Pickles The Parrot Returns: My Continued Adventures with a Bird Brain by Georgi Abbott

take him awhile to rip it or crawl into it
for the snack.
    I pick up cheap cotton gloves whenever I come
across them, put a little snack in each finger and a walnut in the
palm and tie up the top of each finger and wrist part of the glove
with raffia or leather strips. Or I’ll wrap a nut in a piece of
leather, lettuce or cornhusks. Almost anything will do. Pickles
likes small whiffle balls with snacks or beads squeezed into the
holes and it takes awhile to chew a hole large enough to get
them.
    He never knows where we might have hidden a
snack so he often goes hunting and investigating, believing they’re
capable of sprouting anywhere.
    Color doesn’t seem to matter whatsoever. He
ripped a toy to pieces one time and rather than stringing the same
bright colored beads and baubles back on, I strung plain wooden
ones. He proceeded to destroy it just the same. Let’s face it,
colored toys are meant to catch our eyes, not the bird’s. The same
as fancy colored lures attract fishermen, not fish. Catching our eye, clinches the sale. Colored toys
don’t usually scare him but sometimes a toy of some sort will.
Usually, it’s the shape or size or something that’s attached to it
that might be scary to him. If we think that might be so with a new
toy, we will play with it on the couch first and then he’ll want in
on the action. If I’m making a big toy and I think that it might
scare him, I put it all together on the couch – usually with him
helping with the small pieces – so when it’s put together, it was
gradual and he was part of the process as it grew into something
big.
    He was helping mama make a toy on the couch
one day – testing bells, tangling rope and tossing toy parts – and
he dropped a piece between the wide gap between two cushions that
was caused from me sitting on one of them. At the time, it was a
great tunnel to dive in to retrieve the toy part – and he did – but
at the same moment, I stood up to fetch a piece that he had thrown
which caused the cushions to snap shut and trap him. I heard a
squawk and turned to see nothing but his little head sticking out.
I rescued him by sitting back down on the cushion to recreate the
cool tunnel and to allow space for him to jump back out.
    Once out, he realized he still wanted the
piece that he left in the tunnel and completely forgetting that the
tunnel also doubled as a steel trap, he dove right back in to play
with it. I was feeling a little frisky so I stood up again, but
slower this time so as not to startle him as much as the first
time. He tried to jump back out as the walls were closing in but
didn’t quite make it and ended up pinched between the cushions
again. “Dadddeeee” he cried, ratting me out. I told him daddy
wasn’t home to rescue him. “Daddy be right back!” he threatened. I
lead him to believe his threat had convinced me to release him, and
release him I did by sitting back down on the cushion. He sprung
out of the tunnel, jumped on my knee, ran up my arm and shouted in
my ear, “You go home!” I don’t know where he thinks my ‘home’ is
but I just answered, “Sucks to be you, eh?”
    One of the best investments we ever made was
the stainless steel talon bucket. It came with a handle for hanging
but we were concerned that he might get stuck between the handle
and the bucket so we took it off and screwed it into the side of
the cage in front of his favorite perch. Each night we pick up
everything he dropped and put it back in the bucket and we change
it up every few days. It keeps him very busy at night before he
goes to bed and gives him something to do if he gets up in the
middle of the night.
    Pickles’ quote, at the beginning of this
chapter, was funny to watch. I had found this cute little pink
rubber piggy flashlight key chain, removed the chain and tossed it
in the bucket for him to find later – he loves digging for
surprises. Later, when he climbed in his cage to go through his
treasures, I watched as he