[speaker001:] do you have any pets
[speaker002:] uh right now I have um uh two longhair miniature dachshunds I also raise uh peacocks ducks I have three different kinds of ducks and I raise geese and rabbits but the uh uh the dogs and the peacocks are pets the rest of them we we do those for food
[speaker001:] you must have a little farm then
[speaker002:] yeah yeah we live out in the country so what do you have
[speaker001:] well I'm a I'm a sort of a city dweller and I got a bunch of kids so they've got to have their pets and uh we've uh lost a few this year but we've still got a dog and a bird left
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] and uh the the kids maul the dog something awful they pull his tail and bend his ears and uh have a good time playing with him and the dog is pretty uh tolerant of them
[speaker002:] yeah that's that's always nice when you have an animal that the kids can play with like that how old are the kids
[speaker001:] well they're uh seven eight and uh ten
[speaker002:] huh you said your from DC
[speaker001:] and yes well right outside in uh Falls Church Virginia
[speaker002:] I have oh okay I have a my my I have a daughter I think she's in Spring Field I'm not sure she's around there somewhere she just got her a new apartment
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] and my other daughter and son-in-law live in Germantown
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] so there
[speaker001:] well you've got part of your family up here then
[speaker002:] yeah yeah so it's interesting to talk to somebody from that general vicinity
[speaker001:] yeah well uh I just got a new bird for uh little Deb at uh Christmas time and we're still in the process of uh getting him tamed he's a little parakeet yellow one
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] and uh we let him fly around the house and the dog being a Golden Retriever he he pays close attention whenever that bird is flying around
[speaker002:] I wonder what he'd do if he ever got a hold of him though
[speaker001:] well the the previous bird he uh got a hold of it uh two or three times and uh I found that uh well one occasion I I heard a little noise and I saw the dog walking away and I looked over and I see some feathers sticking out of his mouth
[speaker002:] oh oh
[speaker001:] and I grabbed the dog by the tail real quick and I discovered if you yank a dog's tail real hard he lets go of a bird
[speaker002:] next time you'll have to try a bigger bird
[speaker001:] yeah a bigger bird or a larger cat to take care of the dog
[speaker002:] we have some friends that in fact the ones that we bought one of the dogs from they also raise birds and they have uh two or three different kinds of of parrots and then they raise finches and parakeets and they show and he and he was showing me his parakeets and and he calls them an English parakeet and he said their marking is a little different
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] have did did you know that there was a difference in the parakeets
[speaker001:] well there is a a neighbor of mine used to uh uh know quite a bit about uh raising parakeets and she had uh a lot of connections when it came to getting good birds so she was knowledgeable all the different breeds and colorations and so forth
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] and knew what to look for when you went shopping for a parakeet uh I had a parakeet many years ago that uh she got for me and it lived to be a a pretty old bird and was extremely friendly uh I I couldn't keep him in his own cage he just uh flew lose in the house all the time uh but uh more recent years they moved away and I've been buying parakeets at the local pet shop and they don't seem to be as healthy as uh one's you get from uh breeders
[speaker002:] you might check uh some of the ads in the paper and see if anybody has an aviary that you might be able to buy from there
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] that seems to be an up and coming business I know out there where we are there's there's uh a person on each side of our county that now have aviaries
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] one of them is right out there close to us they're in the process of building it up right now I know
[speaker001:] well we found in general when you you look for breeders you don't find them in the uh metropolitan areas they you wind up going many miles out of town to find somebody that's handling whatever it is you're looking for
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] we went looking for uh rabbits and we had to go all the way out to Leesburg to find uh a rabbitry a few years back weren't any uh rabbits available in this area except little bunnies available at the uh pet shops and we looked at them and decided they weren't uh too healthy looking
[speaker002:] yeah that's the problem with buying them through the pet shops we have that same problem here too yeah but we've used it we just have two rabbits right now we have one doe and one buck
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] and she ought to be due sometime toward the end of this week on a litter we just got her
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] the uh we go we had uh one doe that we'd had her let's see it was her second litter I guess the first litter she had she lost all but three uh babies and we raised those and then her second litter she wound up killing all of them
[speaker001:] huh
[speaker002:] and it took her like three days I guess before she killed all of them so we've we had to get rid of her
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] so I I wouldn't tolerate that
[speaker001:] that's pretty unusual because we I've generally found that rabbits have been very uh very good parents
[speaker002:] yeah well this is the first time we've ever had one like that we had been down we had gone from having one buck and and three does down to one buck and just one doe
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] but that didn't work out too well so now we're we're trying to build it back up
[speaker001:] yeah we had a rabbit up until uh last summer and we gave him away because the girls lost interest in him and couple of them we're getting allergic to rabbits uh I uh we had a tough time deciding on a name so I named him uh Mister Tibbar and they wanted to know how I figured out that name and I said well it's rabbit spelled backwards
[speaker002:] so uh
[speaker001:] one of my other daughters got a uh gerbil and they came to me for a name and I said well name him Libreg and they said well how did you get that name I said well that's gerbil spelled backwards
[speaker002:] now that's a good idea
[speaker001:] well they wouldn't let me name the dog
[speaker002:] no that one would might get you in trouble yeah unless you called it Dog
[speaker001:] well
[speaker002:] we have been known to do that in the past we've we've got a couple of wild cats out there in our general vicinity and you know they're they're tame enough that they come up and want you to feed them but they're not tame enough that they want to stay around or come in or anything so you know those are just Big Cat and Little Cat
[speaker001:] yeah well we had uh I lived on a farm when I was growing up and when we bought the farm there was uh couple of farm cats on the property and they were sort of tame every now and then they'd let you pet them but uh one of the cats which we named Bug Eyes she had a litter of kittens and she kept t hem away from the uh the house until they were pretty good size kittens and they wouldn't let you get anywhere near them and one day I went over to I found them sleeping and I went over and picked one of them up and it boy it was like picking up a buzz saw
[speaker002:] huh  I bet it was that they do that you know they they have kittens out there in the garage or out in the barn and the first time you try to get around the kittens you know it's you'd have to catch them with a uh a fish net or something because they scamper away so quick
[speaker001:] yeah but I tried again a few weeks later but this time I put on some leather gloves and my father still wondered what happened to those leather gloves
[speaker002:] did you in
[speaker001:] well it's been nice talking to you
[speaker002:] well it's been very nice talking to you I appreciate having the call and uh maybe we'll speak again on this little test that they're trying to do
[speaker001:] all right
[speaker002:] okay thank you bye-bye
[speaker001:] bye