Proper Babies!

Phew! the hard bit is kind of over now. The babies, as you can see above (that's P.Diddy on the left and Giddy on the right), are coming on leaps and bounds. No longer the scared waifs that were brought to us a week ago they are now chubby little feather balls that Squeak! and have rightly or wrongly imprinted on us as their mamas! My parents are very proud :-)

Their new home is a dust sheet smothered spare room where they run, like cartoon running, around the floor with one wing out Squeaking and Squeaking and poo profusely. Then i suppose all babies poo for England and i still wonder where on earth it all comes from.

Still feeding them SMA, specially warmed which they go mad for, and now a proper baby bird food which looks a little bit like Ready Brek but smells like horse feed! Yum! Needless to say the books say that you should have as little contact with baby birds as possible but hey, they won't survive without a little interaction. On top of all that P.Diddy seems to have something wrong with her little, skinny pins. Whereas he is screaming around all over the place like a feathered Lindford Christie, she is having trouble putting weight onto her legs and spends most of her time shuffling around on her haunches. If it hasn't improved we may have to take her to the vets and get them to have a look. She may have hurt herself falling out of their original nest, not having parachutes and all!

Anyway, Laura has found this font of all knowledge in the Pigeon world, Mr Alan Bamford of Bamfords Bird Foods. What a lovely man he is and he is so helpful with anything we don't know about our two adoptees. Have faith Alan, Laura is a girl that has raised everything from Spider Monkeys to Weasels and Magpies in her various roles through life. They will be released once they are strong enough, we have the technology to build the worlds first bionic pigeon.

Have to go as i can hear two hungry little birds Squeaking for their dinner. Once they have eaten they positively run and climb into our hands where, cupped, they fall asleep! aaahhhhh! they really are cute.

Cats Do Go To Heaven...

A very sad event occured at the TTMYGO Office this week. Our beloved cat Topaz, (or stooby, soo or stube as he was variously called), after a short battle with the evil Big C was blessfully put to sleep on Thursday. After 20 years of being around EVERYWHERE Laura (director of TTMYGO) has been, with not a single visit to the vets, he suddenly and quickly became very poorly and after a traumatic few last days for us and him, our very compassionate and capable vet Ivan came to the house and we let him go.

Some of you will wonder why this is such a big deal, for most of you it will strike a cord and be familiar. For those who have this yet to come and it is inevitable, one piece of advice that we take away from this is that no matter how much your heart and soul is hurting at the possibility of losing a beloved 'friend', if they are clearly unwell from something that they won't recover from, then letting them go to sleep is the most important thing that you can do for them at that time. There is also no need to create more stress and anguish by taking them to the surgery. Booking an appointment for your vet to visit you at home, although more expensive, is a wonderful way to have it done for your pet and for you. For animals there is no need for suffering like humans, a gentle and dignified release is an option and we are sure that if they could speak they would say thank you.

Hopefully you will appreciate how we felt and feel now, there is a noticeable gap in our lives. We don't want to be sad about it anymore and don't want to make you sad but it was important that he was mentioned as he touched a lot of lives and left footprints in many hearts. Our beautiful boy.
Laura Wrote Topaz this poem:

Goodbye Topaz my Pooka – September 21st 2006
So here we are my beautiful old feline friend
You’re tired and weary and at your journey’s end
Nearly twenty years have passed since I kissed your kitten head
and let you sleep contented next to me, purring in my bed

Each day you’ve been there with your soft smiling face
You’re everywhere I‘ve ever been, in your special place
Never like a true cat, your Pooka light shone through
But now it glows so faintly I know its time for you

I’ll treasure each memory of your crazy summer days
Full of purring, scratching, shifting coat and happy playful ways
Up the trees and after birds and needing lots of love
I hope cat heaven has lots of things to chase there up above

Stooby, Stu, and even Sue we’ve named you off and on
We’d call ‘stooby’ out the door and sure enough you’d come
Your gorgeous chubby frame full of love and light
is how I’ll always think of you when I miss you day and night

Without words I’ve always ‘heard you’ through your eyes
Happy, sad, angry, sick, your eyes have never lied
So without words I have to let you leave me here
But you will know from my heart my love to you is clear

So sleep my darling Topaz lay your head on the floor
Dream of bathing in the sun whilst I hold your paw
Let the pain leave you, run off in fields of light
I will be here until your gone, it will be alright

You’ve been my special Pooka for such a long time
Today you leave a gaping hole in this heart of mine
But part of me is happy as I know your life’s been great
and you and I will meet again my furry soul mate

Topaz - December 1986 - September 2006

Stop The Pigeon!

Hi there people,

Well this is the first blog of many from 'Things That Make You Go Ooo!' which we thought we would do as an extension to our Fab Web store www.ttmygo.co.uk. I thought about doing a welcome post but then thought, Naaaah!. What we want is Ooo! so i will just get cracking straight away with this completely mad occurence that has literally 'flown' into Ooo! HQ.

Some 'friends' of ours called with a mercy mission because they knew of the 'extreme' wildlife background of one of our team. They had come across a small box which had been kicked around by the rowdies in Windsor town center all night and had somehow, somewhat fortunately, landed on the doorstep of a design firm called 'Vibrandt'. To the surprise of the girls that opened it in the morning, expecting to find a half eaten kebab and some random item of clothing, they were greeted by the terrified squeaking of two VERY young, very scared, very poorly baby Pigeons.

Into the building went the box and all the girls...

lots of "Oooohhing" and "Aaahhhing"

...because they are actually really cute, all the boys hackling to get rid of the "verminous little creatures!" (Nasty Them!). Calls went out for "worms", (for the record don't ever feed a baby bird a worm, it is likely to want to make friends with it, imprint on it as its mother or choke when you try and force it into its little beak!) and then Laura who is a female, Steve Irwin'esque (RIP) lover of all things living. By this time the girls had also recalled the RSPCA who, and this is quite normal because of the sheer number of pigeons they get calls about, would have just put them to sleep!!!!!

So RSPCA sent on their way and into the hands of the 'Bird Lady Of Windsor'. In the box they were and back to Ooo! HQ they came. We couldn't see them destitute and motherless now, even if they are pigeons, as everything deserves a life we think you'll agree. Now the question was how did we feed these little bundles of fluff? Well believe it or not Laura has actually done this before and she has a proven technique for feeding these hungry little critters. It is called the 'Blue Mama'. Basically what it is is a kitchen sponge braced in a frame of cardboard with a slit cut in it about 1 inch long.

What happens is that a baby bird normally puts its beak into the mama birds beak and she, you're going to like this, basically pukes food down its throat. In the Pigeon world it's called Pigeon Milk. Nice!

Anyway, so we have this 'Blue Mama' (we have attached some pictures for you) and we have some 'sma' new baby milk and some organic baby egg custard.

"Oh it's good isn't it?"

With a small plastic syringe (without the needle i might add), we have to draw the milk into the tube, put the syringe in some hot water to make the milk warm (temperature same for a humanoid baby), and encourage the babies to put their beaks through the 'Blue Mama'. It took a lot of persaverance but eventually BOTH of the little fluff balls did it. Beaks through, big wide gape and empty the syringe gently into the back of their throats.













After much reading on the internet we learnt that you have to be careful of a little hole at the back of their beaks which apparently leads straight to their little lungs. Get food in there and they are done for! Luckily we haven't so far and they are doing OK! HURRAH! HURRAH! HAURRAH! So we are just about to put them to bed, (oh yes, to bed!), and see what the next installment brings...