After Shelly the ostrich gets her head stuck in drying cement, Rico frees her by breaking the cement apart with dynamite. She immediately becomes smitten with him and, after Marlene advises her, seeks to win his affection by building a chewing gum sculpture of him and singing him a song. Her actions are only seen as awkward, however, and she soon learns by overhearing Skipper and Marlene conversing that Rico is instead in love with a plastic doll. To eliminate the competition for Rico's heart, Shelly disposes of Miss Perky in a recycling dumpster and continues to try to get Rico to notice her, but Rico focuses only on trying to find his missing doll. She then sees that Rico is happy and confesses to taking the doll, and helps the penguins recover it from the recycling truck after the dumpster is emptied. Shelly then procures her own doll partner from a toy store, which Rico sees as crazy.