Pixel - Day 1 (June 11th, 2010)

I figured I’d go into a more expletive post about each day spent with Pixel (aka Pixie, which is the name I want to try out for now).

The first day started with my boyfriend picking her up from her previous home and then picking me up from work so we could bring her to the vet for our 4 o’clock appointment. Talk about putting all possible trauma in one day…First, having a stranger you’ve only met once come to get you while a member of the household who doesn’t normally deal with you helps him put you in a carrier. How nice, right? Apparently she was very sweet and stepped up when my boyfriend asked her too..it’s when she realized he tried putting her in a carrier that things got a bit more complicated. It didn’t help that each time another bird in the room would fly she would try to take off as well. In the end, he did manage to get her in the carrier by letting her calm down and by having his hand slightly over her back to guide her in the carrier. I find it awesome she let him put his hand there, I wouldn’t dream doing that with Zuri or Petey..On the drive to get me from work, she apparently was rather quiet, scratching the carrier door in the same fashion as Joey (might be sibling thing) but not nearly as much as Joey would and whistling softly. While they waited for me in front of my building, the boy managed to give her a head and tummy scratch.

Once at the vet, while waiting in the waiting room she started making soft sounds which kinda sounded like “Hello”. Very cute. I kept her in the carrier once we got in the examination room, wanting the vet to be the “bad guy” taking her out to be poked and prodded. Trauma #2. All and all, she did pretty well and although the vet did tell me that I was not getting a bird in pristine condition, at least I knew I was getting a sweet bird and she was worth the effort to bring her health right back up, as it’s most likely nothing we can not fix.

Trauma #3 – coming back “home” with said strangers which picked you up from your previous home, brought you to a person which examined you in every fashion and now you are ending up in a completely new environment. She’s being quarantined in our bedroom, I set up my larger cage (Hagen Manor, look it up if you want the exact dimensions) so that she would have extra space since she would most likely be spending a bit more time in her cage. The first hour or so she spent in the top right corner, hanging from the cage bars. It was a sad sight, given all the extra space she had with nice perches. My boyfriend added that this is how she was perching when he first entered the room to get her and based on our previous visit, I think I remembered something similar. However, after that first hour was up, she had moved down to food bowl (just perching on the rim) and then to the rope perch and grapevine perch I provided. She moved around the cage, exploring. At one point I spent a bit more time in the room with her (while my other birds were having dinner) and opened the door to the cage. She remained in and I didn’t force her to come out. Once my other birds went in for the night, I went back to the bedroom and opened the door once again – after about 20 minutes, she came out on her own after having a nice drink of water. Since I haven’t really seen her eat and there wasn’t much evidence of her eating at the bottom of the cage (other than the hot peppers which are part of the pellet mix I gave her) I gave her a bit of millet while she was on top of the cage and she ate a bit of it. She had seemed interested in the fresh food I provided earlier (the same stuff I give my other birds) but she didn’t seem to know what to do with it – I’m sure with time she’ll come around to eating it (it has worked with my other birds who didn’t know what to do with fresh food when I got them).

Anyways, at one point she actually gestured she wanted to come over and see me but didn’t quite know how to proceed – I went to pick her up and she stepped up right away.

There was a lot more progress than I had expected in a short amount of hours – specially if you consider how the afternoon started. However, I wanted the vet visit out of the way to begin with so now it should all be good stuff to come, once she’s truly comfortable.