Cockatoo is heartbroken after family rejects him
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00:00 I'm so heartbroken. I feel like I let him down.
00:02 I'm Ash Shore and this is Ramsey's story for GOP.
00:06 I know what it's like to feel misunderstood and judged
00:09 and I feel like Ramsey has a little bit of that.
00:11 Ramsey came to us from a neglect case.
00:14 - Hi honey. - Hi baby.
00:17 - I need to give kisses. - You give kisses?
00:20 He hadn't been bathed in most likely over 20 years.
00:23 He was in a room that had mice and rats crawling up and down off the walls.
00:28 There was raccoons living in the house, skunks, lots of feral cats.
00:32 And he was left abandoned after his prior guardian passed away.
00:38 He was needing sanctuary. We took him into our program immediately.
00:41 Ready to go? Ready to go?
00:43 When we first rescued him, he was completely bare-bellied.
00:46 He's now growing back his feathers, but it will be something where he probably
00:49 will never fully grow back all of the feathers from the decades of himself plucking.
00:57 Good morning.
00:58 Our connection was beautiful. It was almost instant.
01:01 It was a situation where he would only allow me to interact with him
01:04 for probably the first five months.
01:06 And then he started being okay with other interactions.
01:12 He really bloomed, came out of his shell, just really was a personal bird,
01:17 which is remarkable coming from the environment that he did come from.
01:19 Are you handsome?
01:21 He's very expressive. He wears all of his emotions on his sleeves, per se.
01:27 Yeah, hi.
01:28 He's very fun. He loves to play fetch. He loves to bounce up and down.
01:32 Hi. Hi.
01:36 We worked very hard for a very long time to find the best home possible for Ramsey.
01:42 It was not easy. We had many different visits where the family had come to the sanctuary
01:47 to spend a certain time with him that was required before adoption.
01:49 Did you sleep okay?
01:50 We also went and traveled to the home that he was moving into to see how he would act there.
01:56 Unfortunately, the adopters that took in Ramsey,
01:59 even though we had thought that we had vetted them properly,
02:01 they were just really wanting a bird that was going to come into their home
02:06 and immediately just be comfortable with everybody and everything.
02:10 And certain family members in that home were not happy that Ramsey was not comfortable with them.
02:18 And instead of allowing time for everything to kind of work out, within two days,
02:22 they had felt that he was not going to be friendly and they didn't want to give it any more time.
02:27 When he came back, he had attached to that family.
02:31 And I do believe that he takes it personal from me.
02:33 Wow.
02:34 He thinks that I'm the one that made it so it didn't work out for him.
02:37 These birds, they feel rejection and they take that in.
02:40 I don't know if I could ever trust anybody to understand the commitment that you're making
02:45 when you take on any parrot, but especially a cockatoo.
02:48 It's like having a toddler for 16 to 90 years.
02:52 And so we are kind of working back from square one with Ramsey,
02:56 trying to gain his trust and make sure that he feels secure.
02:59 And yes, that comes with certain risks.
03:02 Cockatoos have pretty much can openers on their face.
03:05 Their beaks are very strong.
03:07 I've definitely heard some pretty significant bites from him, which is very new.
03:11 It hadn't happened previous to him being adopted out,
03:15 but I'm not persuaded by any of that.
03:17 It's just part of the process.
03:19 I will never give up on Ramsey.
03:20 His quality of life is number one to me.
03:23 He's gone through so much.
03:26 He's suffered immense loss, tragedy, and neglect in his life.
03:30 He's a naughty, naughty cockatoo.
03:33 And the only thing I'm concerned about is what I can offer him, not what he can offer me.
03:37 What are you doing?