Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Hoarded Ducks See Water for First Time
Sile
Veteran
Comments
I do agree would be ideal to take a long, patient time getting each duck used to the water; but in the animal-rescue world sometimes things have to be done kind of expediently, so as to be able to move on to rescuing the next batch of critters. Also, sometimes there's something to be said for "getting it over with."
One thing my birds usually have needed a little push with is bathing, because they are afraid of it the first time. We all know how birds splash around in a bird bath or shallow water. But my parrots have been rather afraid of getting started with it. Slowly but surely, however, they all do it...in their own time.
There are 2 approaches that people use to get kids to swim. One is to teach them how to swim. The other is to just throw them in the pool while they are screaming. I'm not in favor of the latter...although it does seem to work.
What was done in the video was done for the entertainment of the people.
When one or the other of our two cats would get home from the vet, he'd smell odd to the other, and both would hiss and growl and skulk about miserably as if they'd never met. My mother would spend hours tempting them with yummy things, toys, soothing words, anything to coax them back into loving brotherhood.
I didn't even notice my Dad paying attention to this ritual, but he must have, because one such day as the cats were launching into their usual round of anxieties, and my Mom racing for the treat jar, my Dad went over, picked up both cats, and somehow rubbed them together (no cats were harmed). Within seconds they both smelled exactly the same, and that was the end of the growling.