| A Fairy Tale by M. Pinegar Louie, The Little Quaker Who Thought He Could�and Did! Once upon a time, in the not-too-distant Kingdom of Illinois there lived a Princess named Rose. Rose had about everything she needed in the way of worldly goods, but still her heart was heavy. Prince Terry was always away fighting dragons, jousting for gold and bartering for good things to bring home for supper. Rose remained at the castle all day, every day, and like a good Princess was engaged in her needlework, creating lovely embroidered clothing for the Prince and some favored courtiers. What was the problem? Rose�s heart was overflowing with love, so much so that even Prince Terry and the favored courtiers did not provide a large enough vessel for her overflowing love. So� OK, let�s get real. Whadya do when you want to give and get unconditional love? Adopt a pet! Rose Keith is a talented lady who capably does many things, from designing images to embroider onto clothing, to photography, to convincing her hubby, Terry to do just about anything for her. But there is one thing that Rose Keith obviously cannot do. Rose cannot turn away from a bird in need! From the tiniest, plain finch to the largest, brilliantly-colored macaw, Rose just cannot turn her back on them. Most of us begin with a budgie or canary, but not Rose. Her first baby was a blue & gold macaw named Moochie. After finding a neighbor�s macaw out loose, she fell in love with it. When they found the owner and restored his parrot, Rose was heart-broken at having to give the little guy back. With a sad Rose, missing the talkative macaw, what else could Terry do but buy Rose another blue & gold macaw that she christened Moochie. The bird affair began at that moment, but there were to be no more purchases. All the rest of Rose�s birds are rescues. Next came Chance, an abused African grey; then Tuey, an unwanted Indian ring-necked parakeet, and then a tiny house finch that fell from its nest and was hand-fed and tamed and now goes by the name of Buddy. No obstacles were too big for Rescue Rose! And then she saw Louie. Louie is a quaker parrot, sometimes referred to in Kansas as a �Madagascar Hissing Finch� (private joke for some of our bird club members! ?). But Louie was not just any old ordinary quaker - that would not be enough of a challenge for someone like Rose. Louie is a quaker parrot who has no toes. NO TOES?!? As you can imagine, after watching his wife rescue a veritable flock of unwanted and abused birds, Rose�s hubby, Terry, was beginning to feel the house was a bit crowded. So when Rose presented the idea of adopting a special needs parrot from friend Cliff Patterson, Terry wasn�t too excited. Another hurdle? Not to Rose. After a well placed tear or two, Terry gave in and Cliff brought Rose her new little �Cuddle Bug� home to stay. Now Rose had a special needs birdie and she was pretty concerned about how he was going to get around. She outfitted his cage with a shelf, a Happy Hut and a short fuzzy boing-boing. Only seven weeks old, Louie was a timid little chick, afraid of hands and a whole lot of other things. Eventually though, he learned to climb out of his Happy Hut and up the boing-boing to his shelf. Rose worked with him gently and slowly, and taught him that when she opened his cage with a towel in her hands and said �Up�, he was supposed to climb up the towel and sit on it. For about two weeks, she worked to get him used to her hands. Talking to him gently, petting him, and allowing him to bite her and hang on until he decided to let go, eventually convinced him that Rose was neither going to harm him nor give up on him. She is now working on rolling him on his back and kissing his belly. He is just fine with it as long as it is FAST! Louie may be shorter than the average quaker, but he has the heart of an eagle and strongly objected to the name �Cuddle Bug�. He stubbornly refused to recognize it as his name. One day, Rose had him exploring on the bed and every time she called �Cuddle Bug!� he shot her his most fierce look of annoyance. Finally realizing that such a baby name would never do, she tried out different names on him and the only one that got a response was �Louie.� For the first time since she�d brought him home, he ran to her, whistling out his approval, while Rose whistled back. So Cuddle Bug renamed himself Louie. Very macho! As you might suspect, a birdie with no toes (his daddy bit them off), has special needs, and though his condition presented some problems, Rose �rose� to the occasion. The first problem was pretty basic. How do you hold a birdie with no toes? Rose thought, �no problem� - she simply bought a fuzzy Bird Buddy, held it horizontally and let Louie step into it. She calls it his �birdie babushka�. It was infinitely better than the towel and allowed Louie to feel secure, yet independent, because he is able to �perch� in Rose�s hands just like any other self-respecting parrot. The next obstacle was a play stand. All the other parrots in the house had play stands, why not Louie? Rose�s brother-in-law, Mike, had taken quite a liking to the little quaker with no toes. In fact, he said �Hi Louie� every time he came over until �Hi Louie� was the first English Louie ever spoke, although he was already quite fluent in Quakerese. When Rose complained to Mike that she wished they made play stands for special needs parrots, Mike (who obviously is even harder to intimidate than Rose) said, �Let�s make one!� So they bought a platform, then found some flat pieces of heart-shaped wood which they stacked and made little stairs out of them. After a few short introductions to this scary new world, little Louie exited his cage, hopped on the play stand, and climbed the stairway of hearts to become King of the World! Louie�s next life lesson and Rose�s next obstacle was THE BATH. First she tried the shower method. She put Louie in the sink and turned on a slow dribble of warm water. Baby Louie thought this was the most terrifying event he had ever taken part in and began to scream. Mama Rose swooped him up, all wet and frightened, and cuddled him to her heart. He was reassured, but they had to take a different tack on the bath problem. So next, Rose got a small plastic pie plate, put a bit of warm water in it, followed by a somewhat surprised Louie. She immediately began to splash around with her fingers and exclaim �Wheeee, what fun!� and Louie evidently thought what was good enough for mama was good enough for Louie, and he began to bathe in earnest. It was not long before brave little Louie saw the BIG birds getting their bath from a sprayer and wanted to be sprayed too instead of bathing like a baby. He watched Tuey, the Indian ringneck parakeet duck his head in his water dish and then get sprayed. Being very bright and also wanting to be every bit as grown up as Tuey, Louie ran to his dish, ducked his head and waited for the sprayer! To this day, he takes a bath this way and then preens on a soft towel provided by �Management� while the other birds preen on a perch. Many lessons have been learned, many obstacles have been overcome and an enduring friendship has been forged. Life with no toes is no big deal for Louie and Rose together! In the not-too-distant Kingdom of Illinois, there dwells a happy and fulfilled Princess Rose, Prince Terry, loyal courtiers and beloved children Moochie, Chance, Buddy, Tuey and Louie, the little quaker who KNEW HE COULD!. Who says fairy tales don�t have happy endings�! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To learn more about Rose, Louie & the flock visit her website: http://rockford.com/rkeith/INDEX.HTM To see more photos of Rose�s feathered family visit here: http://community.webshots.com/user/moochietuey/ (Editors Note: Many thanks to Rose Keith for allowing us to write this story about her special needs quaker, Louie! Rose also provided the photo of Louie to go with this article.) |
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| Louie on his special playground |
| Baby Louie in his "babushka" |