Sophie’s Song – I’m home (“Appendix”)

Hello dear fellow pigeon(friend), as most of you likely know, most of the time I myself (Sophie) do all the postings, comments etc. However since this is an ‘appendix’ for a more serious project my pet human (aka Dad) has worked on, I’ll give him the keyboard for this this post🥰

So keep in mind: All the things said, posted etc here are my dad’s opinion, and they might be a “bit” more direct than what you might usually see from me (doesn’t mean I don’t agree with dad though, but he could be a bit more subtle sometimes right?😉🤷🏽‍♀️).

See you next time dear friend, from here on it’s ‘Dad writing’🥰🕊️🪶

P.S: The Music Video this entire post is about can be seen here: Sophie’s Song – I’m Home

IMPORTANT: This blog post is intended as ‘appendix’/additional information to Sophie’s Song – I’m Home

The title of this section basically says it all already 😉, the song I’m talking about can be found on Sophie’s YouTube channel here.
And I also recommend you to watch that video before you read the rest of this post, since without having seen that (music) video, this post doesn’t make much sense to most😉, or some sections could even look quite blunt in this post 🤷🏽‍♀️😂

Why The Music Video?

Well very simple: I wanted to put Sophie’s summarized story into a short music video, explaining and showing she is having a great time as a non releasable rescue pigeon while living at our home, while also being (a bit) educational on why she uses a leash outside, that she isn’t just “a random pet” or anything like that.

From time to time we get someone on the street make a comment like that it’s “Animal Abuse” that we have a bird on a leash, that it’s cruel etc. And I kid you not, we even had one “slightly mentally incapacitated” person (yes that is meant as insult) actually threaten us with death, saying he would get a gun and come back for us etc etc.. NOTE: We live in The Netherlands, while those remarks are already absurd in the United States, they are even totally next level idiocy here to be honest🤷🏽‍♀️

And even when I still try to stay polite to those people saying its cruel, and try to explain while they yell “set her free, it’s cruel!”, that setting her “free” is actually the REAL cruel part because she most likely won’t survive more than a couple days. They just stick soooo much to their uneducated opinion, that I “had enough” and decided to make a “slap in their face song” about it🤷🏽‍♀️😂.

Format of the Rest Of This Post

The rest of this post will have ‘small chapters/sections’ which directly relate to sections in the video, and thus are basically the ‘additional information’ I’ve mentioned at the start of the video.

My Life Didn’t Start Like A Dream (the start of the video)

Sophie was basically rescued from a horrible breeder situation (shutdown now luckily), of which I will not go too much into detail since that’s in the past, and like said in the video (and many times on her socials); I don’t need (or want) to get “special internet attention” from a ‘sad recovery story‘ while showing pictures and/of videos of Sophie being in a horribly underweight, dirty and wounded state, just so we can get some ‘sadness likes’. It absolutely pisses me off how much this is a “trend” lately btw, just help those poor animals instead of filming and uploading it damn it. (Not even mentioning the a-holes who actually put animals in such a position just to get view like that😡)

A very brief summary of what was wrong with her when we got her: She had been crammed in a small box with 5 to 6 other pigeons for approximately 3-5 months, her wings where damaged, she could barely open them (like they where all stiff), she limped instead of walking, was severely underweight and extremely dirty (where quite a few feathers where in such a rough shape that we could do nothing else than wait out until the next mold😞).

Basically put; she was in such a rough shape that the initial vet (NOT her current one!) even said: “Well that in is in such a bad shape, it most likely won’t make it anyway“. Yes, recovering her did cost a lot of time, dedication and money, but we don’t care. It was worth it.

So that’s all I’m going to post on it, will not touch that topic again, it still sickens me thinking about what shape she was in when we got her, and this part might even be redacted again (thinned out) in the future since I’m still not sure I do want to leave it up here to be honest. But considering I quite had it with all the know-it-all people “yelling” ‘set her free’, while clearly having no clue about what type of bird she is, where she came from, and that those are most likely also the same people whom will say “Ewww leave it” to their kid when they see a wounded bird on the street. I think it’s (unfortunately) a necessity to put this information more openly on here.

Mama Held me Soft and Close, Papa worked to mend to what broke…

That part directly refers to the love, care and attention we gave Sophie during her recovery with us. Obviously that included (as seen in the video) getting her to bathe (for the first time), and exercising her (wing) muscles and reflexes etc. But it also meant getting to eat proper food, learning her to trust us etc. In the early days she was very terrified of about everything, and at some point even of being left alone (at night). During those days I even spend multiple nights sleeping next to her (recovery) cage. Until I during the second week or so noticed some ‘soft dribble’ in her cage, when I saw that she had came to the bars of the cage and actually loafed (lay down) as close as possible to me. From this point on her trust started to grow very fast. IMPORTANT NOTE HERE: This is not a guarantee that this will work for every bird, I had never seen it happen like we’ve seen with Sophie, but it might be a helpful thing to do when trying to recover a traumatized bird (which is NOT meant to be rehabilitated for release outside!).

Didn’t need a flock to find my song/I don’t do well with other birds

This is mentioned in several sections of the video (also because of the ‘she needs a mate’ professional commenters for example😉) in various ways. But I do want to clarify that we have made attempts to introduce a buddy (or two) for Sophie, but that only turns into extreme hostility (and I mean VERY extreme hostility). Most might not expect it, but pigeons can actually do quite a lot of damage to each other!

Me and her (avian!) vet concluded that she had chosen to bond with me (“her Dad”) during her recovery and therapy period, I did not enforced this in any way though. But due to the large amount of attention, handling, feeding etc etc, she most likely ‘picked me’ due to that. We (me and the vet) also suspect that it’s partially fault of the breeder due to the way he ‘hand raised’ them to “make perfect pets”🤦🏽‍♀️ (but that’s a story for maybe another day).

We tried to get her to connect with another bird/other birds, to unbond her etc… but this bird just isn’t having it, and honestly I don’t care about arguing with people against us deciding to ‘give up’ on this pairing for her. She’s happy, energetic and show no signs of loneliness, depression, aggression or anything alike.

So we (again me and the vet), came to the conclusion that it would be cruel to Sophie to ‘divorce her’ again from me since it would basically mean ‘ignoring’ her for possibly months while she keeps calling for me (please just google if you want to know what it exactly takes though), and that she will do perfectly fine while being bonded to me. Do keep in mind though that I work from home, so Sophie can be around me all day long. If I go somewhere? Sophie tags along. So for her it’s perfectly okay. Do not worry about this, I could list at least 4 videos of other people who initially had one pigeon and then got a second as a ‘mate for the other’, but in the end both pigeons decided to ‘bond with the human’ instead. And thus resulting in ‘fighting for attention’. This is something which unfortunately does happen. But as you could have seen in the video (and the other video’s of Sophie): She’s a perfectly happy and curious pigeon 😊.

Scooter?, TV?, Fallout Bed?😳🤔

Yes, indeed. I’ve build a scooter (with custom electronics/controls) for our pigeon🤷🏽‍♀️😂. Sophie as a ‘slightly detailed’ blog post about this Scooter build, but I’m planning to also make a second (improved) version which I intend to share completely for free as ‘open-source-project’ in the future. I also have a Sophie Shorts (from the days she still ‘shared my YouTube Channel‘) on my YouTube where she briefly explains WHY I build that scooter for her.

TV? Yup, she has her own DVD player, her own ‘mini beamer’ (might be part of future content, or not, not sure yet), and she also has a TV in her own bedroom (which WILL be part of a future project I still need to edit). Sophie LOVES to watch TV, and her favorite movie is Rio (not kidding😂), and Penguins from Madagascar🤷🏽‍♀️

Fallout Bed?
Yup, indeed, a bed I completely designed from scratch and made 3D printable as a “Pigeon Sized IKEA like bed”😂. You can if you like see Sophie’s YouTube video about her bed here. And if you like to (3D print and) build one yourself you can watch the Tutorial on my YouTube channel here (which also includes the link to the free download of the files to make it😊)

I’m frequently designing and making more toys for Sophie and pigeons in general, NOT for ‘stupid likes’, but because in my opinion there are not enough toys for “pet” pigeons. Most toys they play with are either cat toys, dog toys or parrot stuff – which is in my opinion most of the time not suited for them – or in Sophie’s case she’s not even remotely interest in most of the bird toys (which can be seen in some of vlogs where we visit pet shops to look for new toys). Ow and those designs will in 99.9% of the cases even be 100% free downloads.

No cage for me? But I did see a cage at bed time!?

Ow yes, and you are absolutely right, that could be considered a cage. But it’s MUCH more than that (which I won’t and can’t spoil yet right now), but If you’ve seen that part, then you have also seen that she happily goes upstairs by herself when I say it’s bedtime, and that she also happily walks into it all by herself😊. That “cage”? That is her home, and she feels home there. During the day it’s always open, she can go there whenever she wants, although most of the time she spends downstairs during the day (in my office). No cage for me in the song/music video means that she is not a bird which is caged all day. She only goes into her bedroom at night for her own safety so she for example can’t hurt herself by doing (or eating) her ‘dodo things’😉😊. Hence why I also didn’t wrote that line (no cage for me) into the lyrics for the second time during that scene (to avoid confusion)😊.

OMG! You let her pluck your guitar!? That’s sooo toxic/dangerous!

Well first of: Thank you for “your professional internet opinion😉”. And secondly: No it’s not toxic. I use strings which do not use toxic coatings, chemicals or treatments (which most aren’t already tbh), especially for Sophie’s safety. And not because she could pluck the strings, but because such ‘contaminants’ could also transfer to my fingers while playing the guitar and then onto her. This is also the same reason I don’t use any fret board oils anymore on my guitars (yes, pigeon comes before guitars).

BUT! She could break the strings!!!
No she can’t! Unfortunately I (and many pigeon owners/parents a like) have to repeat this over and over on the internet: Pigeons are not parrots 😉. Their beak, the strength in their beak and the way how they use their beak is completely different from each other. Literally like day and night.
Even the High E would be very impressive if she would manage to break that one, that however doesn’t mean I don’t pay close attention to her when she occasionally want’s to “pluck with me” on the guitar. She (like many birds/animals) just absolutely loves it when I play guitar, from simple “cowboy chords” to metal or simple 1 to 4 string riffs🤷🏽‍♀️.

Isn’t that ‘disco’ a “but much” for Sophie (or overwhelming)?

Nope, I’m not going to make this a massive chapter, but she actually likes all the blinking, flicking and music (at SAFE LEVELS obviously!) and actually comes towards those ‘areas’. I might make a video about Sophie and her Disco in the future, but not sure yet. I do that stuff with her because she likes it, not because of “generating views”. Also do note that she can at all times leave the room, go to the hallway, her own room etc (the door is always open for her). Often she even comes ‘running in’ if she’s in another room and she notices the music and/or lights😂.

I briefly noticed Sophie sitting on your bike handle, is that a public project/product?

No, I have been thinking about publishing that custom pigeon bike handle bar perch (Called Sophie’s Bike Perch, or SBP for short) for years now (I designed it during the first year we got Sophie). But I’ve haven’t made up my mind yet IF I’m ever going to post it to be honest, sorry. The reason for this is that there are waaaaay to many people on the internet who just ‘copy-paste’ things 1:1 from social media and “apply” that to their pets. And using such a bike perch requires good training, trust and A LOT of safety awareness. I just don’t want to risk it that a “TikTok Mom” download and 3D prints my perch design ‘to be cool on TikTok’ and then goes outside with her pigeon on it, just for it to land up mangled between her front wheel because she wasn’t patient enough to do proper training.

What’s the harness/Leash I keep seeing in the video?

Great question, short answer😉: It’s a custom pigeon harness and leash system I’ve designed (yet again) specifically for pigeons, and you can find the whole tutorial about that system at Sophie’s YouTube page here. And there you can even find links to buy them pre-made from a nice lady who decided to adopt my Sophie Design (with permission obviously).

I’d play with dogs and cars? WHUT😳?

Yes, I wish I was kidding in this part or that it was dramatization “for the video”🤦🏽‍♀️. But unfortunately Sophie has had more than one occasion where she just runs (or tries to) straight up to dogs, or even tries to fly towards them to either play or FIGHT 😳🤯 them. We jokingly call that her “T-Rex Complex“, but as you can imagine that is NOT safe at all. She doesn’t do it with all (types) of dogs, but anything which looks “fluffy fur”? It’s a “target” or play buddy for her. And the cars part? YES… Several times now she tried to “block” cars when we are walking with her in our street, but just standing infront of them and then for example opening her wings to ‘threaten’ them🤷🏽‍♀️. We have no clue why she even does this, but this is yet again a serious safety problem obviously.

Did I really noticed a couple photo’s where Sophie is flying without a leash!?

Yes you did, and NO I would never recommend ANYONE to do that with a rescue, pet, non-releasable or ANY other type of pet bird! That day when I was taking photo’s of her, I wanted to switch to the longer line, but with my stupid ass I accidentally hooked the two lines together instead of one to her harness🤷🏽‍♀️😂. But since she flew off anyway when I let her go (didn’t noticed the mistake yet), I decided to just keep making pictures, since there is nothing I can do while she’s airborne🤷🏽‍♀️. But now I also decided to prove a point: No, she will not fly away if I take away the leash.

Another reason why a leash is VERY important for “pet” (I hate that word tbh) pigeons, is predator birds like Falcons etc. Unfortunately I could list about 8 to 10 accounts on Instagram alone where the last post now is a “…… Missing, please help find…..“. All pigeons where the weeks leading up to that post they so “awesomely” posted things like: “Look at how cool my pigeon stays with me“, “Look how confident I am with my pigeon outside” etc etc… NOPE. That bird (especially if raised from a young age) is NOT capable of surviving outside, lots of pigeons DO NOT have a homing instinct, and they absolutely don’t know where they are going when to go into panic mode due to a falcon/hawk chasing them for example. You should ONLY let your birds free flight if you are ABSOLUTELY certain what you are doing (and not “internet/TikTok educated”).

But I also seen some scenes where Sophie is sitting or flying quite far away from you in the video(s)?!

Yups, you are absolutely correct. And that is (even with a leash) a slight risk. But that is a risk I’m willing to take, to be able to still let her be a ‘normal bird’ as much as possible. Or would you say it’s better/safer to just put her in a closed basket or to not let her outside at all anymore😉? (Yeah, think about that cruelty “release-her-from-that-leash-people”)😉.

But in all seriousness, when we let Sophie fly we are most of the time with two people where one has full focus/attention on Sophie, and the other constantly keeps an ‘eye in the sky’ (literally) to scan for possible dangers. We also know which area’s are relatively safe in our region for her. It does however (indeed) doesn’t mean there is 0% risk. But that risk is taken with serious considerations of her quality of life. And most of the time we do keep her relatively close to us. Small disclaimer though: Keeping your pigeon/bird close to you is NOT a guarantee it’s safe! There have been cases where even a large parrot was snatched from someones shoulder by a predator bird. So PLEASE be careful and vigilant at all times!

Some questions or comments people might have

Does Sophie actually like it when you take her to all those places?
Yes, we can actually see (and even hear, due to purring) her excitement and curiosity when we go visit a new place with her, like for example the airport. If we notice (or even think) she doesn’t like something we won’t do it (obviously!).
Q: So are you visiting those places ‘just for content’?
A: Let me settle that once and for all in regards to Sophie’s content: No! I don’t give a pigeons-ass about the views, likes or whatever in regards to her content😉. I DO care about bringing joy to other pigeon enthusiasts, owners, re-habbers and people alike by sharing Sophie’s fun and adventures with them online. And SURE, It would be freaking epic IF we eventually could hang a Play Button above her bedroom with her name on it for something she has achieved by sharing her joy… But that’s NOT why I’m uploading content or making the trips with her. We have made SOOOOOOOO many trips (and even videos of them) with Sophie which will never be uploaded at all. NOT because I think they are ‘too much’, or that they are ‘too crappy for views’, just because those are trips me and my wife made with Sophie and for Sophie, while having fun with her. Not everything needs to be on the internet for a couple more meaningless thumbs up or ❤️, right?🤷🏽‍♀️.

I’m a bird/pigeon owner/parent/rehabber/vet etc etc and Don’t agree with your views/way of doing things
Perfectly fine, because we all do things (a bit) differently for our feathered friends. And I don’t really care if someone does things differently than we do, as long as it’s in the best interest for their animals. What I do care about if that Sophie is happy, that she is treated well, being fed well, that she is kept healthy and gets proper medical care when needed, and that she get the attention and exercise she needs. Sophie gets to go outside, fly outside and see much more things of the world than MANY other rescue (or even pet) birds, and that is what counts to me: Her well being and feelings.

I’m not a pigeon owner/parent, but I have and always have had parrots, so please listen because……
NO… NO! STOP! I have nothing against parrots, at all, what I do have something against is that there is a large group of parrot owners online who constantly force their rules for parrot keeping, upon pigeons. I will be very brief and short here: Pigeons are not parrots and vice versa. Yes there are some similarities, but for the majority they are completely different type of birds. Simply put: Almost like comparing a wolf with a dog because they both have 4 legs and a tail🤷🏽‍♀️. Me and my wife have had parrots (several species), we know the difference, appreciate your attempt to help, but please stop comparing pigeons with parrots 😊.

I Don’t have any birds or so but I think you are wrong.. and you should… (My final, more personal rant😂)
Well if you still say that after the video explaining it, after this post and after everything you should now know about non-releasable rescue pigeons: GTFO🤷🏽‍♀️😂 I’m serious though. Because I absolutely don’t care about your opinion then. Sophie is being treated extremely well, gets A LOT more attention than most people even give (or can give) to their own kids (not kidding!). She is registered at the best avian vet of our country (which is literally a cross-country drive for us to get her the best possible care when needed), and she has a secondary vet for immediate emergencies in our hometown. With both her avian vets I frequently consult if we want to try something new, or if I for example want to share care tips for other bird owners. NOT because we don’t know, but because we want to be responsible and double check the information we’re spreading (unlike the majority of social media). So please, if you have an (annoying and uneducated) opinion about Sophie, that she for example needs to be “free outside” etc… Please stop being a Karen and spend a little bit time in actually learning about these amazing birds, their history and what humans have been doing to them without you being their to “protect them”. Then while your at it, also make sure to check the life expectancy for a pigeon “in the wild” vs when it’s living in a coup or even as household animal. YES, that can be a difference from just a few years to multiple decades! And as bonus then also add the color white and fancy pigeon to your “life expectancy in the wild research“. It might shock you to learn that pigeons like Sophie usually don’t do well, nor live long when being “freed”.

Yes, I do realize that the last one is a “bit” more direct and blunt, but you have read what some say to us, so I don’t give a damn on how I put it here to be honest, because it’s aimed at exactly those same people😉😂.

Thanks for reading

Thank you for taking the time to read it all if you made it all up to here🥰😂. I might have forgotten something, explained something a bit unclear or anything alike, if so just let me know by leaving a comment either here or on the music video 😊. As you might be able to understand, this is basically a “one-time-response-and-rant” about this topic and the behavior of some people. So please keep that in mind, because we do value all other people, their interest and the love they have for these amazingly sweet, intelligent and beautiful birds🥰.