Donate to Melanie's Journey of Animal Care and Recovery

Hello! My name is Melanie Canatella. I am 25 years old, and I am a professional exotic animal trainer and animal rescuer. I specialize in avian species, and since I worked at a rescue full time for 6 years, as well as continue to work for rescues with training their animals, I have accumulated a large flock of rescue parrots. I rescue parrots that no one else wants. My criteria is they have to be special needs, older, and have behavioral concerns. Because of my specialties with behavioral work, as well as vast experience with a large range of species and disabilities, I feel confident and like it is my duty to take in parrots that would not easily get adopted and save the adoptable animals for families who want their next companion.

Most of my parrots come from challenging backgrounds. I have birds that are inbred and deformed because a backyard breeder wanted a high yellow headed look in the bird. I have birds that ere locked in an extremely small cage for 25 plus years never taken out. I have a bird that almost killed two people literally. I take on hospice birds and love them for as long as they are with me. My animals are my entire life.

It does not end with parrots with me. All three of my dogs are also special needs. We call my Dachshund Roxie our million dollar baby because my family and I have easily invested close to $40,000.00 into her care over the years with battling spine injuries, crushing's, and other alignments. She is 13 and still thriving!

I have never asked for financial help like this in my life. Due to my background in rescue and a lot of volunteering, I always fundraise for nonprofits and truly people in need. When I was young, I helped volunteer at my churches pantry, I would volunteer at the Humane Society, and later worked at a rescue getting paid barely anything. However, with how my life is going right now, I have been told by many in my life, and supporters, that I am now that person in need.

December 4th, 2021, I was dead stopped at a red light in my 2009 Ford Ranger single cab truck with my Basset Hound Tootsie. We have bird chop with ingredients to help with heart conditions to feed my newest hospice bird Calvin who was in quarantine at my moms house (Calvin passed January of 2023). We left early that morning because my grandfather was in hospice care at my moms house, and the nurse said he was in active stages of dying, and he could pass at any moment. I went to say goodbye, bring my bird food to help with his rehabilitation, and I brought my dog for emotional support. Then, BAM. Someone was texting and driving going over 50mph (speeding) and hit me into an SUV in front of me. He did not attempt to stop. Tootsie's hind end hit the windshield, but thankfully she was alive due to her harness and seatbelt. I was alive, but I am forever disabled. I got multiple traumatic head injures, dyslexia, neck injuries, vision injuries, and debilitating migraines within a second. I never got to say goodbye to my grandfather. Because I went to the hospital, I got COVID soon after.

My life is now completely different, and I am limited in what I can do at such a young age. I have 13 animals in my care, and I was devastated at the fact that I may have to rehome some that are not easily adoptable for the average person. I worked hard with physical therapist, neurologist, ophthalmologist, endocrinologists, rheumatologist, pulmonologist, and other specialists to get me to a place of being functional. I have been able to continue the high quality care for my animals, but it is a great struggle for me to do.

I have developed systems that work for me that are a band aid fix to my issues. I live in noise reducing headphones to help my migraines with loud parrots. I developed better cleaning systems to not be such a strain on my body (though it still takes 13 hours of cleaning parrot cages alone per week). I started an internship program for my animal training business to educate others while also getting some extra hands. It still is not easy.

I recently got the opportunity to move houses. My pulmonologist and ENT advised me that I needed to decrease the amount of dust in my home because of last COVID issues and vocal chord dysfunction which causes breathing and wheezing issues. I already have window exhaust fans and air purifiers, but they needed more. The house I found is absolutely perfect for EVERYTHING I need now as being disabled to be successful.

First, I am converting the car port into a fully enclosed living space for the parrots. It will be a wet room, meaning I can use a hose and electric power washer in there all year round. This will dramatically cut down the amount of time it takes me to clean, the physical toll it takes on my body, the amount of dust for my lungs, and it will increase the birds quality of life. There will be drains in the floor, tons of windows for light, air purifiers and the exhaust fans, hanging tree jungle gyms like in my current house, and so much more! Connected to the room will be a netted walkway out to the back patio porch where half of the patio will be fully enclosed with netting to be a large outdoor aviary for all the birds.

Second, inside the house there is now a dishwasher. I spend an hour cleaning bowls every night for the animals by hand. My current house doesn't have a dishwasher, and it doesn't have room for one. My current house is very small, and the new house has a lot more room to move. This will decrease cleaning times, reduce the amount of time that my neck is bent to look down which in return will decrease migraines for me.

This all sounds super luxurious, and it sounds like a dream for most parrot caretakers. I am fully aware of the privilege that I have right now to be able to do this. I have been waiting and saving to invest in my health since my accident, and it has finally paid off.

Unfortunately, I have run into additional expenses that I was not aware of when I bought this house and financially planned for this adventure. To start, one of the bathrooms (we call it the "pink bathroom" because it was completely covered in 1960's pink tile) had some issues with it requiring it to be fully demolished to repair. This added more expense, time for contractor, and pushed back the move in date. Secondly, we thought in the bird area the already existing drain would be functional for the space. Through more research into the system, we learned that we would need to put a new drain in the floor. We have to bust up concrete and asphalt to create a lasting draining system. Because of my injuries, I quickly found that looking up to paint ceilings and high up cutting paint caused my to have black spots in my vision and significantly loose balance. I fell a few times from ladders trying to push through to do work. I had to hire my contractor to use a spray gun to paint all the ceilings. The baseboards and trim all had to be replaced throughout the entire house. The windows in the main house are much worse than we initially thought. They are original from the 60's when the house was built. We found some leaks in the piping we did not know about either, despite having an inspection before purchasing. We also saw two trees on the property that are dead and leaning towards the main house over my bedroom. Tree experts said that they need to come down sooner rather than later.

Very long story short, I am quickly running out of funds to get this all completed. I have already crossed off luxuries that I wanted in this new house so I can purchase things I need. I am now to the point where I am going to have to start cutting out necessities in this new space to make it functional for myself and the animals. $15,000 will cover EVERYTHING necessities that I need, not including new windows, as that can come later. I want to continue to provide excellent long-term care for my animals because they truly deserve it.

Please consider donating to this gofundme. If you cannot, please at least share it. It goes a long way! Even just $1.00, you do not realize the impact.

If you do not want to donate and would like something in return, please checkout my small business www.FluffNFeathers.com. I handmake parrot toys, have rescue toy boxes that get donated to parrot rescues, and I do all animal training in person and online internationally. Feel free to checkout my social media pages www.instagram.com/can_of_nutella to meet my flock, get updates, and see what your donation is going towards. I will also be fundraising over there.

Update 7/11/2024:

Today we learned of yet another expense in this project that was unknown to us. In the car port we are converting to the birds room, there was an area where the concrete was slightly angled down. It is where the current decorative half wall is. This wall was going to be kept for structural reasons and to save money. We were going to knock some of the bricks out for windows and support beams, then insulate it and make it waterproof. Today when busting up the concrete to put the drains in my contractor found that it was much worse off, and the concrete created structural integrity issues for that entire wall. We are now going to have to bring in a concrete truck to fix it and make it 100% safe for the birds long-term. Also, when breaking up concrete, the light post in the front yards electrical wire wasn't properly buried and was severed. It wasn't beneath the concrete slab instead of buried. Now there is additional expense to fix the electric. I will be getting a video together and more pictures on 7/12 to help give a better idea to what is going on!

Edit 7/13/2024:

I lowered the goal by $500.00 because of a donor in my personal life that has contributed. Again, I am not wanting anymore than I need. I appreciate all the donations I have gotten so far! Even if it is only $1.00 I am so appreciative!