aaaaaw, that's s uch a cute goose story!
I always wanted a goose. Maybe to keep at the Arboretum???
LOL. I'm glad it worked out so well for him, Dupre. Got any other stories?
My mother had a green parrot -- nothing too special, but she liked him. Well, he got away one day, while sunning in a cage on the deck, somehow... Gone. For several years after we saw him with the crows. For a while they seemed to pick on him, but then he became sort of a leader. We'd see an odd flock of all black birds save one that was bright green.
Gooses and duckses always shitses on stepses - if given half a chance....
That was one amazing parrot, Piffka!!!!
His name was Fred and we used to get reports from people all over the bay about him. Once we had some workmen come over and talk about this odd green bird they'd seen. We were quite amused.
He never came back to my mom though, and I know she sort of wanted that. Sad.
Maybe the ducks & geese want to come inside?
That gosling WAS raised inside, actually. That's probably where we went wrong.
I remember when my son and I went looking for him. We kept stopping at every Feed 'n Seed from East Texas to Austin. All had geese, but no ducks. They kept referring us to a particularly large Feed 'n Seed in Bryan College. When we pulled up my son, who was a young--and tired!--boy back then, pointed to a huge sign and exclaimed, "Look, Mom. They're LOADING DOCKS over there!"
Aaha! They do want to come inside!
Loading Docks -- smile -- has he ever lived this down?
Dupre, Lord love a duck, even if it is a goose. Wonderful story. I hope he and his lady goose lived happily ever after.
As for the little dog. Yep, it never fails. Those we rescue are always the best. Devoted and loving. With a personality already formed and waiting to be discovered.
My first cat, Miranda, was rescued from a fire and taken to the shelter, where I found her. My second cat, Patty, was saved from drowning. (People who drown unwanted kittens should have something terrible done to them. I'm not sure what.)
Mikey was rescued from nothing. A woman ran into the vet, dropped him there, and ran out. A sign perhaps that all was not well in the Mikey department. Since Miranda had died several months earlier, the vet called me and asked if I was ready for another cat. "I'll come and take a look," I said innocently. What a cutie. You can't judge a book by its cover. He's still very cute. Lovable, funny, and impossible.
Sounds like most of me men have been .........hmmmmmmmmm....wish I was as good at training them as I am with anima......oh, phoooey, never mind.....sigh.
Yes, it IS important that animals and men be funny and cute. Well, even the homeliest animal is cute, really. Or if not cute, striking. Or stallwart.
If Possum has been particularly naughty, I usually yell at him, and refuse to talk to him. Sometimes he gets locked in the laundry. He really hates it, and tries every way to get my attention.
Funnier still is when he won't talk to me. After I put the flea stuff on him is a prime example. He runs away and hides for a while, usually in the garage or the garden. Because he's a pretty social cat, (sorta), he comes back in when he wants company - but I have to be punished for doing that dastardly deed. He'll come in and sit with me - with his back to me, and won't acknowledge me at all. He's been known to sit on my foot, and even creep up beside me on the lounge, all without speaking. This usually gives me a good attack of the giggles. He generally thaws by meal times, however, because I ignore him, if he wants feeding and refuses to speak.
Uh oh. Margo's starting to gain the whip hand.
Margo has a WHIP?
I guess she is feeling better, then......
Margo, Ah, yes, the famous view--the cat's back. Only once or twice has Mikey turned his back to me. But Miranda did it all the time. I used to travel a lot. If I was gone one or two days, all I saw of Miranda was her back. But if I was gone longer, she was too happy to see me to remember to be mad. She would on occasion yell at me, champion vocalizer that she was.
Mikey doesn't get mad. He get's even.
dlowan, It's that Siamese strain. These felines can't shut up. (Miranda was part Siamese.) Does your Miranda yell as well?
Miranda utters wonderful, husky, entrancing little calls - and chats - Oscar is almost silent, communicating in looks and body language - until he YELLS!
Favor for Favor
I once had an English Pointer named Evan-Rudd. He had been raised as a pet in an apartment where his name was Evan, then purchased by a hunter who renamed him Evan-Rudd due to the loping way he ran.
Evan-Rudd couldn't find his spot in the pack of hunting dogs, continually defying the alpha male and barking and chasing the game after he pointed at the prey, so he ended up here as a mildly disturbed never-knowing-his-place pet.
One day while we were walking in the woods, and I was keeping my eyes fixed on the ground to avoid tripping over stones, I happened to walk way to close to Number Four. Number Four was the lead cow and boy did she have an attitude. She and I had already gone at it once before when I tried to pet her calf, so, keeping my eyes pinned to her glare to make sure she didn't charge me, I slowly backed up and took a wide berth around her.
All of a sudden I tripped--over Evan-Rudd, who had neatly placed himself in front of my feet--and fell to the ground.
When I stood up, I noticed I had been heading full throttle right toward an enormous patch of prickly pear cacti.
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One day when Evan-Rudd and I were walking in the woods, I sprawled my limbs over a string of grapevines entangled in a huge cypress tree. I was about four feet off the ground with headphones on listening to soothing classical music.
From the corner of one very slitted eye, I happened to notice the vegetation shimmering wildly.
As I watched the odd movement, Evan-Rudd charged right out of the green and ran just under the vines where my fanny was snugly placed.
The shimmering continued. I stared wide-eyed in fear at the flapping leaves as classical music blared in my ears.
From out of the vegetation charged a deer right at me, immobolized in my sling and right in line with the deer's path.
I hollored one word and held the vowel as long and loud as I had breath. "Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey!!!!!!" I imagined the sound traveling through the ravine down the bluff to the flood plain.
The deer veered left and ran farther down the ravine.
We heard the deer snort at us from a distance, and Evan-Rudd made to go instigate another encounter.
I quietly told him, "I wouldn't go there, if I were you."
He sat back down under the vines, panting, and . . . and . . . he looked at me.
One of the view times we ever made eye contact.
