Coco Hates Me

This is Coco, my step father's blue and gold Macaw. Coco has never been very fond of me, especially when I was drawing Jim's attention away from her. Jim and Coco were bonded for over 2 decades, so when he died last summer Coco became a real problem. Though my mother could handle her (with difficulty) Coco was dangerous and injured my mother's arm during one of the periods she was out of her cage (Coco, not my mother).

I'd promised Jim that I wouldn't let anything bad happen to Coco, even though there was no love loss between us. My word means a lot to me. So, after mom's serious injury from Coco I tried to find a humane home for her (Coco, not my mother). The problem was, though I didn't want anything to happen to Coco, I also didn't want to put her in a situation where she might hurt someone else not accustomed to dealing with such an aggressive bird. And so began my search for a home for Coco...

That search took my mother, my daughter Lacey and I on a cross country road trip to Coombs, British Columbia to the World Parrot Refuge. This place is AMAZING! However, getting there was quite a trek - literally. We drove to Seattle from Grants Pass, Oregon by way of Puyallup, Washington, where we stayed with our life-long friend, Art Walker. We left mom there while Lacey and I went the rest of the way up into British Columbia to "deliver our load."

Before we could take Coco across the Canadian border, she had to have a thorough check up by a vet. She liked me even less after this experience. The vet awarded our cranky bird with a clean bill of health and a "ticket" to cross an international border.