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Boo flew!!!!!

Tazlima

Jogging around the block
Avenue Veteran
Joined
3/7/19
Messages
623
So our TAG came to us fully feathered and in good general health... but completely incapable of flight. She was 11 years old, and I don't know her full history, but I can only assume she was clipped early and long and never learned. She was overweight and her wing muscles were completely atrophied. She refused to even spread or flap them. Not when bathing. Not when playing with toys. Never. A surface she couldn't get to by reaching with her beak and climbing may as well have been a mile away, and she resisted all my attempts to get her to flap even for a moment.

That was a year ago.

All I could do was give her enrichment, encourage walking and climbing around to build her muscles, and hope for the best.

Slowly, slowly, she lost the excess weight. She began to enjoy climbing up the boing and surveying the room from up high. I'd bring her in the shower with me and let her enjoy the steam, although she preferred not to go into the water itself.

Over time, with a healthy diet and lots of opportunities to chew on cardboard, she slowly began to drop the excess weight. Six months ago, she took a water dish bath. It was the longest I'd ever seen her hold her wings open. As her climbing increased, she'd occasionally use her wings to catch her balance, and once... just once... she used them to give herself a boost up to my knee when I was wearing shorts and there was no way to just climb up. Occassionally she'd be startled into "flight," but it wasn't flying; it was just breaking a fall. The downward trajectory was constant and inevitable, and as our other two birds worked on recall training, all she could do was look on jealously.

Until tonight.

My boyfriend came home all excited about something, greeted her as usual, and as he moved away... the sound of wings. She sailed past him through the air, horizontal movement at last.

It wasn't a graceful flight. She crashed into the corner and hit the ground... but she wasn't injured and it was true flying. We celebrated and cheered and gave her a favorite treat, and she looked mighty self-satisfied about the whole thing.

Words can't express the joy we experienced witnessing this event. I feel like I just saw someone in a wheelchair take their first ever steps after a full year of painstaking and frustratingly slow physical therapy.

She's 12 now. And we have decided that this shall, forever after, be the day we celebrate as her birthday - the day she finally gained her birthright as a bird.
 

Snowghost

Rollerblading along the road
Avenue Veteran
Joined
2/5/19
Messages
1,342
Location
Virginia
Real Name
Terri
What a wonderful story. My Paco on my profile pic does not know how to fly. He has been cage bound most of his 19 years of life, I don't have room for him to fly but I hope that changes this year. Do you have any pictures of your baby?
 

Dorcas George

Rollerblading along the road
Joined
9/3/19
Messages
1,721
So our TAG came to us fully feathered and in good general health... but completely incapable of flight. She was 11 years old, and I don't know her full history, but I can only assume she was clipped early and long and never learned. She was overweight and her wing muscles were completely atrophied. She refused to even spread or flap them. Not when bathing. Not when playing with toys. Never. A surface she couldn't get to by reaching with her beak and climbing may as well have been a mile away, and she resisted all my attempts to get her to flap even for a moment.

That was a year ago.

All I could do was give her enrichment, encourage walking and climbing around to build her muscles, and hope for the best.

Slowly, slowly, she lost the excess weight. She began to enjoy climbing up the boing and surveying the room from up high. I'd bring her in the shower with me and let her enjoy the steam, although she preferred not to go into the water itself.

Over time, with a healthy diet and lots of opportunities to chew on cardboard, she slowly began to drop the excess weight. Six months ago, she took a water dish bath. It was the longest I'd ever seen her hold her wings open. As her climbing increased, she'd occasionally use her wings to catch her balance, and once... just once... she used them to give herself a boost up to my knee when I was wearing shorts and there was no way to just climb up. Occassionally she'd be startled into "flight," but it wasn't flying; it was just breaking a fall. The downward trajectory was constant and inevitable, and as our other two birds worked on recall training, all she could do was look on jealously.

Until tonight.

My boyfriend came home all excited about something, greeted her as usual, and as he moved away... the sound of wings. She sailed past him through the air, horizontal movement at last.

It wasn't a graceful flight. She crashed into the corner and hit the ground... but she wasn't injured and it was true flying. We celebrated and cheered and gave her a favorite treat, and she looked mighty self-satisfied about the whole thing.

Words can't express the joy we experienced witnessing this event. I feel like I just saw someone in a wheelchair take their first ever steps after a full year of painstaking and frustratingly slow physical therapy.

She's 12 now. And we have decided that this shall, forever after, be the day we celebrate as her birthday - the day she finally gained her birthright as a bird.
:wow: What a victory!!!
 
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