THE COMMANDER

Buster, my seventeen year old African Gray parrot, knows how to get people to do what he wants. He never gets bored repeating his commands so he can keep it up forever if he chooses. If you don't comply he gets even by biting, refusing to come out of his house where he sits pouting on his perch or if he is out of the cage he spins around and moons me with his red butt! Often I get the "raspberries" sound when he is disgusted.

When he decides to go to sleep for the night he says, "Time to go night!" If that doesn't work, he either repeats that or says, "Gotta take a snooze! If I still haven't covered him up, he repeats these phrases and gets louder and louder until I comply. I am completely trained.

He demands I get him out of his cage to "watch TV". "Time to watch TV!", he screams over and over, adding, "Are you ready?"...Wanna come?...Wanna play? and on and on until I come and let him out. He is quite the task master.

Buster will even tell me to "take a break" sensing when I am working too much and is always accurate. If I yawn he tells me to "take a snooze".

He also decides when people have stayed too long or he doesn't particularly like them. Usually he starts off with, "Gotta go!". After saying that a few times he adds "See ya later!" He keeps this up until the people say they have to get going and as soon as they step out the door Buster says, "Thank you!" Very effective, indeed!

When I was having some flooring tiled, the workman always shared his burrito lunch with Buster. However, one day the workman came after lunch. Buster insisted on his treat by repeating "treat...treat....treat...etc." until the workman, dropped what he was doing, went and got a burrito and shared it with Buster!

While Buster's persistence makes everyone a bit crazy at times, he shows me how to not give up on what I want and to just hang in there and it will show up!