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| Name: |
Salty
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Age: |
Eleven and a half months old
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| Gender: |
Male
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Kind: |
Yellow Shoulder Amazon Parrot
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| Home: |
Brentwood, NY, USA
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Where to start? Salty is just about the perfect parrot. He's a bit sassy, but a real softie, and super smart, like a three-year-old child smart. He learns advanced tricks in one or two tries. Salty talks really well and parrots aren't supposed to really start talking until they are over one year old. He won't even turn one until August 15th! He gets moderately loud once a day in the evening, and even then it's mostly Amazon gibberish, not screaming.
Salty loves everyone in the family, not just me. He likes going to work with me, where he keeps my staff and himself laughing. He is an endangered species, but was hatched here in the US, which is something everyone should check when getting a parrot, by the way. I've had parrots before, but none like my Salty boy. I love him!
The tricks he does are: Turn in circles, Roll over, Shake hands, Run thru a tunnel made of pillows (our version of Peek-a-Boo), Run thru a yellow plastic hoop, both ways, Place a variety of small balls ( whiffle, tennis and a dog toy ball) from my hand in to a ceramic cup and Place colored rings onto the corresponding colored posts, on request - which he gets these right 90% of the time.
He is starting to play the toy xylophone - will take the beater and place it on the 'phone to get a note ( we are still working on this one - the end trick will have him actually play a song, because the keys are colored, and he has great color recognition, from the other trick). He lets me place a flight harness on his body on request, and then lets me remove it - all done very calmly. He will Play Dead on his back, on my hand, will Step Up and let me ladder him, using wood chop sticks. Normally he steps up to a hand.
These are quite good accomplishments for a little not-yet one-year-old parrot. We have had him for 10 months and started doing once a day training almost right away. He does all these for a little bit of pine nut or walnut, but he will do some just for the sheer pleasure of doing them. Shake hands, turn circles and roll over - he will do these just because he likes to do them and doesn't expect a reward for them.
But his greatest trick is to put a smile on my face, every day, when I come home from work, battling traffic, my bosses and the customers. His "Hhhiiii " or "HELLo" instantly makes the road rage or work stress just melt away.
Talk about Salty in Pet Talk!
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