BEAUTY SALON

Ms. Beignet absolutely loves a shower and never misses one with me. If I head back to the bathroom in the morning and forget to take her, I get a loud reminder that she has been forgotten. I equate it with a very loud clearing of a human's throat. Ahem! When we have finished in the shower I always use coconut oil on my body. What is left over on my hands I use on her beak and toes. She likes to lick it off my fingers.

The next to last time she got a bath her front toenail almost pierced my skin. I decided it was time to learn how to cut her toenails. Her trust level has gone way up and her understanding of preparatory remarks by me has gone way up. So I told her what would happen and then put a little hand towel on her, laid her on her back and clipped her toenails. She was a little angel.

The next time she had a bath, I once again put the towel around her, but this time she just got held and a head scratch. I'm hoping that I can acclimate her to being held in this manner. It is gentle, she gets a reward and it is something that can be done regularly.

As we near Beignet's (?) 10th Birthday on July 19 I realize that I will have had her half of her life. The other half was torment. When she came to live with us all that I every wanted to do for her was provide her opportunities to become who she can be and wants to be and to provide those opportunities in gentle and careful ways. I had no expectations of her ever stepping onto my hand much less allowing me to clip her toenails. She truly is an amazing parrot that has exceeded by far any expectations I held for her. She just needed to have a good nurturing home.

I count it an honor to have this parrot friend live with us.