Thanksgiving and pets

Thanks for posting!

I know you're looking for dog and cat stories, but I have a parrot one, in case anyone's interested.

A few years ago I thought I'd give the birds a special Thanksgiving brunch and scrambled some eggs and cooked up some green beans just for them. Rio (my blue-crowned conure) dove right in and promptly started choking.

By the time I got him to a window for some fresh air, frothy stuff was bubbling from his nostrils. This is a very, very bad thing for a bird. I gently shook him and thumped his back, while he kept shaking his head and making little gagging sounds. Suddenly, a bit of green bean popped out of his beak!

My husband brought him some orange juice and Rio stuck his face right into the glass, saying, "Is it good?" Then I knew he was okay.

Gah!! Through all the years he'd been with me, he'd NEVER choked on a green bean. But thankfully, all ended well. See? It really was a Thanksgiving story.

My most memorable Thanksgiving pet story starred our four-pound Maltese, Sassy. It happened many years ago when she was a youngster, not the 90-year-old granny she is today.

All our dinner guests had grabbed their coffee and retired to the den to watch the football game. We hadn't yet cleared the food from the table, but after making our guests comfortable, my wife and I returned to the dining room to begin putting things away.

When we left the table only minutes earlier, there were two huge turkey drumsticks left on the platter, but one had mysteriously disappeared in the short time we were gone. I immediately suspected a certain little white dog that had a reputation for being sneaky and surprisingly brave for her size. After calling her and getting no response, I knew I was right.

I looked all over for her, and finally found her under a bed on the opposite end of the house. She was hugging her monster drumstick and feasting like a gluttonous little queen.

I took it away from her, and it was the only time she ever bit me. Even though she was already stuffed with turkey, it was her "kill" and she wasn't going to give it up without a fight.

I would have loved to see her bringing down that leg and frantically dragging it across the floor before someone caught her. It had to have been half her weight, and much of the trip was across carpet, so she must have been exhausted by the time she got it to her cave.