This morning, I brought Kai out and set him on the edge of the trashcan so he could watch me "groom". He was bewildered and fascinated by me brushing my teeth, but I told him birds didn't have teeth to brush. I took a shower with Kai after setting him up on the little suctioncup perch and filled the sprayer bottle up with water. He was quite hesitant at first, understandably, but soon, he was spreading his wings out, fluffing up, and shaking out, having a total blast. I had read that some blowdryers have teflon coating in them, so I just turned the heat up in the house and kept it warm until he was dry. I was worried about his frayed tailfeathers, but with each bath, they seem to improve. I think it has to do with him preening them properly to "zip" them.
He loves coming out of his sleeping crate after we get up, and it's really made a difference in his attitude. I'm not sure he would step-up for Hubby if he was in a bad mood, though. I've learned that if he doesn't want to step-up like a good boy, all I have to do is walk away and leave him alone for a bit. When I come back, it's like he says, "I'm sorry, I really want to go with you!" and steps up right away. I've also learned that if he's playing with his toys, I shouldn't try to pick him up, because he's still in play mode and he wants to bite everything. That does make sense to me, because I'm accustomed to my dog being particularly mouthy when he's playful. It's just an instinctive drive.
The parrot book I read and leant to Peaches really helped with understanding what I should and shouldn't do, body language, and other behaviour-related things. There are a lot of really great things I learned to facilitate Kai bonding better with Hubby, also. Having him be the one Kai depends on to take him to different perches/stands will teach Kai that Hubby is necessary if he wants to travel to fun places. Hubby bathing him will also teach him that Hubby is also the one who makes it rain to have a fun bathtime. I think the bathing part will be a really easy way for Hubby to bond without having him touch/hold the bird, which Hubby is intimidated/nervous about (and Kai realizes).
I read that "birds love psychological games", which cracks me up. I find that's true of a lot of animals, but it's understandable. They get as bored as we do, afterall. What would be more fun than to pick on the person who's the most afraid of you? :) One of the neat things I read included filling the cage full of branches and obstacles for an aggressive bird, or bird that was plucking itself. The point was to keep the bird occupied with chewing the branches to carve space for itself to take its mind off plucking, which I found most enlightening. Of course, you wouldn't literally fill the entire cage full of branches, but enough that he would have to chew some to get them out of the way.
On another, extremely depressing note, my Godfather, Jim, has passed on. I don't know the details yet, but he died on Friday. I'm going to call his wife tomorrow and find out when the funeral is so I can make plans to fly out to DC. To honor his memory, I'm renaming Tamerlane "James", and Kai's middle name will be Griffin. I leave you now with a cute picture, which mostly serves to cheer me up a tiny bit...
Murdock hugging Ollie's hand, with Ollie hugging Murdock over the shoulder.
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Chirp!