As I have said before, Kenya, our Congo African Grey prefers my husband to me. In fact if I were to suddenly disappear from the house I doubt highly that this would bother her much at all. Well, she might miss having someone to terrorize and lunge at when feeding time comes around.
Because of her rather intense mistrust/dislike of me, she doesn't talk much when I am the only one in the house, and defiantly not if I am in the same room as her. That is not to say that she doesn't make noise while John is at work. She whistles and calls the dogs, by name, on occasion. She also tosses her food out of her cage, one pellet at a time to lure the dogs in so she can get a closer look at them when she is bored.
Her favorite time to talk during the work day is while I am typing at the computer. For a few reasons, First and foremost, I am not in the same room as she is. This is important because she is not relaxed with only me in the room. I can ignore her or talk to her, it doesn't matter, she just does not trust me. The second reason is that even though I am not in the same room she can still see me, therefore making sure I am not trying to sneak up on her. The third reason seems to be her trigger though, they clackity-clack of the keyboard for what ever reason seems to make her want to talk. So the moment I start typing she starts chattering with hellos, good girl/boys and Whooos.
My typical morning routine for the last... oh lets say 6 months with her has gone something like this:
I wake up, roll out of bead and shuffle to the bedroom door and open it.
Kenya: John?
Me: No, I'm Mommy, not John.
I continue to shuffle in silence to the bathroom. Kenya makes no noise, echo stars his morning chorus of greetings, IE. Hello, Ole, and HI!
I come out of the bathroom and shuffle towards the living room.
Kenya: John?
Me: No, it's still Mommy.
Now remember, Greys are pretty swift on the uptake. If they want to learn a word they do it fast. Case in point, I was teaching Echo to say "I'm a little stinker." Because he is. Kenya picked up on stinker and thats all she wanted to learn, so now she just sing-songs stinker at any given moment. This happened in less then 2 days after I started, so yea, if she wants to know a word she learns it, fast. So any hopes that I had of her saying my name or addressing me at all flew out the window a long time ago.
So today, as I was sitting here typing an e-mail I was half listening to her babble when I heard this...
"I love you......Bobby." I have to admit my fingers tripped all over themselves and I had to close my eyes and listen closely because I knew she would say it again and she did, and it was Bobby and not Mommy, but hell, I was tearing up anyway because that is the first time in the last 4 years that she has acknowledged my existence with out drawing blood, or trying to.
And yea, I'm a sucker.
Because of her rather intense mistrust/dislike of me, she doesn't talk much when I am the only one in the house, and defiantly not if I am in the same room as her. That is not to say that she doesn't make noise while John is at work. She whistles and calls the dogs, by name, on occasion. She also tosses her food out of her cage, one pellet at a time to lure the dogs in so she can get a closer look at them when she is bored.
Her favorite time to talk during the work day is while I am typing at the computer. For a few reasons, First and foremost, I am not in the same room as she is. This is important because she is not relaxed with only me in the room. I can ignore her or talk to her, it doesn't matter, she just does not trust me. The second reason is that even though I am not in the same room she can still see me, therefore making sure I am not trying to sneak up on her. The third reason seems to be her trigger though, they clackity-clack of the keyboard for what ever reason seems to make her want to talk. So the moment I start typing she starts chattering with hellos, good girl/boys and Whooos.
My typical morning routine for the last... oh lets say 6 months with her has gone something like this:
I wake up, roll out of bead and shuffle to the bedroom door and open it.
Kenya: John?
Me: No, I'm Mommy, not John.
I continue to shuffle in silence to the bathroom. Kenya makes no noise, echo stars his morning chorus of greetings, IE. Hello, Ole, and HI!
I come out of the bathroom and shuffle towards the living room.
Kenya: John?
Me: No, it's still Mommy.
Now remember, Greys are pretty swift on the uptake. If they want to learn a word they do it fast. Case in point, I was teaching Echo to say "I'm a little stinker." Because he is. Kenya picked up on stinker and thats all she wanted to learn, so now she just sing-songs stinker at any given moment. This happened in less then 2 days after I started, so yea, if she wants to know a word she learns it, fast. So any hopes that I had of her saying my name or addressing me at all flew out the window a long time ago.
So today, as I was sitting here typing an e-mail I was half listening to her babble when I heard this...
"I love you......Bobby." I have to admit my fingers tripped all over themselves and I had to close my eyes and listen closely because I knew she would say it again and she did, and it was Bobby and not Mommy, but hell, I was tearing up anyway because that is the first time in the last 4 years that she has acknowledged my existence with out drawing blood, or trying to.
And yea, I'm a sucker.
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