This is being dictated by Chaos an African Grey Parrot especially for Adolf who now owns our own WB
to get rid of unwanted guests - wait til they sit near you, saunter on down to the water bowl, submerge head then shake. Wait for the scream - then laugh.
If they talk too much start snoring loudly. The usual response the human will turn and say “do I bore you” and then you can answer “yep” and laugh again.
To wind up carers, cleaners, or animal sitters. Imitate the phone - wait til they pick up the receiver then laugh again. You can normally do this three times before they realise. Once they know it’s you, change to door bell and have some more fun. If the house is empty and the dog sitter arrives, as soon as the front door opens you say “Hello what are you doing” The sitter will wander around the house looking for the human - hilarious.
To run rings around the dogs imitate owner and say “sit” or “stay” watch the confusion on the dog’s face. They never get it!
To really confuse a dog take food from your bowl climb to the highest point in the cage and drop it. Watch the dog dive under the cage and spend minutes looking for something that is on the bottom of your cage and not on the floor.
Watch humans at dinner time discussing their day. Let the lady have her say then before other half answers say “um that’s interesting dear” “you don’t say”
Only you can get away with calling their relatives “Plonkers” suggest you put “you Plonker Rodney” in occasionally as they think you have got it from “Only fools and horses” Fools eh!
to avoid your favourite human getting into trouble you can help out occasionally when they are being called by answering for them. Always use the exact tone. Can lead to confusion when the answer is denied at a later stage.
That’s enough for now to get you started. Let me know how it goes, after all I have 20 odd years of confusing the household under my belt. Stick with me Adolf and we will have some fun.
“what are you doing” was his first phrase. We can tell who says what in our house because Chaos imitates the right voice.
I am guilty of “what are you doing” coming from having a house full of children! “What” is said in my husband’s voice as whenever I call him that is the standard response. Chaos has been taught to rap as well. He does all the actions - head bobs, wings outstretched - he is hilarious. He is great fun and company. He asked to be tickled on his head. Barks like a dog then tells himself to “be quiet”. Occasionally he falls off his perch hits the floor and says “soppy bl…dy parrot”
He calls in next doors animals particularly the cats. He got me into trouble once for he never called next doors dog until the day after it died then he imitated neighbours voice calling the dog and whistling. They did not know I had Chaos at the time!
Once I came home and one of the dogs had pulled over the waste bin. I asked which one did it and Chaos as quick as a flash said “Purdey” “Purdey” then said “Ah but Purdey is a poppet”
we counted once and he has over 200 words - quite impressive and he continues to learn new ones. Never a dull moment with a parrot in the house.
Yes Jen my parrot is very quiet at night however if we cover the cage during the day because he is being naughty he will reach through the cage tweak the cover and show a beady eye and say “hello I’m a parrot” He also sits on his perch swivels his head and says “terrrr wit terrrr woo”
“Chomper” what a great name. My kids had hamsters, guinea pigs, dogs, ponies, budgies. Teaches responsibility, birth and death, unconditional love etc. I am sure it helped my son decide on his ultimate career. He is now a vet. Costs a fortune but we really are serial collectors. Only this week a reject thoroughbred arrived in need of a new job. Too laid back to be a racehorse and on the scrapheap but he now joins the rest of our neds. Luckily I do not have to do the looking after, that is up to my daughter. I have made her promise no more. Very hard when so many animals are thrown out and so much indiscriminate breeding goes on - don’t get me started!
Can you imagine just how many photos would end up on here? I have endless pictures - really must get sorting them out at some point.
As a child, I was fascinated with a mynah bird that an elderly lady in our village kept in her cottage. It used to imitate her son’s moped and would say ‘Brmm brmm, here comes Billy on his bike’. It could say a couple of other phrases too including some non-PC ones which wouldn’t be tolerated today!
The most fascinating thing to a young child was when it cocked its backside in the ear and projectile pooped across the sitting room … I bet your parrot doesn’t do that!!
When I was growing up in Liverpool I was fascinated by the Mynah Bird that (pretty much ran) the shoe shop where my mum took me to get my school shoes. It was the POSHEST bird you have ever heard with an absolutely cut-glass accent. When you walked into the shop it would say “Hello. And what is your name?” in an accent that made the Queen sound as if she came from Scottie Road.
It can sometimes be quite disconcerting hearing yourself mimicked by a parrot. I had to ask my mother if I really sounded quite that bossy and she confirmed I did!
Think Jen, I would need photoshop to get all the animals in one shot. At least we no longer have the lizard but the list is long. Been trying to get Chaos to say “oops tail’s alight” as it is flame red but he is determined not to. Usually he picks things up very easily but for some reason not that phrase. His siren noise is pretty good, so is the smoke alarm - not that I burn the dinner that often (nose getting longer and longer).
As a kid there used to be a mynah bird belonging to grandparents neighbour. They backed onto a building site and in the middle of the site was a crane operated by someone called Dave. Well it did not take long for the mynah bird to start calling “Dave, Dave, tea up” only to see poor Dave come down the crane to find it was the bird calling him.
We have so much to learn,but luckily we are well payed and nothing of any great importance needs attending to in this cross between Steptoe’s Yard and Steven Hawking’s shed.
Dinks,it sounds like you are living in All Creatures Great Small and Cheeky.
I’m soooo jealous of you having a parrot. My dream pet is a sulpher crested cockatoo. My dad used to have an aviary and breed budgies and cockatiels when I was little and we used to hand train them from hatching. I think pretty much all of my friends had one of our birds as a pet as they were so much easier to keep (and only cost a bag of seed) than the ones from the local pet shop.
We used to teach the cockatiels to wolf whistle and do trumpet noises. The lady next door was made up cos she would get loads of wolf whistles every time they saw her in the garden.