When I haven't been out getting in trouble with the law, I have been working, slowly but steadily, on getting the house into some kind of order and establishing a routine. One of the things I have been working on is hand training the pair-a-tweeters.

All joking aside, parakeets are not stupid birds. They require a certain amount of mental stimulation and activity to be truly healthy birds. Because in the wild parakeets are distance fliers, the ideal home situation for them is one where they can safely do some flying for excersise and fun. Also, I am reluctant to clip their wings for fear that I may accidentally harm them. It's simple enough to understand HOW to clip their wings, and anyone with an ounce of common sense and a diagram on the subjet could trim the right feathers. However, trimming feathers while dealing with a struggling bird that only weighs a couple of ounces is another thing. Even for the vet and her assistant, it was a two person job.....

and I think they Dagwood might have sort of pulled a muscle in his struggle to be free of the situation. If that can happen when pro's do it, I'd rather not attempt it.

So, all that having been said, it'll be a lot easier for everybody if we don't have to run all over the house chasing birds at ceiling level.

To that end, I've been taking the parakeets out of their cage each morning. At first, it was a struggle to even get them out of the cage. Now, however, they are into the routine and are starting to serve as winged alarm clocks letting me know they are ready to "get out" at about 9:30. Blondie has pretty much reverted to being hand tame. She'll hop up on my hand to come out and sit on my hand waiting for me to open the cage door for her to go back in.
Dagwood is another matter.

However, I am not going to give up. After all who knows what kind of life he had "on the streets"? And, it could be simply that he's not as intellegent as Blondie, which is in no way his fault - though it does explain him falling asleep during the mating dance.

Their first stop is the "parakeet gymn" - the brightly colored play area I have sitting next to their cage. From there, they can make their way back to the cage top, or they can climb over the trailing plants, down the defunct cable line, and onto the ficus tree - a route Blondie has taken several times, looking a little like a parakeet version of James Bond on the slippery areas of the philodendrine. When she does this, after awhile Dagwood looks around, becomes alarmed that he can't find her and issues a distress cry. Blondie calls back to him from the tree, and every day I let a little more time go by, but poor Dags really doesn't seem to be getting it....so I often have to pick him up and set him in the tree, where he hurries to be reunited with his mate.

The other day, my brother, who is not familiar with all this drama came by to visit in the morning when the pair-a-tweeters were happily blending in with their surroundings in the ficus tree. He sat on the sofa for a little while, glanced up and said, "Um. Did you know there's a bird in that tree?"

"There should be two of them." I said

"Wow. They look like little ornaments! It's like decorating with live birds!"

Meanwhile, The Hub having read an article about ancient human ancestors being preyed on by large eagles has become convinced that the parakeets actually veiw us as an inferior species and are simply trying to lull me into a false sense of security before they swoop down from a curtain rod in a frenzied attack, during which, at the very least, they will poop on my hair. Every time I pick one of them up, he channels for them "But me down, you overgrown hominid!" I think The Hub takes this ferocious view of them because Dagwood still bites him every time he gets the chance.

Like I said, Dags isn't the smartest bird in the tree, and so when The Hub sticks his hand in the cage to try to do something with or for the birds it doesn't look "right" ( i.e. like my hand) to Dags so he chomps on it for all he's worth.

But, to support his point that the pair-a-tweeters are really violent meat eaters, he told me that they "really get into" the movie Jurrassic Park which he has been watching, in stages, on DVD. "They squalk and flap when the dinosaurs come on! I swear, they're cheering for the T-rex! They're like, 'those are my ancestors! you should fear me!"

I thought he was kind of putting me on, until I came home one night and the movie was blaring away in the television set. Over in pair-a-tweeter manor, both birds were perched so they could face teh television. They were both leaning forward, as if with intense interest, quiet during the dialouge. Then some fantastic creature came on the screen, leading them to whistle, chirp and head bob. "Look at that! Look at that!" Of course, there are quite a few "jungle" sound effects in that movie. I don't know how much of it the parakeets are getting, but they clearly love the movie.

The Hub is not so ailienated from the birds that he won't play the movie for them even when he's out, just to cheer them up.

They have also become a little too used to the dog, in my opinion. Blondie, in particular, is quite willing to use his back as a landing strip if she gets tired flying say from her cage top to the back of the sofa. Winston, the gentle giant that he is, just stands very still untill she decides to move on. But he gives me this look as if to say. "Um. I got a bird on me. What am I supposed to do?" Of course, they don't mind having their tail feathers sniffed, which Winston tries to do at least once each time on each outing. I guess he feels he's responsible for making sure that they are okay too - or at least that they smell pretty much the same from day to day.

It may be stupid to invest that much time and enegy in animals. I mean, who in their right mind has a parakeet gymn? Well, there must be others of us - hell, they sell 'em at Petco. But I feel this way: There's a real limit to the good I am able to do in this world. I can't cure cancer. I haven't come up with a brilliant idea to save the earth, or the economy, or end starvation or poverty. I can barely get to work on time. But I can make those parakeets happy. They may only have brains the size of peas, but, at my house, they can at least have a pretty good day.