Week 18

(remember that I still do not know Mardy's gender.  I'm simply using the male pronoun to make it easier to read this blog)

This being Mother's Day we wanted to be sure to give the mother of my children (my wife) an enjoyable day full of activities she could pretend to want to do--so we visited my bird. 



This was the first time my wife had been able to join us for almost two months.  She spent five weeks visiting her sister in Ohio.  Since she came back two weeks ago she's been sick.  Needless to say, Mardy had changed quite a bit since she saw him last time.

 

Previous visit







This week



This week was much better than our rushed visit last week.  We were able to spend more time with Mardy, and Mardy himself was in a feisty mood.

You might recall at the end of my blog describing our last visit with Mardy I said "he now plots his retaliation for next weekend..."  Either those were prophetic words, or Mardy read my blog and decided to deliver on that statement. 

You can see in the pictures that I wore a long sleeve shirt in case Mardy's claws were still sharp.  I needn't have been concerned.  The cement perch the breeder put in Mardy's cage has smoothed down the points to a very comfortable level.  Because I was wearing that shirt, however, Mardy had difficulty gauging his biting pressure, and within the first ten seconds Mardy had given me a very good pinch which left a definite bruise on my right forearm.  My reaction told Mardy he'd done wrong (probably the pitiful sobbing from the grown man on whose arm he was perched...) and we had no trouble with him repeating that particular behavior.

Even so, Mardy was very playful.  I didn't have much difficulty with him trying to climb onto my shoulder, but he was even more aggressive against my buttons than before.  He even bit one in half.  The breeder said I shouldn't allow Mardy to be so aggressive with his play (my button agreed). 

I should have thought of that myself.  All the reading I've done has made it very clear that it is my responsibility to set standards of behavior for Mardy to follow.  After that I diverted Mardy's attention each time he started going after my shirt or one of its (surviving) buttons.  He was alright after that.

Mardy sat with both of my daughters, but my wife didn't want to have anything to do with touching or holding Mardy.  The pinch he'd given me in the first few seconds made all three of them a bit wary.  In spite of that my daughter still managed to hold him for a few minutes.

We also had the pleasure of seeing Mardy's younger sibling, Molly.  She's 4 1/2 weeks old.  Seeing her in the same room as Mardy at 18 weeks showed me just how much he'd grown.
I began teaching Mardy to play peek-a-boo.  While he was sitting on my lap I took the edge of the towel I had draped across my legs and placed it over his head.  I would say "Where's Mardy?" and then I would remove the towel so he was no longer covered.  After that I would say "Peek-a-boo!  Good Mardy!"  When we first began playing this, Mardy didn't quite know what to think.  At first he would duck beneath the towel.  Then he began to sit very still during the whole process.  After a couple more passes he began to stand up very tall just before the towel went over his head.  It is hard to say for sure, but I think Mardy was enjoying the game towards the end.  I know I was.

By the time our visit drew to a close Mardy was starting to nod off on my arm.  He didn't put up a fight when I moved him back to his cage.