Rebecca Jean Stout
I adore animals and nature. I've always tried to make myself available to adovocate for animals and to support those that love them. Sharing that love and my experiences through the arts such as writing, photography and videography has brought me great joy.
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Today I am a retired freelance writer and photographer. Many international magazines have featured my articles and photos over the years. I am so grateful to entities such as Modern Ferret, Ferrets magazine, Ferrets USA, Birds magazine, Birds USA, Critters magazine, along with the various websites that have given me a voice over the years. I am very proud to have been able to contribute to Ferrets For Dummies (1 and 2). But I am most proud to have been able to share the story of my son, Sean, and his emergece from severe autism with the help of a little ferret named Rocky. Their story has been published in the books, God's Messengers and Angel Animals. Although Rocky has long since crossed Rainbow Bridge, he lives on through Sean and all of those that came to know him.
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An Unexpected Cureball In Life
Small animals and horses have always been in my life. You could always find an array of pets in my home and a host of outdoor visitors as well. But life played a cruel joke on me when I suddenly formed allergies and severe asthma to the furred ones. Even the ferrets that I was raised with over the course of decades put my health in danger. My life with the joyous little clowns, as an educator and rescuer of ferrets seemed to be over. I could not longer share my home with the many exotics that were my dear companions.
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The Little One That Started it all
Alas, I did find it to be true that when one door closes another opens. A little sparrow named Sqwee whom some neighborhood children saved and bought to us opened up the world of birds to us. I rescued several other wild birds along the way, but it was a brilliant little cockatiel named Sunny really changed our lives. My YouTube channel that featured family and pets morphed into one that focused on Sunny and the other birds that lived with us along the way.
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My Channel Goes Viral
One day, lightening struck. One of my videos of Onni went viral in a single night. Five days later there were nine millions hits on his video,"Onni Cockatoo and Got Your Nose game". This opened up the floodgates to the other videos on my YouTube channel. Soon the world fell in love with Onni and little Sunny. Onni became a hit on Rumble and other video platforms as well. Today my channel revolves around Onni. And it turns out so has our lives.
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Living With A Cockatoo
LIfe with a large male cockatoo is not easy. And for some, like us, it can be very hard. I would love to have more animals friends back in our home. I love so many other animal companions from insects all the way up to horses. But the truth is, Onni takes up all of our time. For a cockatoo to be truly healthy and happy, they need attention, enrichment and most of all out of cage time. Onni is not the type of bird that will happily munch on a nut on top of a perch or engage in other bird activies such as playing with toys. He doesn't seem to get along with any birds or anyone that takes our attention off of him. Onni's is a teenage white tornado that storms through the house. He is a 3 year old child on crack running around endlessly with a wood chipper capable of exerting 500+ PSI and a blow horn that reaches the same decibels as a jet engine. Every bird is different. We had a smaller cockatoo at one point who was quiet and well behaved. I was able to have many animals in the house, work as a writer, and do whatever else I wanted to in life while she stayed busy doing cockatoo things nearby. She was potty trained, even at strangers houses!
But that is not life with Onni. Life with Onni is explosive and unpredictable. It is beautiful and ugly. But he is ours. Ours fovever. And I hope by sharing him, he is all of ours forever.
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