BY J. COOPER-RILEY Special to the Voice
Just before Christmas 1980 we had to put down our first dog. It was devastating. As my parents had declared “no more dogs,” my mother and I gathered all of Scarlett’s belongings to donate to the Welland Humane Society.
The caretaker at the Humane Society was appreciative and when he heard the reason for the donation he sought to cheer me up. He took me to the back dog room and there was a crow in one of the cages. He explained that the crow had been brought to them injured and they were caring for him with the intention of releasing him at springtime. They named the crow Joe. The crow seemed quite alert and pleased to have an audience. He bobbed up and down as he kept a sharp eye on me. He was gorgeous. He did not seem to mind his roommates either. I suppose the cages helped.
Then the caretaker let me in on a secret. He laughingly told me that Joe had picked up a second language—he barked like a dog. Try as he might, Joe refused to “speak” so I never heard him bark. When my mother heard about this special guest, she immediately wanted to know if we could buy him. Answer, no. Joe would be released in the springtime. Time passes and by springtime I had forgotten about Joe.
One day in late spring I received a call from my best friend, Sandra, who was laughing hysterically. It seemed that her mother had a run in with a crow. Lida, Sandra’s mother, had gone to the backyard to hang laundry and locked the side door. As was her custom, she hid the key in the clothespin basket. Thinking her key safe, she continued to do other work in the yard and moved farther away from the basket.
Suddenly, Lida heard cawing and turned around to see a crow at the basket scattering clothespins about. She started toward the basket yelling at the crow but too late. The crow had found the shiny treasure and with it firmly gripped in his beak he joyfully took flight. Lida gave chase and to add insult to injury, this crow taunted her by flying low around the backyard just out of her reach. He then flew up to the neighbour’s roof and stared at Lida as he deftly dropped the key in the eaves then left.
Poor Lida was beside herself. She was locked out of the house with no way to retrieve her house key. Fortunately on this day, when her son Joe had left for his work shift, he failed to close the door properly so she was able to enter her home and was left to stew about the day’s event. I believe her husband eventually retrieved the key.
The crow became a neighbourhood fixture and was dubbed George. Throughout the season I would hear of George’s various antics. He was quite bold and had no fear of humans. Lida had not learned her lesson from her first encounter with George and the next time had to borrow a neighbour’s phone to call Sandra at work to come home and unlock the door. Humans, we never learn.
George would land nearby when Sandra or her brother were in the yard relaxing. On one occasion George picked up Joe’s lit cigarette from the ashtray and strutted about the yard with a smoking cigarette hanging out of his beak. Some of his behaviours were more destructive. For example, pulling all the wires off the neighbour’s motorcycle or following behind Julio, Sandra’s father, pulling out the plants as he placed them in the garden. Cheeky.
However, it was not until that one fateful day that I received a panicked phone call from Sandra that the pieces fell into place. “I think I’ve been in the sun too long and am having a stroke or something!”
“Whoa, slow down, what do you mean?”
Well, Sandra was in her backyard catching rays when she heard a dog barking. She sat up, looked around, and saw no dog, but George was hanging out with her. She lay back down and a few minutes later she heard a dog barking again. Again she sat up to look around and no dog, just George. The next time she heard a barking dog she actually got up and walked around her yard looking over fences to see if she could locate this dog. Nope, just her and George.
The barking started up again and she eyed George suspiciously. She could swear that his throat was moving as she heard the barking. Poor Sandra could not believe this was possible. That’s when I remembered the Welland Humane Society’s bird, Joe, and his special skill. I burst out laughing and told Sandra she did not have heatstroke nor was she losing her mind. She, in fact, had the Humane’s Society’s Joe the Crow, who had learned to bark while he overwintered in a back kennel with some canine companions. I’m not sure Sandra believed me, but she did calm down. This explained why George not only did not fear humans but even enjoyed their company. Plus the Humane Society was only a couple kilometres from Sandra’s home. Maybe nearer as the crow flies.
Eventually Julio decided George had to move. They managed to trap him and Julio drove him out to some Dunnville fields to release him. Our entertainment was gone.
Later that fall the news reported that a crow with a foul mouth had taken up residence in downtown Port Colborne and the citizens were complaining about his vocabulary. Port Colborne is roughly a half hour drive from Dunnville and I just had to wonder if this talented crow was none other then Joe/George.
