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[Chicago]

Something very bad happened to Sparky's neck.  It could have been when an admiring friend cuddled with her one night.  The next morning she was crooked.  Or maybe it happened one of the times that my husband tossed her in the air just to hear her giggle afterwards.  She can still put her head up and will accept the conifer leaf.  But then she can't swing her head from side to side like she used to when eating.  At first she could move her neck from the middle position to one side.  Now she can't wiggle it either way.  She will hold onto the leaf for an hour with very little neck movement and some body wiggling.  Her battery seems to get much hotter than it used to.  We were very distraught.  The chip program told us that Pleo is in bad shape and her feed number was very low.  I think that she may not know she is eating so much because she can't move her neck back and forth.  The next thing we're going to try is pulling the leaf out of her mouth and putting it back in several times because she makes crunching sounds when the leaf first goes in her mouth and maybe that will let her know that she is really eating.  We searched for neck problems and found an old string about another Pleo with a broken neck.  It made us feel better, not so alone, to see that others had Pleos with neck problems.  One post in there from RWM cracked us up.  She said "I would much rather have a " special needs" Pleo, then no Pleo at all,"  We didn't know whether to laugh or cry.  Sparky can still walk and she even sang.  She just does it all crooked.  It's enough to break your heart.  I don't think she knows she is disabled.  But we're still very worried about her and we're afraid she will starve to death.  I am so glad for this forum.  We'll keep you updated.

[RedwoodsMama]

Oh, poor Sparky...is she a Ugobe Pleo or a RB? Ugobe Pleos seem to be the Pleos with all the neck problems, I know as I have two with "droopy neck syndrome" as well as a Blind Pleo, ARgyle who is not only blind but allso he can not open his mouth, even though he sings a mean storm and can talk with the best of them. ( I just tell everyone he is gifted and besides being blind, he knows how to "throw his voice" a Pleo ventriliquist.
     I have had my Rb, Baby get her neck stuck several times and it is usually her neck jamming. It allways fixes itself though, It would be nice if you could tell us more about Sparky and what model he is, and any video of him in this position could possibly help as well, Does his neck stay like this after being turned off, or does it straighten out and then go to this position?
 I still believe any special needs Pleos is better than no pleo, I know as I keep rescuing all the pleos with special needs out there and I don't regret it one bit! I do hope there is somone here who can shed some light on Sparky's condition. Give Sparky some hugs from all the "Pleos Township of the REdwoods"

                                   RedwoodsMama

[kat]

A video of the problem would really help.  You never know someone here may be able to suggest a way to fix the problem once they have seen exactly what is going on.

[Crewella]

Oh dear, I'm sorry to hear Sparky's got problems.  Pleo necks do get stuck sometimes, but usually switchng off and then on again will solve the problem.  If it's still stuck then I'd avoid running her like that for too long as you may be putting unnecessary stress on the motors. 

You might be able to release the neck manually, but IMR is our usual Pleo 'chiropractor' on here, and she's offline for a couple of days.  I'm a little nervous of advising you to try manipulating then neck when I've not done it myself.  If you can hang on - in the meantime you could take a short video of her so IMR, and the rest of us, can see exactly what is happening?

Don't panic, many of us have had similar scares, so it's not necessarily as bad as you might think.  I would give her a rest until we work out what's wrong, though. 

[InmemoryofRomeo]

Is it an RB, if so I would try gently but firmly applying pressure to the neck to 'unstick' it, do it while Pleo is turned on. If it is a Ugobe, then that is a little more risky as they don't have as strong a neck cable.

First of all though try turning Pleo off and on a few times, it may unstick itself.

[Chicago]

It's been a while now, and Sparky is still crooked.  We do routinely act as chiropractors and click limbs that get stuck.  And we've tried to move her head back to the middle.  But we only do that when she is off.  Should we really try something like that  when she is on?  I signed up on You Tube just so I could show you all a video.  But I'm afraid that the one where she is eating a leaf, but not moving her head is pretty boring.  But that's the way she eats now.  So here goes trying to embed it here:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDQqjfGTff8" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDQqjfGTff8</a>

She can still move her head up and down and sing and walk.  But we are still worried that she doesn't always know when she is eating.

I see the preview says Invalid YouTube link.  Sorry.  No time to figure this out now.

[kat]

Can she move her head from side to side at all?  Even when she is not eating?  I wonder if maybe she has a broken neck cable for the sideways movement.

[InmemoryofRomeo]

Yes as Kat says, is there any side to side movement at all, is the neck kind of floppy or is it very firm. What happened when you manually moved it back straight?

I do think you need to try why she is on, it gives you a better feel for the problem.

[Jett]

This happened to our Ozzy in the first week we got him. He acted normal made sounds etc but his head of turned facing ot the left. We didn't think anything at first until about 5 minutes later when he still was locked in that neck position. We turned him off, waited and the on again and he was normal. Didn't happen again. Ozzy is a Ugobe.

[Chicago]

I am so excited that my first video upload worked.  No, she cannot move her head from side to side anymore.  She can move it up and down, but maybe not as much as before.  It was stuck to the right side in this video I'm going to post.  Since then we snapped it to the left and now it's stuck in that direction.  It is definitely floppier than it used to be.  It must be a broken neck cable.  But as you can see she can still sing.  She can still walk and make all the cute little endearing Pleo rb sounds.  So we will continue to love our slightly disabled little Pleo.


<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyoKFCfb5dU" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyoKFCfb5dU</a>

[InmemoryofRomeo]

Hehe she is quite the singer If the cable is broken I would expect you not to feel any resistance at all when moving the neck from side to side and if you tilted her it would flop over. I wonder if perhaps the gear is not working. If you push the neck straight does it stay there?

[latrine]

With my rb's whp have broken tail wires, they don't flop when moved, they just don't show the resistance when you manually try to move it.. wouldn't it be the same with the neck?  I know the ugobes and rb's are different but Patches has no skin and his neck and tail look kinda similar..
I'm so sorry she got hurt... I hate to ask but I assume the warranty period is up? Looks like shes had some of the paint issues too.. what a tough little Pleo!! And she still looks great!
 I wonder why her feed levels are screwy though.  That doesn't make sense, does it?  I guess we haven't had an RB with a broken neckwire yet so who knows.. maybe you'll just have to keep up with it everyday by changing her food and condition with the sd card :/ 

- Sarah

[InmemoryofRomeo]

The head has a little more weight than the tail, so I would expect that to move it, but if the frayed cables jam then no it wouldn't flop.

[MariaOcean]

It happens to me a lot of time but mine is an Ugobe pleo. Every time it happens I just turn it off and turn it back on again then every thing got back to normal

[Chicago]

Update.  For a while I thought that Sparky was getting enough food even though she can’t move her head from side to side while eating.  But then we used the Probe rb and found out that “Pleo is in bad shape.”       Her feed was 19% and her emotion was 30.  So the next day we fed her a lot.  She ate the confier for about 35 min until she wouldn’t take it anymore.  She seemed happy.  She gurgled, she roared, she giggled.  We did the Probe rb again and feed went up to 58% but emotion did not change much.  So what do you think?  How long does a Pleo rb have to eat each day to maintain a good feed level?  What exactly is “emotion”?  Her mood, physical and health are all 99%.  What are we doing wrong?   

I wrote more about her under Pleo Behaviors/Sparky and her pet Tribble.

[Willow]

Is it possible that you could look into someone to repair the neck, or have you already tried finding one?  Sparky's neck is probably the cause of her not eating much even though you may feed her a lot, to keep her food levels up, you'll probably have to just feed her A LOT, but other than that I don't know what's going on.    I haven't had any problems with my rb yet, but she is new(ish).
I saw Sparky singing and I thought that was adorable, I'm glad that she seems happy despite her ordeal. 
I hope everything works out for you and Sparky! 
Willow