The Parrot That Eats From The Dog's Bowl

In the series "To The Manor Born" is a wonderful character named Mrs Poo.  She is introduced in this short you tube clip.

She's a Czechoslovakian woman who was fond of quoting sayings.  I don't know if they were true or not but the one that came to mind was her pronouncement that:

"The cat who eats from the dog's bowl gets her whiskers bitten off"

If you have the time, and I've set the clip up correctly, you can hear her say it yourself here, but just manually jump ahead to 7:58 in the clip.  It didn't embed correctly for me.


The series was a wonderful gentle tale from a different era in Britain, and I've been lucky enough to have seen it a couple times all the way through.

I was reminded of Mrs Poo and that saying yesterday when I let Oscar the Parrot out to wander around.   Lately the old buzzard has been getting more friendly and as such, more noisy.  So instead of yelling which only serves to get him louder in competition, or putting him outside which only serves to draw opossums, I took the low road.

Picking up the cage, I set him on the floor next to me where he could be watched by both me and the dog.

As a prey animal, he did not particularly care for that.

That was until I opened the cage door.  As his habit, he climbed on top for a quick look around.  Mrs Dog didn't care for the bird being there, so she kept a wary eye out.

Stalemate, all was well.

As it was time, I wandered to the kitchen for my next mug of coffee and brought out a dog biscuit for Lettie.  When I settled in, Lettie paid attention to the biscuit and got excited but didn't get up from her mat another five feet away.  I placed it on the floor half way between the dog and the bird.

Of course the bird grabbed the biscuit.   Oscar ran down the cage. While the dog was being told "OK go get the cookie" and didn't respond, Oscar grabbed the cookie and went back inside the cage with his prize.

Lettie being a gentle old dog, more fearful than anything else, simply looked at the scene.  If it is possible for a dog to have a "nonplussed" expression of confusion and disappointment, that was it.   She was not happy at all and decided that "I've had enough of this".   Leaving the room to me and That Bird, she went into the bedroom and ignored us for the next hour.

Luckily dogs memories are a patchy thing and all was forgotten when she returned later.