Habib's Story, Part 1: The Preface

Some of you will remember this post about saying goodbye to our bird, cats, and dog back in Texas.  Just looking at their pictures still makes my heart ache, and in some strange way is the most vivid reminder of the huge changes we've made to our lives.  When we see P & B online, the one cat (Shady) is often in the background, and just seeing her perched in the window gives me such comfort.  We're also lucky that the dog is with the Sante Fe Sisters, so we can sometimes see his drooling snorting bundle of energy and stink, too.  (Nelson has been entered into a beauty contest?!?)  We know all of our creatures are well loved, but the distance is still difficult.

So in the midst of the trip taking the dog to Santa Fe and during the painful goodbyes for the bird and the cats, John and I thought of what we would do about pets here in Doha.  I am just not a dog fan...I don't like being followed around or the natural "eau de doggie" that is a part of having one (and I'm not talking dog farts...I'm talking about the fur and funk smell that is just normal).  John generously tolerates my cats, but they are not his favorite either.  The litter boxes have a significant stench, and the cat hair is all over everything...these things are the bane of living with the felines.  We had a large fish tank for a while, in fact at one point we had two, but that is a lot of work as well.

So the only thing we can really agree on, in terms of entertainment, love, and work, is a bird.  We loved El Jefe, and he was such a low-maintenance creature.  He was happy to sit and watch the household chaos, and he was so tame...no biting for me or John and some predictable body language with others.  He and I had special whistles we would call to one other, and he loved to sit on my shoulder and preen my hair.  I could scratch his head and preen his pin feathers and handle him in almost any way and he completely trusted me.  His cage was a mess, and he had a daily screeching period around 5:30-6 PM (right when I'm cooking dinner), but overall, he was a great pet.  And since we raised him, we had a special attachment to him.

Prior to El Jefe was Cosmo, whom some of you will remember well.  Cosmo was a Congo African Grey, who lived with us before we had kids.  Cosmo could talk up a storm, and we had years of serious laughter with that bird.  To this day, the stories make us laugh all over again.  Cosmo was not hand-trained.  He had a history that we didn't know but was probably wild-caught in the 1980's. After he bit a hole in my lip, we stopped with the kisses, too.  I finally got him to trust me enough to step on my hand when I had a hankerchief wrapped around it for protection...and he and I felt like we had accomplished a huge feat.

So when John and I considered what sort of pet we would have in Doha, we both longed to have an African Grey again.  This time, we said, we would get a very young bird from a breeder.  We would hand-tame him to trust us.   We would take care of the paperwork on this end (verifying captive breeding, etc.) early, so getting him back to the US would be no issue. We would keep him with us forever (a 30-50 year life span).  Maybe buying one here would even be a little less expensive, since we are closer to their native lands.

And then we learned about the pet situation in Qatar...

Cats: Love of cats goes back to ancient times here.  The Prophet Mohammad showed kindness to a cat who was asleep on his prayer mat.  Cats can find tiny shady spots and can be independent.  So cats fit into the history and rhythm of this region.  They have more angular faces and are typically long and thin (even when relatively healthy).  We could adopt a great indoor or outdoor cat in a heartbeat.  Getting a cat home to the US requires only a vet certificate and a carry-on cage.

But we had agreed not to have a cat.

Dogs: Qatar tolerates many dog breeds and are even proud of the desert Salukis (who can outrun a Greyhound).  They have a list of those who are not welcome in the country, typically because of rumors related to being fierce.  Nelson would not have been welcome in Qatar, but with his short nasal track and propensity to overheat, he would not have done well here anyway.  Lots of Westerners here have dogs.  Adopting a dog would be no problem.  Getting a dog back to the West requires only a vet certificate and airline fees.

But we had agreed not to have a dog.

Birds: Bird breeders are non-existent in Doha, at least as far as I have been able to find from talking to pet owners and local veterinarians and from looking online...and I mean HOURS searching online.  Birds are still imported or perhaps bred by the most questionable means--this is not a good place to be a bird.  Below is a picture from Souq Waqif in the pet area.  There are at least a dozen pet "stores" which are small stalls (air-conditioned inside but open to the brutal summer heat), and they keep/display their animals mostly in crowded cages like these.  Cages will be full of birds or cats or rabbits.  You do see dogs in cages, but either only littermates or single dogs.  Some of the larger birds are chained to bird trees/perches where they can be fed sunflower seeds.  The cages *are* generally clean and have some sort of food/water, but overall this is bad especially in the heat.  For cats and dogs, there is the Qatar Animal Welfare Society as well as vets who will help find adoptive homes, but the souq or a few similar independent "pet shops" are the only place to find a bird in Doha...

A home just doesn't feel complete to me without a creature.  So after our initial week of getting settled, I started excitedly seeking info about birds...that turned into obsessively trying to find ANY legitimate sources for birds (even in neighboring countries)...and that turned into a feeling of depressed disappointment that the only source of a bird would be through the questionable (illegal? ethical? even passably humane?) markets above.  And then the bird might be sick.  Or totally wild and freaked out.

With no help from any of the sources I mentioned above, I found one last potential idea.  A woman with the username Vee had been active in an online discussion forum about African Greys.  Her location was listed as "Doha, Qatar."  Maybe she would give me some advice?