Getting closer

When I entered the herbivore room Monday morning to start the morning cleaning chores, I was quite surprised to find all three cockatiels sharing one cage.  As soon as they woke up and started moving around, Elvis chased Poppy away.  Poppy is definitely winning. Max is happy to sing and interact with Poppy and has no problem including him.  Elvis is still holding out but is definitely warming up. Poppy's persistence will be rewarded eventually, I'm sure.

In the past, Poppy has been somewhat unkind to others. He would literally walk on top of his parents and Franklin to get to something. He shoved them out of the way routinely, so he could eat or have access to a toy.  They allowed it, because he was everyone's spoiled baby.  He was not very nice to Max and Elvis--chasing them away whenever they approached him or Franklin.  I hope Poppy learns a little bit from his experience and becomes a kinder, nicer bird. We will be getting more cockatiels, and I'm hoping if he's able to integrate with Max and Elvis by then, that he's nicer and friendlier than he has been in the past.

Raising so many beings of so many species has made one thing abundantly clear. When we love, treasure, and protect our babies from all unpleasantness, they don't tend to end up with empathy and good character.  It is the suffering in our lives that molds us into kind, compassionate, selfless beings. It takes a ton of work to turn human children into decent people, when they've had relatively easy, problem-free lives.  Making sure those kids understand that they are lucky beyond belief--luckier than 95% of the world, and through no effort of their own is a constant but necessary part of parenting.  I've historically done better with this with my human children than the animals. While I think most of us would love to remove every obstacle and difficulty from our child's life, doing so deprives them of the necessary process of character building. It's easier to be diligent about this with my kids, because I know they will be going out into the world at large, and I want them to be good people--kind, honest people who are respected and trusted by others.  It's a little harder to not spoil the animals--they don't need to go out and get jobs and survive in the world at large.  I also haven't figured how to convince an animal that they are acting like an entitled brat, and exactly why that's not okay to do.  So...I love all of my animals very much, but I have to admit that the ones that I adopted/rescued are generally nicer to others than the animals who have lived here since birth or shortly after.