Have you ever lived next door to a neighbor with loud pets? Sometimes they are barking dogs, meowing cats or perhaps even a rooster who wakes you up way too early.

The thing about pets is that we can usually tell what they sound like. Dogs bark. Cats meow or hiss. Fish don’t really make much of any sound at all.

Birds are a little different. Many birds tweet and chirp like you’d expect, but some birds actually know how to talk. 

Have you ever heard a parrot talk? It’s kind of incredible. If you’re not looking at the bird, it would be easy to think that an actual person were the one talking.

Recently, in Palm Beach County, Florida, a concerned citizen called the police because she thought she heard a woman screaming for help. The police responded to the call by showing up at her neighbor’s home.

The neighbor was outside working on his wife’s car when the four police officers showed up in his driveway. His dog was barking, but that wasn’t the problem. The neighbor was completely calm and somewhat amused when the police told him why they were there. In the video below you can hear him say, “I’ll bring out the screamer to you.”

The neighbor walks behind a fence while the police wait patiently, probably wondering what they’re about to see. Watch the video below to see the police’s reaction when they see that the “screamer” is a parrot.

The Palm Beach County police shared the hilarious misunderstanding in a post on their Facebook page. According to this post, the parrot’s owner shared exactly what happened and why his parrot, Rambo, was screaming.

I was changing the brakes on my wife’s car and had my 40-year-old parrot, Rambo, on his outside perch where he sings and talks. Sometime later four police officers showed up saying a neighbor called because she heard a woman screaming for help. I promptly introduced the officers to Rambo and we all had a good laugh. Afterward, I also introduced Rambo to the neighbor who called in the screaming. She too had a good laugh. Sometimes Rambo yells “help, help, let me out.” Something I taught him when I was a kid and Rambo lived in a cage.

In retrospect, perhaps it wasn’t the best idea to teach a parrot to scream, “help, help, let me out.” Have you ever heard a parrot screaming before? What kinds of pets do you own?