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Re: Why you shouldn't wing clip/Some rebuttal

Posted by Rachel B on 6/01/05
(82) Comments
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    On 6/01/05, Emma wrote:
    (snip)
    > Why oh why must people wing-clip. I really cannot
    > convey my hatred of this practice.

    In an earlier post, you listed a number of reasons which, to
    your mind, do not constitute good cause for wing clipping.
    May I point out that every household is different? and we do
    our best under whatever conditions the prevailing ones may
    be. For example, a home which contains young children or
    four or five kids or youths under the age of 20 would be MUCH
    more likely to have windows or doors occasionally left open,
    no matter how stringent the training (of the children) may
    have been. Friends come to visit from time to time as well.
    We always keep the bathroom doors shut--but not everyone does
    so, and I don't want to lose my cherished pet because someone
    wasn't listening to the lecture.

    My CAG is wing clipped specifically because I cannot trust
    him not to loft himself off his "out" perch and come flying
    straight to me (as he did several times before I reluctantly
    clipped his wings, back when I first brought him home). Many
    times, some of his "out time" coincides with my working in
    the kitchen. I don't want a bird landing in my biscuit
    rolling or my French toast preparation. I will not have my
    parrot immolate himself by falling into the saucepan, or
    stewpot, or the Dutch oven where I am cooking French fried
    potatoes at 375 degrees Fahrenheit (that's around 191 Celsius
    for anyone who's doing metric.) Why don't I keep him in his
    cage while I'm cooking, you ask? Well, actually, when
    cooking at HIGH temps on the stovetop, I do; but the rest of
    the time he'd be very unhappy being in his cage during the
    times I am home, when the rest of the family, including the
    dog, is in the kitchen or living room adjacent to his perch.
    I can and do carry him on my shoulder at times while working
    in the kitchen, but it isn't always convenient, or sanitary,
    to have him there. Besides, he needs playtime on his perch,
    not just being velcroed to me.

    Households vary. I keep Ash clipped for his own safety.
    Living in our homes--fed, coddled, cared for, played with and
    medically attended to--comes at a price, and there are some
    things I choose to do to keep him healthy and well. He is a
    very strong flier as it is; I would not be able to keep him
    safe if he were not clipped. If he hadn't come to me, he'd
    have gone to someone who maybe wouldn't care for him as I do;
    not being hatched in captivity was not ever an option.

    Now tell me how wrong it is to have my dog neutered and my
    cat spayed and that they should be free to make their own
    choices. Our pets CANNOT choose some things for themselves;
    we have already made that decision for them by choosing to
    keep them in our homes. For those who can manage it, free
    flight and not clipping wings is a wonderful ideal; encourage
    to your heart's content. Some of us cannot do it safely, and
    it is irresponsible to issue a blanket statement along the
    lines of "wing clipping is mutilation and always wrong" when
    it is not true.

    Rachel B.