The word 'perfect' gets thrown around this measly world without even a second thought.   In the words of a dictionary it is portrayed as " conforming absolutely to the description or definition of an ideal type" and even " entirely without any flaws, defects, or shortcomings."  The list is never-ending really.  However, are any of those actually the "perfect" denotation.  I think not.  It's an unrealistic, impractical idea that anything or anyone could come close to it.  There is not a single person in this world that is perfect.
     I am not a perfect person and I am not a perfect caregiver.  I recently searched on google " how to be a perfect pet owner." But its only gave me results with how to be a good pet owner.  It's close enough I guess.  Anyways, there was one website I visited and there were some pieces of advice that really stuck out to me.  Those happened to be; researching the pet before you get it, socializing your pet, and something like making sure your pet isn't alone for long periods of time.  These stuck out to me because I never really did any of those.  During this observation I probably tried to work on maybe one or two of those things, but not enough to make me a perfect pet owner.
     Before I even got Big Bird I should have looked into how to properly care for a parrot, but I didn't.  And even when I got Little Bird I still made no attempt to thoroughly look into it.  However I did search some things throughout the years. Which in turn made me feel the need to take credit for Big Birds demise.  Although death is inevitable I had the notion that if I had been a perfect caregiver her life would still be going on.  There is no way someone could be so great of an owner that they would do everything and anything to keep their pet alive.  They could try, but it's not possible.  Everyone has their own life and things going on in it that interferes with giving the illusion of being perfect in certain areas.
    Throughout this observation project I had discovered things about Little Bird like what food he likes and who he enjoys being around.  I was hoping that this could make me into a perfect caregiver, but it is just not possible and I've come to terms with that.  I've worked on trying to get Little Bird things he needs such as company and the little things like toys.  I do my best and I yearn to please my babies.  This project has however, turned me into a better pet owner, and I'm eternally grateful for that.
     I'm glad I don't have to work towards something I know cannot be achieved.  I will continue to strive to just be a better caregiver day by day to whomever and whatever comes into my life.

                       This is the notorious Little Bird in his cage (top) and atop his cage (bottom)

References:

Becker, Karen. "How to Be a Good Pet Owner | Top 10 Pet-Owner Mistakes." Mercola.com. Mercola, 16     Nov. 2010. Web. 9 Dec. 2014.

"perfect." Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. 12 Dec. 2014. <Dictionary.com                                         http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/perfect>.

The Solution

     I would like to start off by saying that this is simply a follow up from what my last post was about. Noting that I had recognized that Little Bird seemed to be lacking some companionship from being cooped up in my room for the longest time. So I had proposed that I would take him into my living room in the morning and leave him there until late in the afternoon when I would bring him back into my room for the night. I did this because I hated seeing him yearn for some more attention. I had looked into it and as I found out that these birds love attention as I suspected. They love interaction and enjoy eating at the dinner table or even watching television (Galloway).  I never once doubted my grandmother when she told me that kind of stuff.  But of course they enjoy attention.  I mean who doesn't. 

     Onto my conclusion. I first brought out Little Bird Wednesday morning before I made my way off to school. I continued to do that everyday, even Saturday and Sunday.

     I couldn't fully observe what went on throughout the week but I happily noticed a difference in his demeanor by Friday. Like I had mentioned in my last blog I noticed that whenever someone came into or by my room he asked for some recognition. But now he doesn’t really do it at all. Maybe because he is satisfied with what he has been getting. I should have asked my mom what has been going on but I'd rather leave it a mystery.  Or maybe I shouldn't have.

     However, I was home most of Saturday so I was able to observe what did go on throughout the day. Maybe it was because the house was full or something but I don't think Little Bird enjoyed his day. I had woken up to the sound of my nephews crying and Little Bird, having spent the night in the living room, was screaming for them to be quiet (reminder from my first blog noting that he is not a fan of loud noises). Having the resemblance of a peacekeeper, he stopped my family from getting too loud and even managed to stop them from play-fighting. He did this with his voice. Like I had noted; screaming along with flapping his wings. He had to do this on more than one occasion because when my family is all together it's a madhouse. Which is why I don't think he enjoyed his day.

     Although Sunday was quite the opposite. He was very calm and relaxed by the looks of his breathing. Nice and slow. That's how it was for the majority of the day.  Nothing note-worthy.

I think I will continue to keep putting Little Bird in my living room because I have been pleased with the outcome.

References

Galloway, Cheryl. "Blue-fronted Amazon." Animal World. Clarice Brough CAS, 2013. Web. 16 Nov. 2014.

Companionship

     I have realized something truly upsetting.  Little Bird wants company.  I want nothing but happiness for this parrot and the fact that I've seen him practically beg for some attention other than what I have been giving him is disconcerting.
     Little Bird spends all day in my room.  The bad thing is that I hardly ever let anyone in my room and when someone, usually my mom or sister, does come into my room it is relatively quick.  I've noticed that when someone does make an appearance, Little Bird greets whomever it is with a delightful "Hi" and moves side to side trying to get noticed.  He even greets people passing by my door.  I never really put much thought into it.  I had just figured that he is a friendly little guy.
     I try to give Little Bird as much attention as I can, but I honestly do not think it's enough for him.  In my eyes I now see him ache for something he once had.  When Big Bird was alive they were always by each other's side for the most part.  They would sometimes get into one cage together (they had separate cages) or just make tiny noises as if they were carrying on a conversation.  Well that's what I liked to believe.  But now that Big Bird is gone all Little Bird really has is me and I'm not by his side as much as I would like to be even though I really do try.
     So I have made a decision.  I want to move Little Bird out of my room.  Nothing major, just take him and his cage out of my room in the morning and let him spend his day in my living room.  I would simply place his cage on a table in that room and let him do his own thing.  That's where he could at least interact with people more than he has been.  And I don't want it to seem like I give him no affection whatsoever, it's just that I simply don't give him enough.  My grandmother always told me that parrots should have loads of attention.
   

I cannot wait to see what this brings and how it will affect Little Bird.
   

Happiness from an Apple

I was going to make this post about the overview of my recent observations, but something interesting happened today that changed my mind.  So I will just be discussing some of our Sunday because I feel like it was, in my opinion, important.
I change his cage whenever I feel it is necessary. And today happened to be one of those days.  I could feel that he was angry while I changed his cage.  Mainly because he was making these cooing like noises and was in an aggressive stance.  The stance consisted of him leaning forward toward me.  It doesn't sound like an aggressive stance but compared to his regular pose, it was.  That made the actually act of changing his area somewhat difficult, but I still managed to get it done.  In the end that got Little Bird in a better mood.  Later that day I was eating an apple and that happens to be one of Little Bird's favorite fruits.  I sat on my bare floor and peeled part of the apple with my teeth.  I couldn't help but notice him staring at me the entire time.  Once I peeled a fair amount of the apple, I stood up and bit off a piece and fed it to him.  He wasted no time and immediately ate the entire portion within five minutes (the piece was roughly the size of a small bouncy ball cut in half).  I also left three more chunks in his cage for later.  Once he finished, he turned around in circles on top of his cage and cleaned his beak off on the cage bars.  What I found to be interesting was that he kept turning around in circles.  Slowly but enough for me to take notice.  I believe he was happy.  Every once in a while he would peer down into his cage and see the other apple fragments but refused to go into his cage and eat them.  By then I had finished my apple so I went up to him and offered a bite, but he turned me down.  About six or seven minutes later his breathing slowed (noticed from his chest expansions) and his eyes started to close.  This wasn't an eventful day, but I like to believe that Little Bird was happy today.  Just one tiny insignificant piece of an apple made him happy (well it must have been significant to him).  It made me feel happy.

Bird Watching

It's quite interesting to think you know so much about someone or something, but when asked to give an accurate depiction of that one thing, there are no words you can piece together to utterly describe it.  That was my first notion at the start of this observation.  And weeks of observations have yet to alter that.
However, it has caused me to notice some things about Little Bird that I wouldn't have particularly noticed without the aid of this project.  The first thing is that I feel like he has a dominant hand which in his case happens to be the right claw.  Of course he uses his left claw but I've noticed that he uses his right more often.  That's something I should most definitely look into.  I can tell that Little Bird absolutely HATES loud noises.  Whenever I raise my voice or something loud occurs, he yells like there's no tomorrow and flaps his wings.  I can only assume that he doesn't particularly like anything noisy because of that.  Big Bird and Little Bird had that in common.  Now let me make a note about his wings.  Little Bird loves to come out of his cage and when he does a stretching like movement occurs once he has successfully reaches the top.  It resembles a human stretching their arms when they first wake up.  He brings them up nice and slow but in a somewhat choppy motion.  He also has these instances where he rotates his head back and "cleans" his feathers.  I used the quotations because I'm not really sure what he would be doing if it wasn't a nice little cleaning.  Anyways, after turning his head back he picks a feather and runs through it with his beak.  Resembling a bored teenage girl combing her fingers through her hair.  So possibly he is just combing his feathers?
I wouldn't say I'm the healthiest person in the world, but I sure as heck enjoy my fruits and veggies.  When I have the chance to share some of that with Little Bird I almost always do.  And the times I forget he reminds me (I'll get into that a little later).  One thing he cannot get enough of is kale.  As soon as I give him the slightest taste, his eyes light up.  I do feed Little Bird portions of whatever else I eat.  Well anything that doesn't have the potential to end his life.  Something that he could do is talk.  Nothing fancy.  But as I said in my previous post, Little Bird had lived with my grandmother for a chunk of his life and any thing he picked up was from her.  I've tried to teach him new things but nothing has broken through(or so I believe).  Anyways, whenever I have food and forget to share Little Bird Says "hiiiii."  Sometimes it's other things but mainly just that.  He has been doing that more than usual or maybe I just haven't given much thought to it.  I will end here mainly due to wanting to do some more observations before I can really get a feel for what Little Bird is doing during some of his activities both in and out of his cage.

The Beginning of Something New.

I chose to do my observation on my parrot.  He goes by the name of Little Bird.  He is a Blue Fronted Amazon Parrot and is roughly 37 years young, well that's what my grandma told me at one point.  Little Bird was my grandmother's bird before he came to live with me.  The main cause of that was due to me having  Big Bird.  Now she was also a parrot of the same species but my grandma had given her to me about a year earlier.  Back to Little Bird.  So my grandma felt that the two birds should stay together for the sake of their health.  I love animals so it was unimaginable to even think of saying no.  With that being said I welcomed Little Bird into both my home and my heart.  Although he has never been rather fond of me I still cared for him.  It wasn't until Big Bird's passing that I realized how much I emotionally neglected Little Bird.  With some thought after hearing about this project, I made the justly decision to make the subject about this fellow.  I felt as if it would give me chance to really connect with this old guy.