Petri's Singing Roxanne

Or...The Dragon's exhausted from stress

What do these things have to do with each other? Petri's breathing had an unacceptable "click" sound to it this morning. He panted at me and I heard the "click" once or twice. My vet probably didn't realize she was on speed dial...

So my poor little sun conure had to endure a trip to the vet where we learned that he has a small broken bone. At some point yesterday, he must have fallen off his perch or flown into something when I wasn't in the room...something happened and he broke his keel. I am beyond distressed! The poor little thing! I can't imagine what went through his little bird mind when it happened. And I can't imagine what pain his little bird body was in. I feel so sorry for him.

Luckily, this is all the vet found wrong. His breathing is actually fine. So she gave me an antibiotic (to be sure nothing "sets in" around the break or with any of the air sacs in the area) with a pain reliever mixed into it. I dropped the appropriate dose in a tiny cap of blue Gatorade (Petri LOVES blue Gatorade) and he drank it up like manna from Heaven. Thank goodness! So he's already had his first dose.

He's also settling in quite nicely under a heat lamp, which is the reference to the "red light" in Roxanne. When I first put the regular heat lamp on him this afternoon, it was just a normal heat lamp from one of the reptile cages. (Sorry, Josh.) But I be-bopped out to the pet store this evening and got this nice little night lamp for Petri. He seems to have accepted it with no worries. He's such a well-adjusted little sweetie. I really feel sorry for him and I'm mortified that I didn't notice he'd fallen anywhere hard enough to break a bone.

(The blue thing in the middle of his cage is his cozy hut. The yellow thing next to it is one of his toys. You can't see them all, but he's currently got four toys in there for tonight. I'll add a couple more to encourage him to spend more time resting/napping in his cozy tomorrow. He's supposed to be calm and quiet the next couple of weeks.)

"Some days, I just want the dragon to win."

Tags: sun conure, companion parrot, avian vet