying her for several minutes I set her on the couch to see what she'd do. Get this...she goes off bouncing up and down while saying "hop, hop, hop" in her squeaky voice. Then immediately attacked her toy and started whistling away. Needless to say I was flabbergasted, and left with severe heart palpitations of course.

Here is my sermon: When you are considering a Caique as a pet (which I highly recommend) and you read all the books and online info that say they are into everything, can't be trusted, and are highly active interpret that as: Caiques are rulers of your domain...nothing is off limits, when they look innocent always suspect the worst, and last but not least are little Tasmanian devils having endless energy and can run (or hop) from one end of the room to the other with triathlon speed!

Incident #2:

This one happened today. My daughter is notorious for leaving her things everywhere and I am constantly nagging her to pick up after herself. Yesterday she had a bunch of Hershey's kisses on the living room table (Nani's room). When we were about ready to leave the house I told her to pick them up and put them away, which she did. Fast forward to this morning at around 10 a.m. and Nani is out running around from her tree to her cage and back again, as normal. Now keep in mind the house is spotless as I just cleaned. So she decides to crawl down on the floor and eat the tidbits she's dropped. I was sitting right there with my laptop, so I let her be. She went exploring under the coffee table, which is also normal. All of a sudden I hear what sounds to me like when she chews apart the dry leaves outside. crunch crunch crunch. I say to her "what are you into?" and bend down to take a look. Ahhhhh! Chocolate! It was all over her beak! I freaked and rinsed it out the best I could. Then I immediately called the vet and explained. There was only a small chunk missing so I know she didn't eat much, and I had no idea if she had ingested the foil as it was all peeled and mashed into the chocolate kiss. My vet said that judging by the amount of chocolate that was missing it probably wouldn't be a problem. But she said if she ingested the foil she could become impacted and need surgery. I reexamined the leftovers and it seemed very unlikely that she had ingested much, if any. She told me to keep an eye on her and her droppings today. Now since this happened she has been absolutely normal, singing and eating like no tomorrow. I will continue to watch her closely...I love her so much!

Moral: Don't let your birds forage on the floor and always double check after your 8 year old claims to have cleaned!