ah....well, the adoption fair has come and gone. there was quite a few people and birds there (even tho the weather was rainy and cold - yuck!). many of the people who came were quite enamored by the large birds on display there. i don't blame them! the three large macaws were beautiful, as well as the handful of mini macaws and amazons.

zeba was quite excited and talkative on the drive to and from the event, but at the event itself, zeba was mostly interested in watching the dogs outside the window. (the place where the adoption fair was held is right next door to a vet hospital and i guess some of the dogs that were being held there were being given play time outside.

zeba hardly even gave me the time of day. not very interested in being touched or given attention. i wouldb't blame him tho...the bustle of people and the loud noises coming from the surrounding birds were quite overwhelming for him. he did however love the piece of apple and 2 whole almonds given to him by the Mickaboo amazon/macaw coordinator!

driving home, i noticed his nails have grown quite long...im wondering if i can file them all the way down or if i have to towel him *EEK* and cut his nails...i will probably try to file them down this week and if that doesn't work, my husband and i will have to try and do some nail trimming.

zeba is slowly getting used to the pace of living room life. he sees more of my husband and 100% more of the other birds in my home so in the beginning it was rather over-stimulating him. now he is more mellow upon seeing my husband (but does get charged up a little when he approaches his cage - we still do not allow zeba out of the cage when my husband is in the same room). when i do let zeba out, he still tries everything to get to my other amazon's cage. we cover up the side of my other amazon's cage that zeba can see in hopes that it won't fuel his urgent need to go over there and "say hi"...but he still tries to climb over there. well, this gives me the opportunity to get him to step up on to a stick (too dangerous to have him step onto my hand when he is so excited as he tries to go over to the other amazon) which he is now doing very well, and place him back on his cage or take him to another room where he can roam around.

zeba now allows my husband a lot more chances to scratch his head (when inside the cage). i think the key here is to keep zeba calm - to approach him slowly and to talk to him calmly - when my husband approaches. if we can do that, we can start trying to let zeba out of his cage with my husband there. its like zeba could be calm as can be, but when my husband approaches his cage he is at 100% excited. he will climb as quickly as possible to where my husband is and raise his neck feathers and splay his tail. zeba even tries (sometimes with BOTH feet) to reach out for my husband - once caught, zeba tries to pull him near so that he can bite my husband. it may not seem like it, but zeba has come a long way to "accepting" my husband. he is probably about 25% less aggressive towards my husband than the day we brought him to our home.

a few things have come to light since moving zeba into the living room area that i wanted to comment on.

1) it could just be the time of the year, but zeba would probably do best in a home without other amazons (smaller birds are fine), especially males. he does get very excited when he sees or hears my other amazon (male), has occasional sound-offs to see who is louder, and at this point i would never allow the two out of their cage at the same time.

when i first took zeba out of the bedroom, i placed his cage close to my other amazon, since they both seemed so interested in each other - BAD IDEA. they constantly displayed at each other and both wondered "who is that disrespectful bird who has decided to come so close to my territory! how dare!". being the "mom" of the house, i thought i could try and calm zeba by giving him a head rub - ANOTHER BAD IDEA. all the while, zeba was displaying and pinning his eyes and dumb me, i poke my finger in there asking if zeba wants a head rub...he bows down like he wants it, but backs away and WHAM! he lunges after my finger which made a good 1/2-inch long gash on my index finger. TOTALLY MY FAULT. it all happened, literally, as i blinked.

i went to clean up my wound and when i went back to zeba, i noticed a piece of his right side beak chipped, actually looks more like flaked, off. he was bleeding a little, but it soon stopped. then i was more concerned about him. it doesn't seem to bother him tho. he was easily able to eat pellets and normal food.

well, after that i promptly moved zeba's cage away from my amazon and placed my conures' cage and the sofa in between. as sson as i did that, i approached zeba and he calmly allowed me to scratch his head. it was just a rude introduction of the two amazons on my part. i should've really known better. i may slowly move them closer to each other, but only after they get used to eachother being in the same room.

they continue to sound off to each other once in a while, but it seems that they are getting used to it. being the only female in the house, i do however feel tensions in the air when i move closer to one cage or the other - my conures could care less about the two macho guys (they would rather stay away from both) so i usually take them out while those two simmer a little when i get home.

i find that my amazon now tries to lunge at me at every chance he gets. when i walk around his cage, he constantly keeps an eye on me and follows me. i just think he is really excited and wonders how dare i spend time with that OTHER guy...last night when i came in to the living room and sat on the sofa, i had a weird feeling and i looked up at my amazon - he was staring at me, then i looked at the conures - they were staring at me, and then at zeba - he was staring at me. LOL. i whispered it to my husband and, that crazy man, he turned around and STARED at me. what an odd feeling being stared at in my own home by a bunch of male animals!

okay, on to the next one...

2) i knew this from before, but even more so, i think zeba would do best with a female human. when zeba and i are alone, he is suuuuuuupppeeeerrrr mellow, the friendliest bird who preens me so carefully and gives me such a puppy-dog look (i never thought a bird could have that look, lol) when he wants to be scratched and get attention. but he does have a very guard-dog type personality...yet again, this could be attributed LARGELY to the time of year, but also his past could have also something to do with it. from what i heard from the people at the vet clinic he went to, he seems quite friendly to all females. with my husband, when zeba was in the bedroom, zeba would usually calm down and allow my husband to preen his head, but now that he is in the living room, zeba seems to be more on the defensive.

the move probably made him uneasy, and i dont think he is really used to new things happening. my husband does talk to him softly and spends some time near his cage, but zeba has become noticeably more easily excited now. in time this could pass. i do want him to get used to new things and to enjoy it.

i have not been able to test him out with kids yet.

3) zeba does not respond well to negative reinforcement. if i give him a firm NO and a mean look, he only gets more excited/aggressive. this will not work with him. what DOES work is ignoring him when he is being bad (or time out) and using positive reinforcement to reinforce good behavior. the best is just to try and avoid any situation where he could show signs of bad behavior.

last night, i wanted to give zeba some out of cage time, but my husband was home and he works extensively on the computer in the living room. so what i did was kindly ask him to leave the room until i have zeba safely in our bedroom where he can go wherever he wants and do whatever he wants. it worked well. i got zeba in the bedroom and he was such a mellow bird. followed me wherever i went and when i laid down on the floor (stomach side down) he climed on my ankles and proceeded to preen them. lol. and then he wandered up to my lower back and continued to preen my hair.

4) zeba is very difficult to keep in one place, especially when there is someone he does not approve of, in the room. this is due to the fact that zeba used to be able to fly.

since his previous owners allowed him to grow out his wings, he has a lot of flying muscles. even with a good clip on both wings (ALWAYS clip both wings!) he can flutter about 10 feet away from his cage. this is why i wont allow him out of the cage if my husband is in the room. zeba can easily reach him if he launches himself off of the top of his cage.

this is much unlike my own amazon. wherever you put him, if he can't climb down to the floor, he will stay put. the only time i know of that he tried to jump off and fly, was last year during breeding season and he tried to attack me (i guess i was too close to his playstand). normally he wont try it. from what we know, he was never able to fly - i guess that helped.

with zeba, he is absoultely not afraid to jump/fly anywhere at anytime, which makes him a little more "dangerous" if you dont keep a close watch on him. if i ever do take him outside when the weather is warm, i will either have to keep him in the travel carrier or somehow work with him on wearing a harness.

5) you can probably discern this from the things mentioned above, but just to be clear...zeba becomes aggressive when excited. its usually called amazon overload behavior. this is what can make an amazon have a dr jekyll/mr. hyde personality, and this is exactly how it is for zeba.

if zeba is calm, with someone he likes and trusts, he is the most gentle bird you will meet. he knows his beak strength very well and doesn't try to inflict any pain. if you are doing something (i.e. reading the newspaper) and he wants your attention, he will quietly and slowly approach you, and get to a position where he places himself between you and what you are doing and just stands there waiting for your scritches, kisses and attention. he will preen you, he will coo to you. i've never met a bird who was so gentle.

BUT, if he gets excited such as you just come home and you greet him, or if there are other birds in the home and they start sounding off (especially if there is another bird of the same type - amazon), or if there are people in the room that zeba just doesn't approve of, or if you just open his cage for him to come out....all these things excite zeba to the point where interaction with him at that moment could lead him to bite you. (i've been bitten 4 times so far).

you just have to keep in mind that:

1) this bite does NOT mean he hates your guts and he'll never like you again. he will probably forget about it a minute after biting you.
2) when he is latched on to you, DO NOT throw him hard on the ground. all you have to do it shake your arm a bit while keeping your arm low to the ground. you can easily break his wing(s) or bones if you slam him to the ground.
3) don't yell or cause a scene when zeba bites. anything that calls attention to something he does can become a reinforcer of his action, and you DONT want to reinforce a bird to bite. yelling is what birds do sometimes when they are happy or playing...zeba may think you are playing with him by screaming back when he bites. keep calm, zeba probably doesn't have the ability to bite a finger COMPLETELY off, so dont worry...it will heal (make sure you wash out ALL bites well with warm water, soap and follow up with hydrgen peroxide).

so, to lessen the chances of being bitten:

scenario: if he gets excited such as you just come home and you greet him...

solution: give him about 15 minutes after you come home to cool down and settle. talk to him but dont try to touch him or let him out of his cage. let him be for a few minutes before touching.

scenario: if there are other birds in the home and they start sounding off (especially if there is another bird of the same type - amazon)

solution: dont pay any attention to the birds sounding off. let them get it out of their system; it will pass. once they are quite for a few minutes, start talking to zeba calmly and you will be able to tell from his body language if he is calm enough for touching.

scenario: if there are people in the room that zeba just doesn't approve of

solution: leave him in the cage when those people are in the room. he will be very aggressive at any point that you let him out and that person(s) is in the room. for me, this person is my husband. there is no way i can "wait till he goes home" because he IS home, so i ask him to temporarily go to another room while a let zeba out. i take zeba out and transport him on a stick (yipee! he's getting better with stepping up on a stick!) to our bedroom so that he has full range of the room to explore and my husband can go back to what he is doing.

if the people he doesn't approve of are willing to work on their relationship with zeba, they should be patient and dedicated to commit the time and effort to build that trust with zeba. men will need to do this. zeba has been man-handled and abused by men in his 13-yr past; can you blame him for having trust issues with men? it won't happen overnight, it probably wont even happen in a few weeks. but if you work with zeba to create a bond of trust - EACH DAY, twice a day for 30 minutes (it has to be at two different times) giving zeba one-on-one attention in a calm, respectful way - he may be able to trust men again. it may take a few months or even a full year of doing this, but if in the end he does give you his trust, it will be soooooo well worth the committment.

scenario: if you just open his cage for him to come out.

solution: i just let him come out of his cage on his own. he likes to exit his cage on his own terms, and he is more calm when able to, so i give him that freedom.

there was one time last night when i wanted to let zeba out (hubby moved to another room for me to take zeba out). i opened the cage door, and just at that moment, my other amazon (who was already covered up to go sleep already) started to sound off. well, you guessed it...zeba got overexcited. i just wanted to get zeba out of there as quickly as possible, so once he stepped out of his cage, i had him step up onto the stick. as i was walking to the bedroom (all the while zeba was trying to sound off with pico with his eyes pinning and tail flayed) he walked up the stick toward my hand and gave the base of my thumb a good chomp (not the worst ive gotten from an amazon but it did break skin a little). i gave the stick a little wobble to make him unstable and stop biting, but he didn't like the wobble at all and fluttered off the stick. i got him to step back on the stick and proceeded to the bedroom, he tried to attack my hand again, but this time i wobbled the stick very, very slightly (it only takes a v-e-r-y slight movement (up-down) to make him unstable) to take his mind off of biting my hand and more on him getting his balance and he stayed this time. i got him to the bedroom and he was fine.

zeba and my 3 birds start conversing right after zeba being introduced and moved to the living room.

pictures from last night...

GOOD NEWS!

I just got off the phone with the vet with the results of his last culture test and it showed only healthy bacteria! he is healthy! WOOHOO!

we will now be taking zeba out of quarantine. he's been in quarantine for over 2 months and since he has been an only bird at his previous owner's home where he lived for half a year, everything is a-ok! im sure he will be happy to be able to see the other birds that have been making noise in our home. :-)

WOW, i guess i have to make some special dinner for all of us... woohoo!

last night, zeba seemed to be more explorative. he wanted nothing to do with me really (until he got to look at things he wanted to first) and once i let him out of his cage, he was off in all different directions. climbing on the bed, looking at things we have near the bed, looking down each side of the bed....

i did take some pictures, but i haven't had time yet to go through them and take them off the camera. i hope to do that tonight.

it was my turn to get preened tonight. okay, id like to say here that normally, i would never allow a bird - let alone an amazon - to do the following things, but i could tell zeba was r-e-a-l-l-y calm and there was not even a hint of aggression in his body gestures, postures and movements, so...

zeba preened my eyebrows, my hair and my face (i dont wear make up or use any harsh chemicals in my hair and face and skin) for about 5 minutes then we traded off and i preened him. he is such a snuggle-bug. but still, once my husband shows up, he is on the defensive. its probably hormonal, mixed in with defensive feelings from being harshly handled by men in the past. but he IS getting better about it.

in the beginning, once my husband showed his face in the room, zeba would immediately try to fly-attack him, eyes pinning, tail feathers splayed and neck feathers erect. now, if my husband pops his head in the room, zeba will just stand where he can see him with neck feathers up and eyes slightly pinning. tail feathers don't splay very much. slowly i allow my husband to come into the room when zeba is out of the cage.

when zeba is in the cage, zeba gets a little excited in the beginning, but soon calms down when my husband sits by zeba's cage softly talking to him. zeba also allows him to preen his head. its coming along.

we did target training and he walked in to the travel carrier (for a piece of nut) a couple of times. i didnt work on step up training because he wanted to do his own thing. we'll see about tonight.

Zeba's head/wing-flit...



While taking the meds, i haven't seen zeba do this so i thought this might be over. but just 3 days after the meds, this is what i saw...it occurred during the same situation - he is relaxed, contented. in the movie i made, you see him walking closer and closer to me. seems like he just wants to be near me and be scratched. is this something neurological? sinus problems? or hormones?

he plays and acts normally..he likes to explore as usual, eats, poop is well-formed. no nasal discharge, no breathing problems that i can observe. he moves around great, perches without a problem. its this wing/head flit thing that occurs occasionally, and tonight you can see it was quite often. after filming that, i moved away to upload the file (but still in the same room with zeba) and zeba went exploring around the room on his own, like nothing happened.

zeba has taken to preen my hair...and another thing that i am a little worried about. i have never seen amazon regurgitation, nor have i ever been honored with this. but after seeing my two green cheek conures regurgitate for eachother, there is a lot of head-bobbing involved. but zeba...he tried to regurgitate (or vomit) twice in front of me. nothing actually came out, but the way he did it, was he opened his beak wide, stretched his neck out as much as he could and heaved. he tried this a few times on two different occasions. he keeps his beak open and stretches his neck, heaves and retracts his neck, and it starts again.

nothing comes up (thank goodness). but is this amazon hormonal "love" regurgitation? or is this a dual attempt to vomit? there was no head-bobbing motion, just a neck stretch. ugh, 2 scary signs in one night (the "tick" and the vomit motion)..please tell me that this is just amazon love and i will be at ease! im just worried that zeba has a more serious illness than the vet had originally diagnosed. im crossing my fingers for a good outcome.

wednesday i will be able to call the vet to see what the follow up culture shows.

----------------------------

okay, well, i just wanted to fill you in on what we did on saturday...it was a beautiful day yesterday and it was actually WARM in daly city. zeba was quite active, so my husband and i decided to take him outside (in the travel carrier) to a playground up the street from us just to hang out and enjoy the sun. zeba went straight into his carrier when i opened his cage (he knows that there is usually a small piece of walnut in there waiting for him) and we walked up to the park. well, zeba surely wanted to announce his presence to the world. as we went downstairs from our apartment to the door leading to the outside, zeba starting talking loudly. and as we walked up the street, he continued to babble. "hi zeba", "hellllllooooooo", "hi zeba, good boy!", "oh my goodness!" LOL all the way to the park. once we sat down, however, he was quiet. we enjoyed the sun, the great view (all the way to the ocean), a few planes flying overhead...and zeba's feathers just looked so brilliant in the sun. i cant wait for the warm weather to start up again. im sure zeba would love to spend more time outside.

after that, i took zeba in the shower. last shower was 2 weeks ago, so it was his time. didnt really know if he liked it in the beginning, but soon opened his wings up for a good drench under the wings.

OH, another thing. i got zeba to step up on to a STICK! yep! well, it only happened once, but i will try again many times. the trick is to have the stick on the ground, between zeba and your hand holding a walnut. i gave zeba the step up command and showed him the walnut. he stepped up obediently, i picked up the stick, and gave him his just reward (the walnut piece). it is on that stick, that i carried him into the shower. isnt that cool? from a bird who was chased around by a broom, to one that actually was okay standing on a stick? that was so awesome!

about the last dosage of cipro yesterday, when i got home, zeba seemed to have taken it. i only saw pellets. i looked around his cage and in the poop pan, and there were no signs of goldfish pieces. yay!

this morning, i took zeba to the vet. the last 2 weeks getting zeba used to the travel carrier really paid off. as soon as he "woke up" (about 10 - 15 minutes after i uncovered him and opened his cage door this morning) he walked over to the carrier and entered it to eat the small piece of walnut i put there before i let him out. what a good boy!

he will have the culture test redone to see if he has recovered from whatever infection he may have had. *fingers crossed*

i will be picking him up later today, maybe we will again make a visit to the beach. its supposed to get warm today and tomorrow (around the 70s F) and since the sun is staying out longer, it may be a great sun bath before a nice sunset. :-)

--------------------

continuation...

so i went to the vet to pick him up, the women working there said that they had fun with zeba and he was talking up a storm after lunch. some of them shared their salads with him during lunch and he got some small piece of cheese and some popcorn. wow, sounds like he was having a wonderful time there! spa treatment with women giving him attention and food.

anyways, as i walked to my car with zeba in his carrier, zeba happily talked a bit, telling me, in his own way, about his day. we hopped in to the car and went to ocean beach. we got to enjoy some sun for a bit and watched a great sunset. throughout all that time, he was constantly in the mood to communicate. i heard him say "uh-oh", and this usually happened when someone walked past our car. lol. he also did a whistle that i've never heard before - something like a wolf whistle but deeper and drawn out. he laughed when i did and we both experimented with different sounds back and forth. he was just full of energy. i think the fresh air and sun helped.

we got home, i put zeba in his cage to eat some dinner and have some time to himself. about an hour or so later, i went in to spend some time with him. it was also then that i ask him for the first time, to step up onto my hand since i started giving him his meds. he lifted one foot, i slid my hand under it, he clamped his beak around the fleshy base of my thumb - but not hard at all...more like for stabilization - and i lifted him up. GOOD BOY! i gave him a piece of walnut and praised him for being a good boy. i will try to work with him more on that this coming weekend. i also should give him his shower sometime this weekend.

needless to say, it was a great day!

today's last dosage of cipro was given to zeba in an empty food bowl, but it must've been too early for him to think about eating, so he didn't actually eat the cipro goldfish before i left. so i put the goldfish into the foodbowl with pellets, changed his water bowl and left for work. i will update you on what i find.

there is a small cute story i wanted to share...

yesterday, when i got home from work, i put together zeba's cipro goldfish, i gave them to him in an empty food bowl and talked to him a bit before leaving the room (he doesn't really like to eat in front of others). about 5 - 10 minutes pass, and then zeba says "momma!" "mom!". of course im thinking he is calling me so i go to him and, it could be purely coincidence, but i find that he has gobbled up his goldfish. zeba gets his fresh warm dinner after his meds and i'm thinking he called me to tell me he took his meds and was ready for dinner! the thought was cute! he's never done that before, so its probably more of a coincidence than anything else, but it made my day! :-)

Sunday: dose #12 & #13 - given successfully!
Monday: dose #14 & #15 - given successfully!
Tuesday: dose #16 & #17 - given successfully!
Wednesday: dose #18 & #19 - given successfully!

wow! how time flies! i cant believe that by this time tomorrow, all necessary dosage of cipro will be administered to zeba! he has been wonderfully gobbling up the 2 goldfish crackers i give him with .20 dose of cipro smeared all over it (and in it) twice a day, so the time has been going nice and quick.

we already have a vet appointment made for this friday for a follow-up checkup - keep your fingers crossed for mr. zeba! - and hopefully that will be the end of that.

ever since towelling him a few times, zeba has lost some trust in me, which i have been trying to make up for s-l-o-w-l-y. it doesn't help that the hormonal season is upon us. he has bitten me twice (surprisingly not drawing blood, but one did give me a good bruise). i did reprimand him with a firm NO and an evil look, but i have been giving him his space lately. he does get his out-of-cage time, and i let him come to me when he is ready. usually this happens when he sees a large piece of walnut between my fingers. LOL

i have not tried to get him to step up on my hand since administering his meds because i can see that he is not ready for it. he has been hissing, displaying himself and pinning his eyes alot lately (although he doesn't lunge at me) so i know he is already on the defensive. i think once his meds are over, i will slowly try the step up training again.

what i have been continuing to work on with him is target training - i have a woodenchopstick with a colored wooden ball at the tip that i give the cue "touch" and zeba goes over and touches the wooden ball wherever it is and he gets a tiny piece of walnut - and getting him used to the travel carrier cage. with the cage i just put a half walnut shell, open side facing upward, in further and further into the cage with a bigger piece of walnut in it. so whenever he goes into the cage he gets 2 praises - the walnut and my oral praises. he's been doing well on both.

i hope he will go into the carrier easily on friday when i have to take him to the vet!

more zeba talk...in this one, you can hear him "answering the phone" when the phone rings.

dose #8 and #9 happened on friday with the goldfish crackers.

dose #10 and #11 happened today.

im glad to say that zeba has been happily eating the goldfish completely covered with his meds. i know its not the most healthiest way of administering the meds to him, but its the least traumatic way.

i have been trying to put it on grapes...zeba only ate one of the grapes so that wasnt really helpful. i also tried putting it on pieces of pasta...he caught on that one pretty quickly for some reason and didnt touch much of the pasta.

with the goldfish crackers, i have been trying to rub as much of the salt from the outsides off as much as i can.

what has also happened lately with zeba is his excitable/aggressive side has been showing. he has bit me a couple times at the base of my right thumb (since it is the easiest target to get to when i try to have him step up on my hand. i've been allowing it to heal (no blood but i had some tenderness and bruising) before i try to ask him to step up again.

i think his aggression could stem from two things - from me towelling him a few times to give him meds, and hormones. the mix of the two seems to have really made things a bit worse. zeba has also charged at my hand if i got to close to me, and lately when i have been approaching his cage, he starts to his and display his wings, tail and pin his eyes. when he does this, it is very dangerous to get close, so what i do is turn my back on him and pay attention to something else - read a newspaper/magazine/book, work on my laptop, eat a walnut, hum to myself, etc. then when i dont hear him, i turn to him and softly talk to him.

usually he then calms down and i can give him a head scratch. i also allow him some out of cage time. when i open the door, he usually perches on top of the door for a bit, till he feels like wandering over to me (i usually situate myself about 10 feet away) where i am doing my own thing, not paying attention to him. (i also entice him over to me by showing a large piece of nut next to me). when he walks over to me, he is usually very calm. if he starts to hiss, i just dont pay attention to him. if he is calm, i give him small pieces of nut and give him head scritches.

i just dont want to reward aggression. i completely ignore him when he shows aggression, i try to turn my back on him when possible. nothing from me for about 20 - 30 seconds.

i also baked some "birdie bread". it came out a little wetter than i expected, but i should've known since i put in 1 egg, 1 cup organic pureed pumpkin, 1/3 cup organic apple/apricot sauce, and 1 1/4 cup of freshly minced stuff(beet greens, mustard greens, carrots, and 5 almonds) - all wet stuff. the dry stuff was an organic cornmeal mix with no sugar (2 1/2 cups), so that wasn't too much dry stuff...i should've added some flour...well, next time.

my birds devoured it within an hour or so. zeba didn't really touch his. i will try to offer it to him again tomorrow.

i also added 1/2 tsp. of an organic powder that i bought yesterday from Whole Foods. it is a mixture of bee pollen, spirulina, chlorella, wheat grass and barley grass. ive done a lot of reasearch on the web and these things work wonders on a bird's plumage and immune system. but it is also VERY POTENT. just 1/2 tsp is enough for a dose to an amazon-sized bird. i used 1/2 tsp. to make 21 muffins. and i only gave zeba 1/4 of a muffin. its good to start small and slowly.

oh, and zeba is starting to like my husband more and more. zeba allows him to get up to his cage, as my husband quietly talks to zeba. zeba then climbs down to a spot in his cage closest to where my husband sits. they just quietly converse, zeba doesn't display and pin his eyes at him too much nowadays, zeba even allows him to scratch his head. those are extremely great steps. i asked my husband if he wants to try and let zeba out of his cage while he is in the room, but it seems that my husband isn't ready for that great leap of faith just yet. i can't blame him. not after seeing how quickly and far zeba can jump with clipped wings! we'll see what the next few days brings.

BREAKTHROUGH

well, while at work, i was thinking about foods that zeba likes, and i kept telling myself that he only likes walnuts and fresh edamame..2 things that can't really be used to soak up the meds to give to him.

BUT, it occurred to me that his previous owner (the woman who surrendered zeba to Mickaboo) said that she fed zeba grapes, goldfish crackers and cookies. well, cookies are out of the question - thats a lot of sugar, plus i dont know what kind of cookies she fed him.

on my way home, i bought some grapes (both green and red grapes since i didn't know which one would appeal to him more) and a bag of goldfish crackers. i washed a handful of each colored grapes and placed a handful of goldfish crackers into a small container, got the right dosage of his meds in a syringe and headed to the bedroom.

zeba was very excited - out of fear. he knew what was coming and feared being towelled again. (i feel for him!) he displayed himself, pinned his eyes and moved aggressively around his cage. i offered him a slice of each color grape - he lunged for my fingers that held the red grape piece and took the green grape piece but promptly dropped it. i then gave him an unmedicated goldfish and he gobbled it up. i gave him another one and he gobbled that up.

so i got the syringe with the meds and smeared a little of it on both sides of the cracker, waited till it got absorbed into the cracker and offered it to zeba. he ate it without a fuss! he licked it, so i thought he was just going to drop it because of the taste of the medicine, but he ate it up! i gave him two more pieces (both with the rest of the meds) and he ate that up quickly as well. wow!

he might have dropped a few pieces of the goldfish crackers while eating it, therefore losing some of the medication, but i think for the most part, he got the majority of the meds in his system.

tomorrow, i will just put the medication on 2 or 3 pieces of goldfish crackers and place it in an empty food bowl. i think they are too tasty for him to resist and he usually eats over his food bowl, so when he eats it, the crumbs will fall back into his food bowl and he can eat that later if he wishes.

oh, i HOPE he continues to take his meds like this. then i dont have to towel him anymore...yipee! or i will have to try something else...peanut butter?

dose #4 and #5 happened yesterday. i still have to revert to toweling him to give his meds. i tried offering yummy stuff in a spoon, but he was afraid of the spoon.

(mental note: i have to teach zeba to enjoy and look forward to new things.)

this morning i gave dose #6. i tried a plastic spoon this morning (i used a regular ss spoon yesterday) but he still did not like it and backed away.

i will have more time tonight to give him his meds in a less stressful way. i plan on buying some peanut butter and try to offer that on the syringe or try the spoon again (maybe the smell of it will entice him to try it).

i will update you.

#2 and #3 of ciprol dosage today...17 more to go.

gosh its very difficult to administer this medication to him. he just gets so worked up. so far he has been forgiving me for towelling him. i just want these next 8 1/2 days to speed by.

zeba has been saying a few other words today - "up!" and "mom!"

another tidbit of information - from his leg band that was cut off, a birthdate wasn't given, but it does say that he came from a breeder in florida.

tonight there was not much time to do more training. but we did get to do some target training which zeba does wonderfully. i hope to extend this to luring him to places i want him to be with just a little target.

by the way, zeba will be attending the san ramon adoption fair that mickaboo is hosting at the pet depot store on the last sunday of this month.

today i administered the first dose of ciprol to zeba. i had to towel him...ugh...i hate doing that to him, but we got through it pretty quickly and i put him back in his cage for a while to cool down.

i dont know how to do this tomorrow morning - i gave zeba a good 10 - 15 minutes to come to me (lured by a piece of walnut) but tomorrow i dont really have that much time to give him. we'll see. maybe i'll just start early.

im really worried what this will do to the bond of trust we've been working on for the past month. im hoping zeba will somehow know that i am doing this for his own good and will forgive me. :-/

over the weekend, and today, ive been getting him used to the travel carrier. tonight, while on the carrier, zeba happily listened to some kiddie music. he got as close to my laptop's speakers as i would allow and just sat there listening. he even lifted one foot, burying it in his feathers, and relaxed while listening to it. the songs that you can clearly hear drumming made him a little nervous for some reason...probably related to his fear of wooden perches.

we got the results back from the vet. seems that zeba had some elevated bacteria levels so he will be starting some meds for 10 days to clear that up. nothing really serious so i am really happy.

zeba took a shower today. this time he was perched on my arm and it seemed at times that he dove for the water streaming down! was so cute. i deflected most of the water so it didnt come down in gushes. he sure talked up a storm during his shower!

after that got a little ... harsh. well, zeba didn't get his nails trimmed in a while - they were really long and each time i had him step up on my hand, he just digs his nails in to my skin. so i decided it was time to trim them. i tried to trim it while he took a shower, but had nothing of it. so i had my husband help me towel him. zeba gets very riled up about the towel - he hates it with a passion. none of my own birds like the towel either, but they do calm down a little once towelled. zeba on the other hand, fights as much as possible throughout the entire time. its so heart-wrenching. i think next time, instead of nail trimming, i will try to file is nails. maybe he will take to that instead of the pressure a nail trimmer puts on the nails. i will have to try that out.

i will have to try and get him used to the transport carrier, since i will have to take zeba back to the vet in about 10 days (after giving him his meds). i dont want to towel him for that as much as i can avoid it.

well, i thought i wouldnt be able to touch or go near zeba for a week because of all he had to go through with the towelling and the nail trim. but after giving him some time to himself in his cage, i went back into the bedroom and spent some time talking to him. seeing him come nearer to me i extended a finger out to scratch his head and to my amazement he lowered his head and invited me to scratch his head! he is so awesome! i scritched all over this head for a while since he let me. and as his feathers dried (they dry rather quickly) his feathers got really shiney! just like after his first shower. he's just so handsome.

my husband spent most of the night with zeba just talking to him. zeba still doesn't feel comfortable around him yet, but zeba doesn't display as much and he doesn't go all crazy in his cage when my husband approaches his cage - that was great! ("go all crazy" means running around the sides of his cage, attacking his bell and displaying his wings and tail feathers).

what i saw, zeba was sitting in his cage nearest where my husband was and just stared at him while the human just talked and sang.

after having dinner, our amazon, pico, started talking rather loudly - "huh?!" "what?" "whats up?!" and each time, zeba conversed back. this went on quite a while. during this time, i walked in to the bedroom where zeba was and let him out of his cage. he climbed up to the top of the cage door and jumped with all of his might across the bedroom closest to the bedroom door. although his wings are clipped, he cleared the width of our bed and landed on the ground on the other side! he sure has strong wing muscles! and he continued his conversation with our amazon.

they were going at it for well over 30 minutes, both were very animated and zeba looked so happy. he was moving around, doing a good body and tail shake - showing contentment - and telling pico what he thought of the world, and vice versa.

i didn't have much time with him since hubby spent most of the time with him, but i did get to practice a few step ups (once without a walnut) and all went well. zeba also honored me with allowing him to give him a good preening service.