# Pleasant surprise!



## mexicoandice (Sep 15, 2015)

So, a couple pet store trips ago, I went to pick up some food for the birds at my local PetLand. I walked over to the usual place for bird stuff, only to discover that everything not edible was gone! A couple of days ago, you all were complaining about this same thing, I believe. But anyway, I wandered the store in dismay for a while, thinking perhaps it had all been moved. The selection for toys hadn't been great before, but at least it was SOMETHING! Finally I came back to the spot where all the food was kept. I looked sadly again at all the bird food, and turned the corner to go buy my bag of bird food, only to gasp in delighted surprise! In the one place I hadn't checked, (which was, ironically, the other side of the shelf/aisle/thing) there was an entire long row of bird toys! Even more than before! Needless to say, I was ecstatic, and spent some more time browsing through bird toys before I checked out. :001_rolleyes: 

So that's my happy story!  Sorry if I made y'all jealous. I just wanted to share that I'm actually quite happy with MY local pet store. Other than the actual selling of the birds themselves, of course. I'd also love it if you guys shared some happy bird-related surprises you've had over the years! Maybe make this into a fun thread. 

-mexicoandice


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## BooksBudgies (Jul 14, 2015)

Haha well I remember when I first wanted to get a Budgie. One of my dad's coworkers told us about this amazing little bird store called Parrots N Stuff. Since I walked in through those doors several years ago I have never bought anything bird-related anywhere else. I was so pleasantly surprised by that store! It's a small, family-owned business and the birds are actually treated RIGHT (as opposed to the large, chain pet stores around me). They even keep some of their own personal pet birds in the store, so it's always tons of fun to go in and play with all the birds they have. Many of their trained birds hang out on top of their cage or on shoulders and talk to you  And I loved when they got new baby budgies in because they kept them in this large pen-type thing, so you could play with them and pick them up and just watch them for hours. Now they keep the baby cockatiels in the pen the budgies got the cages in the back. Sad day:sad: The tiels are still pretty cute, though. They just got some new babies in; I was at the store today 

As far as surprises....well I was extremely surprised when I told the owner I wanted a budgie so long ago and she walked me over to the pen they had the babies in at the time and just let me hold them and play with them right then and there. Nothing like any other pet store I'd been to. And one of my favorite memories at that store was when my mom came with me once. We walked in and one of their pet parrots said, "Hello? Can I help you?" And my mom kept talking back to it and was like, "Hello? Hello?" I kept telling her it was a bird but she didn't believe me- she was convinced there was someone hiding behind the counter (the owners were actually in the back room....) Boy was she surprised when she found out she had been talking to a parrot all along  

Hmm, what else...I was very pleasantly surprised when they agreed to sell my art there. I feel like there was some other grand surprise I had recently, but I can't think of it....

Anyways, I am very thankful that my local bird store has great people, great care for their birds, and an entire store dedicated to fun bird toys and perches! They also have the healthiest food I've ever seen for birds...an entire row dedicated to different types of seeds and pellets! And then there's a row for healthy treats...and about 500 rows for toys it seems


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## StarlingWings (Mar 15, 2013)

Those are lovely stories  

I went into my local PetSmart and saw this poor little lutino girl who was exhibiting all the symptoms of a sick little one. I told the manager that she was ill and needed to be seen by an avian vet right away. He told me he would take care of it, but given my past experiences with big-box pet store employees, I didn't believe him. 

I stopped by a few days later and she wasn't in her enclosure anymore. I felt sad, thinking that either she had passed away or they had given her away because she wasn't in good health. However, the next day, we had to go in to buy timothy hay for the dove and she was back in her cage, looking better than ever! I was so glad to see her perky and playing with her budgie friends :happy4:


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## bparakeets (Dec 17, 2016)

My happy budgie experience actually happened recently. I took a mirror out of my Ernie's cage because he was getting really obsessed with it. I tried to talk to him (imitating budgie chatter), and he actually responded! We've been "talking" to each other ever since. :thumbup: It's really cute.


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## Hollen (Oct 26, 2015)

I'm not sure if this counts, but my best surprises have been watching my normally quiet son become confident and eager to talk about birds. Once at a pet shop, he surprised me when he spent about 10 minutes showing a younger girl who was looking at budgies how to tell how old they were, what color cere went with which sex, and what the mutations were. He was so confident and eager to "teach" it just melted my heart. Another time, we were in our friend's shop during a slow period. He knows her large birds, and is allowed to handle her cockatoo and several parrots (they are not for sale- they are mostly rescues). While we were visiting, her cockatoo was hanging out on a perch, and a family with a baby came in. The mother began to take the baby's hand and stroke the feathers:scare:. My eleven year old shot across the store and very respectfully explained to the mother that although the cockatoo seemed very sweet, one bite could remove her baby's fingers if the baby pulled its feathers by accident. His confidence and respectfulness in addressing a strange adult was a special surprise. The shop owner wasn't quite as nice about it as he was when she saw:fencing:


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## Greyjoy (Apr 28, 2016)

Last weekend my boyfriend texted me at work to tell me that he had gotten both birds to step-up for him. I was stoked for him but also a little jealous since I had only recently gotten Toki to step-up for me (I didn't think she ever would). I couldn't help but think that I had put in all the work & he gets them on his hand his first try.:biggrin1: I love seeing him interact with the birds It's really awesome seeing them get more social & comfortable. Plus I think it's important that he be able to handle them if ever we had an emergency.


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## lbeckman (Jun 26, 2016)

Lime eating from my hand was a very pleasant surprise*. She's part of a group who had been neglected in somebody's basement. They were the wildest birds the head of the rescue has dealt with. It's so amazing what just being in the right environment can do--she decided to eat from my hand only because some of the other budgies were. 

*I know I told about this in another thread, but I'm still so happy about it!


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## Therm (Aug 2, 2015)

I love it when I get a surprise visit from one of the flock- even better when some of the others venture over as well. 

Also, the other day, Lucy managed to get herself on the wrong side of the net curtain (I'm not sure how she managed it). I went to show her the way to freedom and she just looked at me, so I offered my finger for her to step on to and she gladly perched on my finger and sat there for a short while until she flew back to the cage. 
Because I don't work to train my birds to step up, it's always so rewarding when they do something unexpected. especially Lucy who hasn't been with me for a great deal of time and I don't know much about her past.


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## Island (Feb 23, 2016)

Some of you might know Cloud has been talking with human words and he can say whole sentences. I found out he can pick up almost anything I tell him now without putting in effort teaching him. He also makes this funny head bobbing and tilts his body to the side when he gets all excited talking, so it looks quite amusing which makes me laugh. 2 days ago I heard him imitating my laugh. I was so shocked it sounds like ha ha ha with cute little birdie voice


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## SmolBirb (Dec 6, 2016)

Just a few minutes ago my budgie Smol (I've had him for almost a month now) actually fell asleep on my hand! Just last week it took coaxing just to get him to eat out of my hand.

The best part of this pleasant surprise was that when I went to put him back in his cage, (my arm was getting tired  ) he woke up and didn't want to get off my hand! It's amazing to see positive progress in training these amazing creatures <3


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