She (I assumed she was a chick because of the bitchiness and light brown eyes) but we never actually had the bird sexed by a vet to tell us the sex.
She'd eat off of my plate and I used to get her, her own cup of tea because she wouldn't stop drinking the stuff even after it made her sick, glutton! I stopped feeding her because eating with her was just disgsuting.
When she'd grouch at me or bite me I'd punish her:
- I'd spray her with a water bottle
- I was known to put her in the freezer for 30 seconds at a time - she didn't like that and I didn't like getting bitten so we both got what we didn't want
- I put her in the dark
Normal type stuff - ok the freezer was a bit mafia but I did make an impression with that one, although I don't recommend it as a punishment. It's been over 10 years that I put her in the freezer last - until a few weeks ago that is.
She used to love to torture the dog, Sabrina our golden retriever who died a couple years ago at the age of 16. My brother used to say (he had a purebred Rotweiller that he BABIED),
- we would forget to feed Sabrina (cause we would),
- we'd forget to water her (cause we would),
- we never took her to the vet (cause we didn't),
- we didn't give her heartworm meds (cuz we didn't)
and then we had the audacity to call her derogatory names (cause we did but it was cause we loved her), chunky pup, dope-idius maximus(seriously she would fart and then look at anyone else like "how dare you make such rude noises! I was sleeping.", nevermind the stench - she'd just get up and move, glaring at you for inconveniencing her nap with your foul stench.) This was kind of a big deal to him because like I said he babied his dog who he got a couple of years after Sabrina and his dog died 4 years before Sabrina. He found it ironic that his dog died before ours given how well he took care of his dog with his designer food, collar, etc and us who half the time didn't know where Sabrina was or if she had even eaten that day.
Well the bird never really cared for the dog but she would climb off of her perch and feed the dog her leftovers and then bite her nose or tongue- told you she was a bitch. Eventually she did stop biting her but it was kind of cute watching her feed dope-idius. Then the dog died and things got really quite - except the bird screeching.
About a week ago we got back from our vacation out west. We've left the house before and she has like a 15 gallon water bottle (ok, not 15 gallons but this thing could hydrate a football team in the middle of summer). We freshened up her water bottle ( with the huge bottle we don't normally freshen it up daily but as we were leaving we thought it best to make sure she had lots of water). We were only going to be gone 6 days. Normally I have my best friend check on her when we leave on a trip but this time he was going on a trip 3 days after us and so we just skipped it this time.
So I propped her up near a window and left the blinds open for her and made sure the air was on so it wouldn't get too hot in the house while we were gone.
We came back on the 4th of July. The house was still standing so that's always a good sign. Then I did my typical call out to bitchimus maximus (her Roman name), "Domino did you die on us?" - my normal joking entry call. Only this time she didn't squawk back at me. So I called out again and Peach followed me out to her cage. We noticed she wasn't propped up on her perch trying to glare past the bars of her cage trying to see who's making noises. She was on the bottom of her cage, in the dead bird position.
Peach lost it and I was, well, speechless. In the past few years once a year someone in our family has died. The dog, my brother, the bird - I guess I was thankful that it wasn't someone else from my family. Monkeyboy was shattered in the speechless, unemotional way only boys and men can manage. They feel so much but just don't know how to let it materialize.
After consoling them and sending them out of the room to clean up their faces, husband and I discussed the horror of the situation. You see, her 15 gallon water bottle was empty. She died of dehydration and with that realization, I was shattered because I'm not purposely cruel to animals. I can be negligent in an "oh, we'll get to that in a bit" sort of way but not cruel - ok there were the freezer incidents. Her water bottle apparently had a catastrophic fail. Either the top didn't get screwed on all the way or it developed a leak that we didn't detect.
If we had not filled her water bottle anew, if I didn't have the air running so it wouldn't have evaporated the spilled water, if I had the neighbor peek in on her, if I'd have done any of these things she'd still be around to squawk at me but I didn't. That is why I will never own a pet again.
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