King Dik Dik

So King Dik Dik (named by my 6 yr old daughter because she loves animals & dik diks are little African Antelopes) lol

Anyhow..poor Dik Dik was left at an animal shelter. He was very 'aggressive' and the shelter was actually going to put him 'down'~ seriously!
My cousin fosters puppies for the shelter and rescued him & called me. lol
so after a 2 hr drive to get him, It has been interesting.

He isn't 'beautiful' like my 'Sunny'
he wasn't fed well, treated well and was probably never trained
He is rough around the edges and scrawny...BUT
We have had him for a month now., he is in a BIG cage w/ Sunny although they aren't friends. No fighting, just hissing & then they move away from each other.
Every day, probably a dozen times a day I go into the bird room and sit with my flock of 22 birds (12 parakeets, 7 finches (not counting babies) 2 cockatiels and 1 crazy love bird) Every day Dik Dik would hiss, and scream & every day I would talk softly and whistle tunes & tell him how pretty he was & what a good boy he was. LOL (had to lie alittle) Then...he started to watch me & listen. He started to whistle after I did & he's good at it! He started to get close to the cage nearest me and watch my face intently. Finally he started to eat some millet through the cage..with his head stretched as far as he could without getting too close then....he took a seed from my fingers..quickly! but not aggressively! AND when I offered him a bite of the hard cuban cracker...he took a piece that was too big and used his toes to take it out of his mouth and held it!!! and fed himself with his toes~ like a parrot! I have read that it is rare a cockatiel can do that, but dik dik is rare. lol
Then yesterday as I was sitting near the cage writing in my bird journal he whistled the exact tune I had been whistling to him for weeks. He isn't aggressive, he's just terrified! I can't imagine what he has been through & he's young yet but, there is hope and progress and I'm very, very patient.
below is our King Dik Dik looking better than he did when we first met him.

Aww,poor him.I bow down to your majesty!

Kudos to you on giving the poor guy a home! I must say, he is cute!::p

He's very cute. I do not recommend keeping lovebirds and cockatiels in the same cage. They are different species from different climates so they don't fit well together. Lovebirds have been known to be very feisty around other species and can seriously harm a mellow cockatiel. Just something to think about. Thank you for rescuing this bird in need!

I dont know where she said they were housed together?

Oh! I thought Sunny was the lovebird! My bad!

I was wondering I remembered the other tiel was Sunny!

Well, I for one think he is quite handsome!! I'm so glad you took him in and gave him a chance. He will surely come around soon and learn to trust you.

thank you
He actually WAS housed w/ the lovebird at the animal shelter which is one reason he was so terrified. I took both birds and immediately put them in different cages. The lovebird was VERY mean to him . Now the lovebird is a crazy bird that still tries to visit dik dik's cage when I let him out but he can't get to dik dik anymore . Just looks at him. Dik Dik is still afraid of him getting close to him.
And yes, you are correct, Sunny is my cinnamon cockatiel.