Traveling with Reggie March 1, 2008

When Reggie and I moved from Massachusetts to Maryland, it was a smashing success.  Reggie traveled in his little pet-carrier in the car passenger seat, growling every ten or so minutes at his situation.  We stopped a few times for gas and arrived at the new house at same time as the cage.  Eight hours in a pet carrier may be annoying, but he only weighs a pound, so it’s not like he’s absolutely cramped in there.  Aside from the growls and periodic pacing, he didn’t seem to mind too much.  But don’t put your finger in there because unlike real-life-Reggie, travel-sized-Reggie is likely to take it off in bitterness.

There were two Christmases where I wanted to go home for more than five days.  Since I won’t leave Reggie alone that long, I had to find someone to take care of him.  Except it was Christmas and absolutely no one wants to take care of your pet at Christmas.  Don’t even try.  So I booked Reggie a pet plane ticket (they’re not free and only two pets are allowed per flight), and braced myself to travel with Reggie to Houston for a 10 day trip.  My parents have an extra cage (they have parrots, too), so he had housing waiting, at least.  But I had to find myself a carrier that would fit under the seatback in front of me.  It wasn’t too hard, and like I said, Reggie doesn’t really weigh a pound, so he fits with room to pace.  Then I had to take him to the vet to get him “certified” to travel.  The certification lasts ten days, so I only had to do it once.

Then I had to take him to the airport.  I will generally describe all four of my trips to the airport with Reggie.  To start, when you have a parrot in a cat carrier, it breeds all kinds of questions from passersby:  “ooh! What is that?” they would ask as they gazed into the top, which is open/caging — I was tempted to tell all these people it was a parrot-shaped snake.  “Are you taking him on the plane?” –  no, we just like to visit the airport.  “Make him talk!” — he doesn’t like you.  (of course Reggie doesn’t talk in the box; he’s not in the best mood).  “Can I touch him?” — he’ll bite you. good luck.  And the absolute worst experience sitting in the airport was a lady who asked if her 6ish-year old daughter could come look at him.  As I sat in the airport, I felt like I was babysitting this 6-year old who just kept talking to me about who knows what and trying to stick her fingers between the bars.  I kept having to tell her “no”.  Her mom was neither nearby nor paying attention.  In airports, even nice people can become obnoxious.

The strangest part about the airport (all four times) was going through security.  I got the usual “what is he?” from TSA, but they were really the nicest people to me, very considerate.  I had to take Reggie out of his porter so it could be x-rayed and then we had to walk together through the people-xray.  Reggie’s wings are clipped or I never would have considered this.  He was pretty excited to come out of the carrier and dismayed to go back in.  He didn’t try any funny-business any of the times.

On the plane, Reggie had to sit under the seatback in front of me in the dark.  But he didn’t complain.  He just sat there quietly.  I had put a dish in the carrier for water, so I poured him some water in-flight and gave him some food.  I tell you, despite the fact that his ears were probably popping like crazy, he acted better than any two year old.  He didn’t make a peep about it.  He was probably too busy plotting my demise to think about it, really.

Would I travel again with Reggie?  Absolutely.  It’s annoying for me, and annoying for him, but it’s much better having him with me than finding him weeks’ worth of care (and missing him all the while)!  The next thing I’m exploring is how Reggie and I might be able to live overseas: there’s little-to-no quarantine from what I understand, but there’s some unknown and large set of paperwork with the FDA or the USDA or the foreign sponsor country’s equivalent if you want your pet bird to go overseas and be able to come back eventually.  We’re not moving any time soon, but someday we might want to!

Traveling without Reggie February 29, 2008

Those of you who have pets (and even some of you without) understand that finding someone to take care of your pet while you’re away can be (a) challenging (b) difficult (c) a pain (d) expensive (e) a nightmare.  If you have a dog or cat, it may be as easy as boarding them at an overnight kennel club, but again see: (d) expensive.  I associate the cost of pet care most closely with the cost of parking my car at the airport: it’s something that I have to pay for locally (rather than while I am vacationing), and can sometimes be avoided.  But avoided at what cost?

I have an African Grey, Reggie.  He’s smart and fun and clever and a real treat to have around (most of the time).  He laughs when I laugh, he plays with me, and he’s a real joker.  As an example, when I bought him his first kladder, a wooden toy that is a bunch of ladder rungs strung together that hangs from the top of his cage, he took a month to chew the rungs to bits from the bottom up, leaving the top rung only on which he began to swing upside down from.  So I bought him another kladder and replaced the one remaining rung.  He immediately chewed the second rung from the top and let the whole thing fall to the floor so that he could swing upside down as he had been before.  I hadn’t yet learned, so I bought him another, and he did the same thing.  He clearly wanted his upsidedown swing, and I was not going to foil his efforts.  Clever bird.

Aside from many, many other advantages I attribute to Reggie, having a parrot has a clear advantage over having a dog or a cat: I can leave him alone for up to 5 days.  “Five days!  That is cruel!”, you say.  “I am a vet,” you say, “and I do not endorse that!”.  Well, given that I don’t do it but maybe once a year and that two of those days are usually half-day-travel-days and that I can leave him enough food for three weeks, easily, that he won’t eat all of, and that this has been successful with every parrot we’ve ever had, I don’t feel so bad.  But five is my threshold.  Give me a six day trip, and suddenly I have images of poor Reggie being friendless, lonely, and probably initiating some bad habits while I’m away (i.e. feather plucking).  So I have to find him a friend.

In finding Reggie a friend, I have to consider that most people don’t know anything about birds.  And that most people don’t board birds the way they board cats and dogs.  Most importantly, though, I also have to consider the old saying “people don’t like taking care of other people’s pets while they’re on vacation”.  Well, okay, it may not be an old saying, but it’s a true statement nevertheless.  Luckily, I don’t have to do this very often (see: the controversial “leaving for up to 5 days”, above).  Since I don’t want to transport all of Reggie’s belongings to someone else’s house, I have to find someone who is willing to visit him daily, to feed and water him, and maybe talk on their phone for a while because he likes people talking on the phone.

I try to find friends within a few miles, but I quickly run out of friends that way.  So then, since I live close to work, I try to find work friends to stop by on their way home.  But they hate that, too.  It’s never convenient to break your daily routine to take care of someone else’s pet (see: “old saying”, above), no matter how many goodies you bring back for them.  I have been lucky enough to find a Reggie-sitter in the past, but I am looking to this Japan trip and wondering “who can I get a favor from this time?”  Poor Reg probably won’t get his tickles or head scritches for a week, but at least he might get some cellphone action.  Stay tuned to find out who accepts the favor!

Tomorrow I will talk about traveling with Reggie, a totally different experience, painful and interesting in many ways.