SAUGUS — A 47-year-old parrot is on the mend in Saugus.
Joey, the yellow-naped Amazon, who has lived with the Perry family on Prankers Road for more than three decades, suffered an injury to her foot that caused excessive bleeding.
“The vet said that because of her age — it’s almost like us as elderly — our skin thins,” said Lucia Perry. “They feel it’s a possibility what happened was her skin was thin and she may have picked at it.”
Lucia and her husband Bob found Joey squawking on the bottom of her cage with her foot stuck beneath a plastic lining of the cage. Even after 32 years with the family, the stout green bird does not like men, and would not allow Bob to help her, said Lucia.
“The blood was just spurting out,” she said.
The couple took her to Angell Animal Medical Center in Jamaica Plain, where two female veterinarians specialize in helping birds, and she was treated for two days before she returned home with a large plastic collar to keep her from picking at her wound.
Joey is expected to make a full recovery and Bob and Lucia said she will be treated with a shower in the sink, which is her favorite thing to do when she sees its raining outside.
Joey, short for Josephine, lived in three homes before she landed with the Perrys. They believe one of her prior owners, a male, abused her.
When the family took her home in 1986, Lucia said her son touched the bird’s beak and mouth and it bit him the first week. Joey held a grudge and, to this day, when she hears his car engine in the driveway, she growls.
Over the years, her vocabulary has grown to include a small collection of words and phrases. She loves to sing and once belted out all of Amazing Grace. She says “hello,” “Bob,” and laughs when the conversation around her warrants it.
The couple expects Joey will have her cone removed next week and she will live to be 65 to 75.
