BUSTER COMMENTS ON LIFE

Buster's comments appropriately convey his thoughts on what is going on around him. He often astounds us with his thoughts, especially his intonation and emotion.

My husband Dennis loves to play games on the computer. One day he played Hearts and every time the Queen of Spades was played (a card you don't want to get unless you're trying to get all the points) the program played a special sound. Apparently Buster paid attention. The Queen of Spades played the sound and Buster let out with a huge sad groan just like Dennis did when he got the Queen!

If Dennis or I yawn, Buster often says, "Take a break!" with a commanding tone.

He really dislikes the cleaning crew and all the noise they make, especially the vacuum cleaner! Every time the cleaning crew goes out the front door, he cheerfully says, "Thank you!"

Lately, if I don't get him up when he thinks I should, he reminds me. His cage is covered and I hear, "Well...?" He drags it out to sound disgusted with me because I haven't fixed his treats yet. And he keeps it up until I get him up. Several times when I went to fix his breakfast, I heard him say, "Thank you!!"

Dennis,again, playing poker on the computer, lost a hand. Buster told him, "That was stupid, Bud." Dennis almost fell off his chair!

Buster likes to keep informed. While writing this he asked, "What are ya doin' Mommy?"

We made a mistake by putting a smoke alarm in the kitchen. Now when we fry anything, even with the hood fan on, the smoke alarm almost always sounds the alarm. Unfortunately, Buster made this connection so when we start to fry anything, he sounds the alarm loudly before the smoke alarm goes off! And believe me it is loud. He continues this until the smoke alarm goes off so we have two smoke alarms sounding at the same time! Now we try to remember to disconnect the smoke alarm before frying but we can't disconnect Buster!

We also have two parrotlets(smallest parrot in the world) named BB and Trixie. BB is the dominate one but at times they have horrendous verbal fights. They stand tall and beak to beak and scream god knows what at each other. During one of these fights Buster looked over at their cage and said, "BB...(really loud) What are you doing?"

Buster may make a comment only one time appropriately and we never hear it again. Or we will only hear it at an appropriate time. This is how we know he is not just "parroting" something. He analyzed the situation and then made his thoughts known.