Your bird with other Pets

[Bunklet]

Hey guys! I'm not sure if this is the right area for this post but I've been curious about how to share your home with your pet bird, and your other pets.

I have recently become the proud owner of a 9 week cockatiel- Boomer (sex unknown). Our bonding is going well over the last weeks, we are building a great routine together and he is often very good at letting me know he'd like to come in and out of his cage. Most of the time his cage is open and he walks to and from his perch and flies onto my arm.

Enter the rest of the crew, two mastiffs (my partners) and three ferrets. And of course, I have my own routine of when each of my furry house members come out so that everybody is loved and enriched.

When the dogs are inside (or ferrets out of their run) I'm happy for Boomer to stay in his closed cage in a safe area where we can still chat. But his started to call out and find his voice, and the dogs get curious. And a big mastiff noise knocking on his cage door is the last thing I'd like. So when I'm not there with them, he goes into a separate closed room.. alone. Only a few hours a day, sure. But when his so keen to be a part of everything it feels cruel.

Does anybody let their dogs and birds out at the same time in their home? Although he sits on a perch he does like to explore, and I am terribly afraid of him flying off my chest and landing too close to a sleeping dog and either getting the last fright of his life, or simply becoming a dog snack.

Does anybody have any advice of how they juggle predators around their birds?
How to even introduce the dogs to the idea of the cage? They do leave the ferret run alone (but ferrets are much better at holding their ground).

(I'd like to add that he is a lone bird, but I am at home most days as I have a disability, and most of the day is spent one way or another with me.)

 

[KatelynDeanne]

Congrats on your new bird! I have a miniature schnauzer. He stays behind baby gates and a room seperator curtain on the other end of the house. I make sure I make time for him and my bird, Lucy each day. They are never in the same room. When I brought Lucy home a few months ago, Austin kept eyeballing her. Thats when I knew it wouldnt be safe to let them be in the same room so I just dont risk it. In the house before with her previous owners, they had two dogs. They had a big golden retriever and a shizzzu mix. They showed me pictures of Lucy riding on the big dogs back and everything. If you know that your dog isnt a big predator, it may be okay for them to be in the same room with you there supervising , but in my opinion, I wouldnt. Just because you dont want to upset your dog by taunting him knowing theres a bird he wants and also fear of frightening your bird. Its just too scary. I understand how you feel about feeling bad for your dog being in a seperate room and I feel bad for mine as well. Thats why I make time for him too. Just make sure your dog has toys and stuff to keep himself entertained as his happieness is important as well.

 

[Feather]

Separate rooms at all times is really the only way to go. A cat or dog doesn't even have to mean any harm to kill a bird, as they carry the pasteurella bacteria, which is almost always fatal to a parrot.

I have a very, very old cat with no apparent interest in hunting who sleeps most of the time. He is still never allowed in the same room as a bird.

 

[Imogena]

My cats and Edgar never saw each other.

 

[KatelynDeanne]

Separate rooms at all times is really the only way to go. A cat or dog doesn't even have to mean any harm to kill a bird, as they carry the pasteurella bacteria, which is almost always fatal to a parrot.

I have a very, very old cat with no apparent interest in hunting who sleeps most of the time. He is still never allowed in the same room as a bird.

see thats how my cats are. no interest. still not allowed to be unsupervised though

 

[redindiaink]

Initially my cat looked at the birds with some curiosity and then with feigned disinterest. After a couple years I've relaxed a little when the cat and the Amazons are in the same room with me, but i would never trust them to be alone together. My macaw is another story and the cat is safely locked away when I let her out. I don't think this arrangement is all that fair to either the cat or the macaw, but she can be a very aggressive bird.

If I was in your situation and my dogs were that excited/eager about a small flighty bird I couldn't ever relax. I fostered a cockatiel who took to me immediately -- He'd sit on my chest and head rub his head on my cheek! -- but he knew how to fly and had his own ideas on where he could and couldn't go. I couldn't relax and only let him out of his cage when we were behind closed doors. Gotta keep 'em separated.

 

[Zara]

My chow has run of my house. But he is a very docile dog. He has dysplasia on both sides so he moves quite slow, never jumps up. He keeps himself to himself. He has no interest in the birds whatsoever. So it surprised me when I heard him banging on the back gate when he found Aldora outside.
He doesn´t chase the birds or go near their cages. He barely looks up at them. When they are flying (or wing flapping) Jacob just wants to get away, so he usually leaves the room and sleeps elsewhere.
You can see in my profile picture, jacob is sat at the door waiting for me to open it so he can leave.
If I had a dog that was more active, or curious about the birds I would separate them.
This is just my house and my experiences, everyone will be different as not all dogs/cats/other animals are the same.

 

[Kodigirl210]

I just wouldn’t do it. Either with the dogs or the ferrets. Both are hunters born and bred. It might not seem like the dogs are interested but the truth of the matter is that the big dogs can do damage just by being annoyed. When something is around there head or ears they tend to snap their jaws out instinctively at whatever is bothering them. For Boomer that would be fatal and it’s not like your dog meant to hurt him. I know this is going to sound horrible and blunt but I don’t know any other way to say it-locking Boomer away for a few hours is a lot less cruel than the pain everyone would feel if the dogs accidentally hurt him.

Besides if you have done this routine from the time you got Boomer, he will accept it as part of his daily ritual- no harm, no foul. Just like those of us who work, our birds accept the routines of being being caged a certain number of hours during the day. That happens even in households with multiple birds where the birds don’t get along. So don’t think of it as cruel or punishment, think of it as doing your best to make sure all of your companions live long and happy lives!

 

[saroj12]

Ferrets hunt out birds and kill them

 

[macawpower58]

Ferrets need to be totally inaccessible to your birds. Ferrets are natural instinctive hunters that you'll never train to behave safely.

Dogs are on a dog to dog basis IMO, which isn't always shared by the other members here. My dogs were trained to walk out of any room they saw a bird out in.
I had 3 GSDs that were fully obedience trained, and I mean they'd drop to a down from a full run if I told them to.
I still would never trust them unsupervised.

I did want them aware of the birds, and to know they were off limits. Not toys, not prey items.

One day my Too unlatched a feed door and I came home from work to her on my bed and my one GSD lying on the floor underneath her.
Did my training help? I think so. If he'd never seen her, didn't know the rules, would he still have let her be?
I really don't know, but seeing as he was highly prey driven I think he'd have thought her something to chase, catch and kill.

Any pet you can't 99.9% control, is a keep away pet.
The ones you do have voice control over, it's on a pet to pet basis if you let them meet and/or coexist.

 

[taxidermynerd]

There is a member who lost her bird to a ferret, I beleive it was @HolliDaze

You can certainly have birds in addition to other pets, many of us do. You just have to put extra precautions in place.

 

[Zara]

Dogs are on a dog to dog basis IMO, which isn't always shared by the other members here.

I feel it is a similar thing to the Dog and Baby debate.

 

[HolliDaze]

Ferrets are sweet animals. Goof balls, dooking about. Basically the cockatoos of the mammal world.

This was me at 17 in front of my 8 foot high, 10 foot wide wall covered in ferret pict ures I cut by hand. I loved ferrets, and still do.

however, they have the highest prey drive of any domestic animal I've ever seen. Until the 70's, ferrets were bred almost exclusively to hunt rabbits.

When I moved out, I got my first ferrets. I kept them in separate rooms. If the ferrets were out, the ferret room door was closed. If blackbird was out, the same deal. Even if neither were out, the door was usually closed. Neither were out at the same time.

one day, we left the ferret room door open to air it out. Blackbird was running about on the floor, we figured no biggie, we'll watch her, make sure she stays out of the room. one of the ferrets had other ideas.

For the first time, one of the ferrets got out of the cage. He got out, snuck into the living room, and killed blackbird. She loved to run around on the ground. I found the ferret trying to get into dexter 's cage.

Be care ful. Ferrets, although awesome little weasels, will not hesitate to kill a prey animal. These buggers hunt rabbits. Eliot killed a f lighted cockatiel and immediately went after a cockatoo. I recommend at least two barriers at all times.

 

[hrafn]

I have 15 pets, and the only animals that are allowed to interact with my birds are my other birds -- and even then, only under close supervision and on different play areas, due to beak size disparity.

My dog is an absolute sweetheart who loves everyone and has a practically nonexistent prey drive, and she will NEVER be allowed near my birds. Period.

 

[Kodigirl210]

Mastiffs are a lot bigger than a GSD’s & I qualified it by saying I don’t think anything that happened would be deliberate. It’s always the things we aren’t prepared for are when accidents happen. I don’t make a big deal about it because people here are very sensitive to it but I have 2-cats. While one is so lazy it takes a bulldozer to get him to move, the younger one has no such issues. At first I thought it would be okay for the cats & birds to be around each other but the first time I had them in the same room, the younger one couldn’t stop looking. From that day on they have never been around each other. They are always kept in separate rooms and even then the cats are supervised. When they can’t be supervised they are locked in a room.
Isen (GCC) was in a clutch of 4. The people who had one of her sister’s named Teenie had dogs. They said they would be careful. Less than a month later Teenie was dead by the dogs. An accident but a dog being a dog. I don’t blame blame dogs - I blame the people. If the person objectively understands the risks and knows their animals well enough to know how they will respond to any given situation, then I would say it’s up to them what they choose to risk or not risk. For me, a dog that is big enough to hurt a person by stepping on them, stumbling into them & tail whipping just on a normal basis is something that just presents too many opportunities for things to go wrong with something as tiny as Boomer is to the mastiffs

 

[Bunklet]

Well the thing also is that the dogs are not entirely mine, I enherited them when I moved in with my partner. I get so frustrated with him (my partner) because his always telling me how gentle his dogs are,that they have lived with birds before, that I’m being rude to consider them capable of killing. So when I have the cage out, and the dogs out, I get very anxious leaving the room. Sure my partner is still there, but he doesn’t watch them like I do.

I’m not even sure they know what Boomer IS, they aren’t very socialised in the outside world. Which is fine with the ferrets, although they’d never meet (despite my partners terrifying efforts) they know if they go too close to the ferrets they’ll get nipped. Once I made the horrible mistake of realising a dog was still inside when I let them out, and the dog still hasn’t forgiven them and I learnt an important lesson.

But Boomer is different, he has no chance of protecting himself. And when he flaps his wings or calls out, they DO become curious. All it takes is for them to knock over his cage for him to die of fright, before they even get to him!

A similar thing happened when the dogs came to visit my mum, I left the dogs in the backyard with rabbit cages. One busted open a wooden cage, and the rabbit (thank god!) survived only needing a stitched ear. But still my partner says their harmless. Can’t fault a mans dogs.

Thankyou HoliDaze for your story, I’m really sorry for your loss. It did show me though that I’m not being as careful as I should be. To a ferret a closed door, or a closed cage, is nothing.

And thankyou for everyone’s replies, it helped me make up my mind that it best to keep Boomer separated and not even bother trying to introduce Boomer and his cage into the main area. I’ve been meaning to find him a more permanent place for his cage, but couldn’t decide where. He’ll definitely need his own room, and I’m thinking even a baby gate into the room, too.

Now I’ve just got to figure out how to talk to my partner about being safe, too. That’ll be fun.

 

[Lady Jane]

You are playing with fire to have predators with your bird (prey). It just takes one second or less for any of your listed pets to kill your bird. I am glad you asked.

 

[Kodigirl210]

@Bunklet - I say if you’re partner is on the couch lead one of the mastiffs right onto his pelvic area. It sounds cruel but I think it makes a clear point. The pup wasn’t doing anything wrong, he wasn’t being aggressive or angry or anything else. He was just visiting his Da. And poor Boomer would be just as vulnerable, just as helpless to stop the mastiff from hurting him badly as your partner was. At least your partner can yell at the dog or push him off. Poor Boomer would just be pancaked. Like I said, it may be a little mean but I think it would prove your point beyond a shadow of a doubt lol

 

[Ankou]

I hope everything will be okay. Not to worry you but it really does seem like when I hear about a bird being killed by another pet, 80% of the time it wasn't due to the bird's primary caregiver making a mistake but another family member who wasn't as diligent and just didn't care as much.
It's so important for everyone to be on board and I feel one of the things that really contributed to keeping my bird Peanut safe in a home with at least two large dogs for 16 years is the fact I am the only one here most of the time. No one else is going around leaving doors open, leaving things unattended, making excuses for their favorite pet that "wouldn't hurt a fly," etc. It's me, the dogs, and Peanut and I'm under no illusion that they don't pose a threat to her, even unintentionally.

I'm a strong believer in total separation and frankly would not personally be willing to ever have any small/prey animals and ferrets in the same home. Just too risky. Total separation only works if you can keep them apart, ferrets specialize in escaping and getting into places they shouldn't' be... also specialize in killing small animals. I hope you can keep Boomer safe, you may have to make some tough decisions.

 

[Bunklet]

Ha! @Kodigirl210 I love that example

I think itll just be a matter of slotting Boomer into the routine, because at the moment everyone has a turn out to socialise, and their own separate areas just for them the rest of the time.

I was curious if Boomers time out can overlap with someone else's, or if his cage could be out in the main area, because you do see other people able to do it, and I always wonder if the people on the internet with cockatiels playing on their dogs heads are actually a bit of a moron or not. But I agree with the general consensus, it's not worth finding out.