A New Family Pet

This is our third bird since we have been married. We almost got a different kind of pet (a bearded dragon) but again went back to birds. This is my seventh pet bird starting from when I was about 10 years old. I have so many good memories with my birds as a little girl. They were wonderful, affectionate and playful companions, we went everywhere together. Jada and Kayla are animal lovers too and I want them to have wonderful experiences with a pet too. Bird live a long time too so this bird is likely to see them into young adulthood. This bird lives up to 20 years, some larger parrots live up to 90 years!!

My favourite kind of bird that I ever owned was a cockatiel, I have never gone any bigger because bigger beaks intimidate me!!! I hand tamed all my birds myself (parakeets, cockatiels and a lovebird) and have some painful memories!!! Taming also takes a lot of patience. Taming any kind of bird is not something to attempt with very young children. We learned that with the first cockatiel we bought, and had to turn around and sell him shortly after.

We looked on Kijiji again and found one that was advertised as being really good with kids and fully tamed. Bonus! The kids just love him and he is very patient and tolerant with them. We named him Gandalf The White because of his very tall, long stature and wide stance and his white color. He can  Imitate kissing sounds, laughing and does a Wolfe call. We are working on teaching him the Andy Griffith tune and Kalhonaho. We have just started dancing lessons with him and look forward to teaching him many other fun tricks.

He has already bonded with our family. When we are gone a lot he acts really melancholy. Sometimes when we all leave the room and he can't see us he starts calling. One day when we came home from church we found him sitting by our family picture.

Here are some really cute short video's that we have of our three girls with their new pet bird: