a family came to visit both zeba and bentley today. they are mickaboo-approved, so they were interested in finding the right bird for them to adopt. how exciting!

zeba does have a personality that requires an experienced handler. he does have his loving side, but he has been previously abused - for how long, we don't know. i have had him for only 5 months and that hardly allows for much healing of old wounds. although zeba did show some of his nice side to the mother and daughter of the family, i think his "rough" personality made them shy away from him. i really don't blame them at all. the family has only experience with smaller birds and if i was them, i would also opt for a friendlier amazon to start with (hence bentley will probably be adopted by them - woohoo!)

i did learn a few things about zeba with their visit...

1) zeba has gotten better around men...from what i understand, although the father was in the room with zeba (as he was out of the cage), zeba stood at alert, but did not attack him.

2) zeba will take advantage. the mother did get bitten by zeba. the reason for the bite was because she had him step up on to a stick and tried to put him back into the travel carrier i placed him in. (i allowed the family the choice to allow him out of the travel carrier or not). the bite wasn't as bad as it could have been, but i think it left a bruise and it did break skin.

in the right hands, zeba will do very well. i tried to do some one-on-one training today with him, but when i parted him and pico (my amazon) to take him into the bedroom for some isolation and training, pico and zeba constantly called to each other...needless to say i couldn't get any training done. zeba was only alert to hear pico's next call. i think the only time i can work with zeba is after i put pico to bed.

so it will be that zeba will continue to be available for adoption. i really dont mind this, but i need to put more emphasis on training and honing his energies to more positive behaviors.