Today, the collar came off!

I think Zuri's feelings about it are summed up in one word.



Freedom!

This picture was taken right after I took the whole contraption off - and the portion that was hiding beneath that painful-to-remove turtleneck (for me, not Zuri) was what looked the most ragged. Granted that I couldn't really reach under there to help with new feather management. The new pins and missing feathers (some came off easily with the bandage) did give him the unpolished look.

I took everything off before I headed to work this morning. The Boy, who has the ability to work from home (unlike me) did so today to keep an eye on Zuri. Since we are going to have company over the week-end, I wanted to be sure we had a full day to supervise what Zuri was going to do once free of the collar that has been on him for 3 1/2 months.


So happy!

I did get to spend 10 minutes with him and he looked so blissful, being able to rub his head all over the perch without being incapacitated by the collar.

Obviously, he ended up spending a large portion of the day preening. In fact, he did such a good job that you can barely see any traces of the collar having been on for so long, except for a few spots where feathers need to grow in a bit more.


Adorable fluff ball!

The Boy also noticed him jumping around in his cage, carrying food from one end to his water bowl in the opposite corner. He tried out his many different perches, a luxury he hasn't had in a while. In fact, if anyone ever doubts the benefits of having many different perches of different materials and different sizes, I tell you right now there is a difference. Zuri's feet do show a few signs of being worn out in a few places, but the vet wasn't concerned - after all, he couldn't really move from perch to perch with his collar and the rope perch he had was better than a dowel. She did say that once he started moving around and had access to the different surfaces, everything was going to come back to normal.

He seemed quite happy to get back the space offered by his regular cage versus the travel cage he's been confined to for the last few months.

He's had a pretty busy day and seems exhausted. Until he shows being able to fly again, I'll keep taking him out separately from the others, although I might combine his time out with Shade. Both of them seem to have missed the other's company - Zuri more than Shade (who was scared of the collar). So I'm sure being in each other's presence will help the moral.



So far, he hasn't really showed interest in his toe (knock on wood) and has even tried taking a nap with his intact foot up - hopefully he'll keep acting like nothing ever happened and before we know it, things will be back to normal.