August 25, 2012

Vinny the Inventor

Vinny definitely watches too much tv. Please let me explain that.

Sometimes when we're doing chores around the house, or we're in the office upstairs for a little while and Vinny's too rambunctious for his own good, we leave him by himself in the big cage in the living room. He's totally fine there. Lots of toys to play with, a bit of snacky food (usually a tomato or just some pellets), fresh water, what does a young Eclectus want more?

Sometimes we leave the TV on. He'll start talking and will keep doing that for at least an hour. He loves loud noise, including but not limited to applause, explosions and thunderstorms. We usually let him watch anything like that, as long as it's PG. We don't want to turn him in to a cursing bird.

Last weekend, we had a moment like that, where we just wanted some rest. We let him be by himself downstairs. However, what we didn't realize, was that he was watching stuff he wasn't supposed to watch. When we came down later to get him, he was watching reruns of MacGyver. Sure, it's PG and of course he loves it. He was babbling a lot and we were wondering what he was saying. But of course that was futile, since the only few words he says that we can understand, is Coca Cola, Hello, Good Boy, Shower and Wockawocka.

Anyway, getting sidetracked here. The thing is ... we didn't realize how dangerous it was to let him watch MacGyver, until a few days ago. My girlfriend was working on her computer and Vinny was exploring the room. Nothing extraordinary. When I go to work in the morning, I usually throw a towel over my desk, otherwise I'll find the keys of my keyboard scattered all over the room, and Vinny also loves the rubber mouse wheel. So at some point she looks over, and sees Vinny experimenting with a few things. 

tools of the trade
On the towel, he had gathered a small coil of network cable, my World of Warcraft authenticator, and a pack of gum. Was he planning his escape? Does he have a secret plan to rule the world? Is he becoming a Prepper?

Either way, of course she had to laugh so hard and me as well, when I came home and she told me about this. It took a little while till we linked this to MacGyver. Of course there were no WoW-authenticators back in the days when MacGyver originallly was on TV, but that only shows how intelligent Vinny is. At least, he's coming up with his own inventions!

Or at least, that's what we like to think. 

basket with foot-toys
However, there's a truth to all of this. We do really believe that Vinny is trying to grasp the concept of tools. In the office, on a dedicated Vinny table, we have this basket with most of his 'foot-toys'. And on occasion, we do catch him trying to combine those toys into one big toy. An example of this is an old decommissioned creditcard he's putting into a little box. Of course, like for most inventors, it also comes with failure, and in those cases he usually just goes into tantrum mode for a few minutes, with him getting angry at the toys and throwing them out of the basket. 

Do you have any similar experiences with your Eclectus or other parrot? Feel free to share them in the comments! Would love to hear them.