We’re all guilty of it. Whether it be the exact time you like to leave the house in the morning, whether you put the milk or water first in your coffee, what side you lay on when trying to get to sleep or how you automatically put those four plates down for dinner when you know you’ll only need three tonight; we all have our quirky routines. They are hard to break, give us a sense of comfort in our day-to-day lives and are completely habitual. Have you ever woken up, got dressed, made breakfast, got half way down the road and thought “how did I get here”? I bet you have. Your movements are so effortlessly stereotyped that you move with ease, without even thinking about what you’re doing.
But you’re not the only one. Take my two Amazon Parrots, Eric and Ernie, for example: Day in day out they do their usual parrot-ness. Wake up at 6:30 am sharp, eat their fresh fruit and seeds, come out and play in their Wendy house, chatter under sheets of newspaper, climb around the cage and chew their toys before settling down to preen each other.
It must be love
However, they have created their own unique tendencies that I find hard to ignore. Being left alone while my mum does her daily tasks means singing along to their favourite music channel. If that music channel isn’t on, you will know about it. Thursday’s mean sitting on the windowsill with the curtain pulled back so Eric can say hello to his favourite dustman. If the phone rings, Eric will put on his best phone voice; but only to a real phone, not when Ernie is doing his ever so realistic impression which would quite easily fool any unsuspecting human. 8 o’clock means bedtime, but not before Eric has had a grape and Ernie a sip of water. Then, and only then, can they clamber into bed on their top perch and sit side by side; Eric on the left and Ernie on the right. (Who do they think they are, Ant and Dec?)
They amaze me every day with their intelligence and the sheer comfort they seem to take out of doing the same thing, in the same way, every day. It has recently been reported that a team at the University of Vienna put parrots to a test involving walnuts and opaque containers. A test that uses a great deal of logic and has baffled both monkeys and dogs previously. And guess what? The parrots passed with flying colours, if you’ll pardon the pun. In all seriousness though, a parrot’s intelligence has been compared to that of a three-year-old child. Now, I’m not a parent myself but my mum and Super Nanny assure me that children from an early age need a good routine. They pick up on good habits such as brushing their teeth morning and night, and start to instantaneously wash their hands after using the toilet. My parrots have clearly succumb to this idea of associations.
We can’t give them all the credit though. My dogs, Abbie and Pepe, are equally as easy to predict from their behavioural patterns. They seem to know exactly when their dinner times are and walk times are. ( Being a Lurcher and Greyhound they really don’t care for much else when they’re not asleep on the sofa). They have cleverly been able to associate my mum’s actions to what happens next. Getting up in the morning? Food. Putting make-up on? Walk. Flushing the toilet around half 2? Walk. Pepe in particular will impatiently sit behind my mum until she proceeds to her next task; which will involve him. Most astonishingly for me is that on hearing the Coronation Street theme tune for the second time they know it means it’s time to go out in the garden and have a gravy bone. They mainly do it for the treat of the gravy bone, but that’s not the point. They then proceed to wait to have their teeth brushed and then go straight up to bed.
Told you they were lazy
Though it’s not just our domestic pets that I have noticed to display such curious habits. White Cap is a regular visitor to our sunny Sussex garden. He turns up 3 times a day in fact, without so much of an invite. Distinguished through the distinctive white blob on top of his head, this peckish pigeon will feed on our bird table at every meal time, 7 days a week. We haven’t done anything in particular to make White Cap want to keep returning to our garden, but he does anyway. Perhaps it’s like his check point, where he knows he feels safe and can get a good feed at the same time. Or, as I mentioned earlier, he has probably got so used to popping by that he doesn’t even realise he’s doing it any more.
But where would we be without these habits? Our incredibly complex brains become so ingrained we are in fact, in a way, making things a little easier on ourselves and freeing up some useful brain power to think of more pressing things; like when you can next pop in to town to pick up those amazing shoes you saw last week. Right? Right. Though occasionally, we do set ourselves challenges to break a certain bad habit that we aren’t as pleased about possessing or we purposely break habits, such as going to bed later because it’s a weekend, almost as a treat or reward to ourselves.
So, whether you have four legs, two wings or a filthy shoe habit, we are all creatures and creatures of our habits and should be grateful for this impeccable skill we pay little attention to.
Oh, and in case you’re wondering: it’s the cheesy classic girl band songs that get Eric and Ernie going every time.
Paws for a thought 