Go

Prettyprettyprettybirdie

 


Meet Our Larry

cheeky larry

‘Larry’ is our very loved galahparrot. He is obnoxious, hilarious, lovable and cheeky just like Larry David.We adopted him at 9 months of age to help us get over the tragic loss of our previous parrot ‘Nachos’. He was hand raisedand was already starting to talk and was mostly used to females. However, my husband has managed to win his love over and convert him to a more male-oriented bird.

The tricky thing with parrots is they will over bondwith one ownerand so getquiteprotectiveover them.

This means that I have to fight it out with ‘Larry’ on a daily basis to get my husband’s attention.‘Larry’ has got my husband wrapped around his little claw like you would not believe. The things he is allowed to get away with like chewing our keyboard to shreds or pulling a strap off my brand new work shoes to etc. If any other pet did that, they would definitely get the cold shoulder from my husband but not ‘Larry’.

We have had a big scare with our ‘Larry’ and so have become quitehyper-attachedto him. He accidentally escaped into the wild and managed to survive for 2 whole months.

It was a windy day andmy husband had started training him to go outside with him. He usually never left my husband’s side and we were not fans of clipping his wings. Unfortunatelyit was a windy day andso the accident was bound to happen. He flew up into the sky and driftedaway within seconds.Wecould not believe howamazing his first flight had been. We searched and searched for hours to try to track him. We put up posters of him everywhere. I even contacted all the wildlife carersand vet clinicsin the regionasking them to call me if anyone brought in a talking galah.We were hopeful because we had ‘Leilah’and she was Larry’s better half.

We hoped he would find his way back home if hehad heard her famliar squawk.

After one month,we started to feel less hopeful and tried to get used to the idea that he was gone and most likely dead. Suddenly one day we heard a galahchirping and talking to’Leilah’ and she was responding to him andtheir chattersounded so recognizable. We ran outside and tried to glimpse a good look at him to see if he had a ring on his leg but it was difficult to identify on a movingtarget. We were so frustrated because we thought we were just being foolishly hopeful.We were well aware that hand raised parrots are killed by wild parrots and rarely survive in the wild and so it would beunrealistic to assume that ‘Larry’ had finallytracked us down through ‘Leilah’.

Time went on and we stopped dwelling on the thought of ‘Larry’and were considering re-homing ‘Leilah’ because she seemed very lonely. Then I acquired ‘Jerry’another parrot from the clinic and introduced him to ‘Leilah’. Two months had passed now and as I finished my last consultation and went into the backroom, my vet team looked up at me very excitedlyand said: ‘We think Larry’s back, we just picked him up from a lady who found him!’.

I jumped to my feet and ran to the galah they had in a cage infront of them.

He had a ring and he looked up at me and said ‘Hello’ in that all too familiar voice. I would have expected to cry so much at that moment. However, the shock of the news made it so surreal and I was still not sure he was our parrot and did not want to be disappointed. I was scared to believe it was himand then find out I was wrong.I just wanted to take him home because I knew Wally would definitely know if it was him. I deliveredhimto a very ecstatic Wally. Wally instantly knew without a single doubt in his body that it was ‘Larry’.

We thanked the finders and my vet team so much for bringing our ‘Larry’ back to us. They informed us how they came across him. ‘Larry’ had gotten himself caught in a fence during the floods and was retrieved ever so gentlyby a dog and taken tothe dog’sowner.The wonderful dog had only covered our ‘Larry’ with heaps of slobber.The owner of the dog then put Larry ina cage to contemplate about what to do with him.

She then heard this wild galah say ‘Hello’ and she thought she must be imagining things.

She had a closer look and this bird was talking to her.She immediatelycalled our vet clinic because she was a client of ours and fortunately not the other local clinic.Erin, was thevet nursewho took the calland put two and two together and highly suspected this was ‘Larry’and drove up to get him immediately. Thank you Erin and Chris for the effort you put in to get my baby back to me.

larry and i

Being a vet, I asked my husband to keep ‘Larry’ isolated from our other two parrots for at least 2-4 weeks because he may have picked up diseases in the wild and I did not want himto transfer them to theother two. We simplycould not bear to see how lonely he looked in his cage so we put him in with our other parrots earlier then we should have.

It was a really beautifulreunion towatch. ‘Leilah’ was all over ‘Larry’.

She was super excited to have him back. He was very upset because we had clipped his wings and he was back in a cage. We will never clip his wings again because we saw how much it affected him psychologically! It took a couple of weeks to get him settled and back to his happy old cheeky self. It is not often that you get a second chance to be reunited withyour parrot and we know how lucky we are!

We strive so hard to give ‘Larry’& ‘Leilah’ a very enriched cage full of fresh bark, native plants and a range of good quality food.As they always say, you can tella parrot is happy if it has ahuge mess around its cage. Our parrots keep us very busy with all their demands and we know we are doing something right when we see therebig mess.



.




Related articles

Little Jerry Seinfeld (rayyathevet.com)

Filed under: My Family, Parrots Tagged: advice, ask, cheeky, chewing, clipped wings, galah, handraised, health tips, Hello, help, hilarious, how to, info, larry, Larry David, lost, lovable, obnoxious, Online vet, parrot, plus 1, squawk, vet care, veterinary question Source: http://rayyathevet.com/2011/07/30/pretty-pretty-pretty-birdie/


 

avatar

Rayya The Vet

I was born overseas and grew up in Lebanon. About 9 years ago, I left my family and friends behind to pursue my dream of becoming a veterinarian in Australia.

I have now been out in practice for the past 5 years. I absolutely love being involved with all types of animals and consider it my "calling". Whilst my job can be quite an emotional rollercoaster ride, I cannot fathom doing anything else for as long as I am living. I simply feel blessed every day that I am practicing what I truly love.

More Articles   |   Website



Facebook Comments


Copyright © 2008 - 2024, PetFinder.my. All rights reserved.