THIS STORY BEGAN in December of 1999. We buy our pet supplies from "A Major Pet Store" in Austin as we have several cats, a collie, and an African grey. I was always looking at the condition of the birds in the store, and after awhile had befriended the manager of that department.

I had made suggestions for things such as keeping a blue-and-gold macaw busy with toys to reduce the squawking, giving birds occasional showers, providing fresh vegetables, and so forth. We had an excellent rapport and to the extent possible he followed the suggestions and the birds were much happier with more toys, fresh food, etc. After that I was "the bird guy" and pretty much had free rein in the bird area.

About a week later he asked me to come back to the cage area, that he had a bird in quarantine (a part of the store I'd never been in) that wasn't getting better either, and he was really worried. They had been to a vet and the treatment wasn't working.

When I opened the door to the "quarantine area" I thought I had stepped into a medieval dungeon. The room had a high ceiling, about 20 feet, but it was narrow and triangular; the long wall was filled nearly floor to ceiling with small cages, the openings of which were about 24" square. The room was dark, lit only by one fluorescent bulb. It was cool and damp. There were no windows, and no ventilation - the air was completely still. Down low, near the bottom, all I could make out was a small orange triangle - an eclectus' beak.

The manager got the bird out for me and the bird, despite his wounds and obvious pain, did not struggle and was very quiet. I was aghast at the depth of the damage and asked how the wound had happened. The manager avoided my eyes, but said that he had fallen into a warming tray for the formula that they feed the new, unweaned birds, and had gotten burned.

I knew this could not possibly be the truth, because if it had been an immersion burn there would be a uniform involvement of the tissues of his foot and this was a band of scar tissue encircling the foot above the "knee." The foot was so grossly swollen it was twice the size of the other, and the flesh was damp to the touch and unpigmented. Touching the area brought an immediate reaction from the bird.

I asked the manager if he had sought any veterinary attention. He said that in November a vet had ordered a kind of "sitz bath" with an antibiotic to be mixed in with the water. This to be done in a sink - a perfect environment for bacteria of every kind.

The negotiations immediately began. I told them I would take the bird to my own avian vet and pay for it. They refused, saying that although I bought thousands of dollars of pet supplies from them yearly, they were afraid I would abscond with the bird.

This escalated over several weeks and there were several loud arguments (which I made sure took place in the middle of the store) with the upper management. Finally they agreed to give me the bird, but not before being put on the hot seat about my knowledge of birds and what kind of home I was going to give it!

I was being interrogated by an individual from the home office of a major pet store about the bird. I mentioned that I had read in some places that a female eclectus is a little more difficult to keep than a male, and this individual asked me in a dead serious tone, "How do you know it's a male?"

After a lot of heated negotiation in which I almost had to use my doomsday weapon (threatening to go to the local TV station) they gave up the bird, but with a non-disclosure agreement that was three pages long.

I rushed him to our avian specialist, who drew blood to see if he would survive the anesthesia, but went ahead with the surgery before the results could come back because he already had osteomyelitis and other complications and would die within hours if not treated.

Fortunately, Kermit D. Boid survived. We have had him for two years, and over those years he has learned to do most things that a “normal” bird can do with the exception of holding food while eating it and a few other things.

He walks on the "upper" surface of his foot, which had such terrible muscle and nerve damage that it is nearly useless. We have had to accommodate him by putting a soft cushion on the bottom of his cage so that he does not scrape the skin off his foot on the wire bottom, but that's about it. He is a healthy, happy eclectus thanks to the work of Dr. Leanne Jakubowsky, DVM.

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