The Lhasa Apso is considered by some breeders to be more stubborn and difficult to train than other dogs. Do not let all that cuteness give you wrong impression as they are little lion dogs after all. This breed has been revered and highly regarded for centuries in Asia. The genetics may have resulted in some arrogance in them. One must be assertive in proper training of Lhasa Apso as this breed will test new master. Lhasa Apsos are completely loyal and affectionate with their masters but many will not be fond of strangers no matter how obedient they are. This may be part of their watch dog tendency. One of my Lhasa Apsos was quite friendly with visitors but other one wouldn’t even acknowledge their presence.

The breed may also not be appropriate with small children. Small children may get clumsy and accidentally poke Lhasas in eyes or squeeze them too hard. Lhasas will not take this behavior lightly as they are not as patient with kids compared to say Labrador retrievers. Some Lhasas have been known to bite clumsy kids. Lhasa Apso dogs can be very good with children as long as they are treated with respect and care.

Despite these characteristics of Lhasa Apso, they are excellent dogs to have as they can be one of most loyal companions as long as it is recognized that they are high maintenance and may not be suitable for some families.

Talking abilities Generally many parrot will able to mimic. This is not happen to every individual birds but lots of them do. The main different among one species and other is clearity of their voice. Normally big parrot will be easier to train to talk and will have clearer voice. Among best talker known at this time is African Grey Parrot, Eclectus parrot and Amazon parrot. Cockatoos and macaw family also talk but they are not rank in top talker bird. In small parrot category, cockatiel is one of parrot that have ability to talk (mimic). Many will learn how to say ‘hello’ and some other phrase which will depend on training given by owner. Based on my reading, species of parrot that hold records of most vocabulary ( english word) is budgies ! strange right, as many will think it should be from big parrot family.

I have raised many baby cockatiel and most of them have gone to other good house. There are one individual who currently own by one of my friend which able to mimic ‘hello’. This particular cockatiel name ‘Cupid’, and is less than a year when he mimic that word. If cockatiel is a handfed baby, they are friendly and more trainable. They are more likely to mimic if owner spend proper time with them everyday.

Good personality Human have kept parrot since long time. However, in early stage most of parrot is from wild cought. Only few that is captive breed. Later, aviculturist is growing and more parrot are produce in captivity. I believed now some of species that we keep today is totally from captive breed stock and not from wild cought anymore. However, most of parrot is still exotic and their personality is either still similar to their cousin in wild or they are still not domesticated. I believed that there are many parrot out there in market that didn’t have good personality or friendly behaviour.

As far as my experience with my cockatiel, which I believed is more than 100 individual bird (many of them have been sent to good home), I think cockatiel have good, calm and friendly personality. Cockatiel rarely bullies other birds even smaller species. (provided that they are house in good home and good environment). They normally charge to people to bite.

Cockatiel also not very moody whereby if cockatiel is tame, it will be tame. I mean it will not act like a good boy in front of you and bite you if you didn’t look at them! Yes, some parrot do this… when you look at them they may stay still but once you didn’t look they come and bite you and they bite hard! Having said this, if cockatiel is not tame, they will still bite us if we try to catch him.

Cockatiel rarely have mean personality. Most of cockatiel is friendly, (but some individual is more friendly than other). Handfed cockatiel will still become a tame pet birds even after few year we put them in breeding stock. However, it must be given some time to be used to us again.

Small and compact in size. Many people likely to be attracted to large bird or parrot. Obvoiusly because they are big and look so grand. But while these species of parrot look very elegance, they also need lot of space to live happily. For some species of parrot, ten of feets of avairy is their minimum requirement for them to able to perform a healthy lifesyle. Therefore, in many cases many people will prefer to keep smaller species which similair behaviour or pet quality.

Cockatiel didn’t need a very big cage to live happily. A cage of about 3 feet is somehow can make birds flip their wings and stay healthy. Their cage also didn’t have to be very strong as they are not so destructive. When they are outside their cage, they are also didn’t create any damage to furniture.

To conclude, there are lots of pets parrot in market. However, for beginner I still recommend smaller species of parrot or birds. In these smaller species, definitely cockatiel bird is one of option that they should consider. For more information about pet cockatiel, please visit http://www.pet-cockatiel.com