Apparently a hell of a lot. You tell me. WebVet recently relocated our headquarters from Chicago to the Big Apple (I love New York!). Because I have a dog, Max -- more on him later -- and two birds (and an employee that needed a lift), we made the trip via car rather than plane. The bird in question is Pi, my Quaker Parrot. The first part of the journey, the poor guy braced himself with one leg on his rope and the other clinging desperately to the side of the cage. He didn't look very comfortable. What was worse though is the next day, he spent the first three hours hanging upside down in his cage. Now I'm no bird - at least not that kind, -- but I do remember my mother telling me as a kid that if I hung upside down too long all the blood would rush to my head and I'd pass out. So as you can imagine, I started to get worried about my Pi bird. Then it came to me. Why not let him ride up front with the grown ups. My only concern was the bird s**t issue. For those of you who have, and love, birds . . . you know what I'm talking about. My solution was to put on an old sweatshirt (courtesy of an ex-boyfriend whom I no longer have any great affection for) and let Pi ride the last six hours on my shoulder. And so the ex-boyfriend who once s**t on me, got his payback. Pi s**t on him. Okay, I digress.
The good news is that Pi was very happy for those last six hours -- kissing me incessantly and telling me that he loves me. Just what every woman wants.
The lesson for me in all of this is that when I asked Pi's new vet in NYC why he hangs upside down like that and for how long it's "safe" for him to do this without having all his little blood rush to his head thus causing him to pass out cold . . . she informed me he can hang upside down all day long. And night for that matter. Apparently, birds have very different vascular systems from humans -- who knew -- and therefore no harm, no foul if they want to hang upside down.
So all you bird people out there . . . that's how much I love my bird. Tell us how much do you love yours?
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