Louie

My little Louie who began as Lulu, but then we found out that she is a he, so I changed his name. He acts just like you would expect a Louie to act. He is THE most stubborn, strong-willed little bird, but it's hilarious. In six months, he has managed to snag a huge place in my heart.

We keep his cage door open all the time because our house is safe enough for him to just wander where he wants. He doesn't leave the front room, anyway. Sometimes I will walk in the door from school, and he will be walking across the front room floor. It's hilarious to see him walk across the floor because he's so little and he's so cocky when he does it. He acts like he owns the place. Occasionally, we will have younger guests and so we close his cage door. He DOES NOT like that. He will flap all around his cage, hurl himself against the cage door and squawk loudly.

I had him for about two weeks when Emeli and Brett came for their summer visit. Soon after that, Taylor, Emma and Freddy came too. Emeli and Emma hand-trained Louie. I had tried and tried, but they accomplished what I was struggling to do.

His wings have grown back now, so he feels that he is an eagle and he will take these little solo flights and circle the front room, dining area and kitchen and crash land on his cage. We have a tree that I added a perch to and we hang millet seed from it.

When I leave for school in the mornings, it's still dark, so I don't take the cover off his cage. That's not a problem for him. He will climb out of the cage, through the fabric cover and fly to his "treat tree". I come home from school and he is usually sitting in the tree babbling. Sometimes if I don't say, "Hi" to him when I first walk in, he will squawk a short little screech to let me know he is in the tree and I need to notice him.

Tonight I noticed that he had a little owie above his beak. It looks like he might have crash landed and bonked his beak. I found a dish towel and came up to him in his tree. He could sense what I was about to do because he saw the towel. He flew all over the place and finally landed in an open dish. I tossed the towel over the opening. He was squawking loudly at me. I wrapped the towel around him, found his little face through the towel and applied neosporin. He screeched and squirmed the entire time. After I was done, he flew straight for his tree. I went to say sorry to him. He was glaring at me, breathing loudly because the neosporin was covering one of his little nose holes. I will probably have to go through the whole ordeal tomorrow, too. Poor little guy.