No matter how cute you think it is, no matter if you claim your cat is the sweetest cat to ever exist, no matter if you say you know your animals…DO NOT MIX PREDATOR AND PREY.
This issue makes me want to bang my head against the wall.
It only takes a second for something to go wrong, even if you are supervising. Your dog might only be playing and bat at, step on, or bite your bird and injure it. Or maybe your cat is having a bad day and swipes at your bird.
Not only is this mix of predator and prey dangerous for size reasons (your dog or cat can easily crush your bird, break a bone, cause internal damage), but dog and cat saliva is dangerous for birds. Even if the bird is not bitten, the bird could ingest the saliva while preening. Let’s say the bird is injured and bleeding…birds bleed out very quickly. If you don’t get to a vet immediately, between the bleeding and bacteria in saliva, your bird likely won’t make it.
There is simply no way to justify letting dogs and cats interact with birds. If nothing has ever happened to you, then you can consider yourself lucky and stop doing it before something does happen.
Part of the reason I’m writing this is because I’m in many bird groups online and constantly people are posting that their bird was killed by their dog/cat…and then a few scrolls down people are posting pictures of the birds next to their dog’s/cat’s mouth.
This is not complicated. Just don’t do it, and it won’t happen.
Today I saw a post of two parakeets directly in front of the mouth of a cat. Once the original poster got backlash, she posted an image of a baby with her birds and captioned it, “OMG THIS MONSTER IS GOING TO KILL MY BIRDS!“
Well…yes. Babies ARE capable of killing your birds. So while I’m at it, YOUNG CHILDREN need to be supervised when around birds. And, if applicable, bird cages should be CHILD PROOFED so toddlers/young children cannot open the cages on their own.
Start with prevention. Don’t wait for something to happen. Learn the dangers and learn from other people’s mistakes or carelessness.
Seriously. We have a super laidback dog. Never shown any real interest in chasing anything or biting at things. But we still keep them well separated. Cause all it takes is one startled snap or jump and we’ve lost a bird.
Don’t gamble with your animals’ lives because the pictures are cute.
Flock of Wolfes 