Heroes Come in Small Packages
(a true story)
By Mary J. Russell
A few years ago, on a day that I lay helpless and connected to an IV drip in a hospital bed (recovering from a bout with food poisoning), I got an “urgent” call from my youngest son Cody:
“Mom! You’re not going to believe what happened!” he said in a frantic voice. I braced myself. “Unbelievable!” he shrieked. “The dog got into the bird cage while we were at school!” he said. “We found Snowflake (the pet bird)……all over the living room!”
How awful! I took a moment to ponder the demise of Snowflake, a pretty, 2-year-old white parakeet with a single blue feather on her left wing. At the same time, I had been concerned that the puppy, a rambunctious black Lab, would get herself into trouble with no one home to supervise.
On the other end of the phone, my son continued to detail the bird’s terrible misfortune. I wondered who would clean up the mess on the carpet, shuddering at the thought of finding undiscovered remains under a chair somewhere….. And that dog!
“Well, what about Pedro?” I asked, wondering how much better or worse our second pet parakeet had fared.
“We can’t find him!” Cody replied, “So we’re pretty sure that Jasmine ate him!”
“That’s just awful, honey,” I said, feeling a pang of grief for the little yellow bird. “I wish there was something I could do.” (Like have my hospital room phone shut off…)
Two days later I returned home from the hospital and was cleaning the total mess left by three boys while I was away. I felt sadness looking at the empty bird cage — it must have been a frightful ending for both of those little animals!
As I sat quietly in my bedroom upstairs folding laundry, I began to hear a faint scratching noise in the closet. I listened intently for several moments, and yes, indeed, not only was there a scratching noise, but it was moving, as if an animal was prowling the closet shelf. I sat there, frozen in fear, thinking the worst: ‘It has to be a rodent!’ I tiptoed towards the closet, not wanting to surprise whatever was in there, and stood there motionless, waiting for its next move. Very carefully, I peeled back the closet drape; the first thing I saw was my black suit, hanging there, with what’s this?, two little yellow feathers resting conspicuously on the shoulder. No! Could it be? Yes! It was! Standing weakly on the closet shelf, on two wobbly legs, was Pedro the parakeet! Half the bird’s feathers had been torn away, exposing a fragile little pink body. From the looks of it, he had clearly survived a go-round with the dog!
Pedro looked at me, defeated, yet despite being roughed-up, he didn’t appear to have any wounds or breaks. Very carefully, I scooped him up. There was none of his usual fuss, no wild flapping of his wings; he seemed too traumatized to struggle. I gently stroked his wing; he seemed shaken yet otherwise fine. I couldn’t wait to tell the boys that I had found Pedro!
We marveled at the courage of the little bird. He managed to survive without food or water for several days. There he stood, all 3 ounces of him, alive and apparently okay.
The dog, meanwhile, got a scolding, and judging from her pinned-back ears and sinking posture, realized she had done some something wrong. However, disciplining a dog after-the-fact is pointless, and chasing birds is what Labs naturally do. Somehow she managed to climb up on a table to get to the cage, which was something we never imagined she could do.
A few months passed and we decided to adopt a new bird to keep Pedro company. She was a pretty emerald green bird we named Tiki. Pedro and Tiki seemed to hit it off right from the start: They squawked happily and ate fruit treats together. Pedro was healthy and happy, and we were happy for him to have a new friend.
Then one day, in a huge rush for school, my son forgot to close his bedroom window. A cold front moved in that day and the frigid Colorado air drifted down the hallway, and into the bird cage. Returning home, we were heartbroken to find that little Tiki had died from apparent exposure. Pedro, shaking and obviously freezing, was chilled yet still alive. We wrapped him in a towel and placed him near a warm spot where he would fully recover. Pedro had survived another brush with death. (Parakeet care essential: Always make sure the birds are kept in a warm, safe, draft-free location!)
After losing Tiki, we decided to let Pedro be on his own for a while. Our record with birds wasn’t great, all things considered. We didn’t want him going through the loss of another little companion. And I was having second thoughts about having small pets at all. I did not want Cody having to discover yet another passed-away hamster (their life spans are very short). I wondered, was it necessary for them to experience this heartbreak? Or were the pets a good way for them to learn about life and death after all?
Either way, I decided that Pedro would be our last small pet. As much as the boys adored the birds, the hamsters and the other assorted critters, having pets was a lot of work. The boys were all in school now, and had less time to care for them. We would always have dogs, and the boys had enough time, and were happy to share in their daily feeding, walking and play.
Without another bird for company, Pedro was doing okay. We moved his cage to a more central location where he would have more human company. He responded by squawking with all his might, especially during mealtimes. There were times when Pedro seemed frustrated, with his food or a certain toy. It was as if he wanted to arrange things just so, but couldn’t. During those times, we did our best to accommodate him, while speaking softly to help settle him down. Soft music always helped calm him too.
By now, Pedro had earned a deluxe, top-of-the-line bird cage. He had plenty of room to flutter from bar to bar, with toys and treats, and a soft-fabric bird bed to rest in. He nibbled, flapped and chirped happily through his days.
Pedro was about 8 years old one day when Cody broke into dinner with an urgent bird health alert: Pedro was very ill! We rushed to his cage and there he was, listless, puffy and sickly-looking, standing on one foot on the floor of his cage. “Call the vet, call the vet!” my son said. It was after-hours, though the on-call vet said that we could go ahead and put Pedro in a small box and bring him to the animal hospital. By the time we got off the phone and back to Pedro, he was lying still on the bottom of the cage. “This is the end,” I thought, “Pedro’s not going to make it.” We packed his lifeless little body into a tissue box, covered him with a hand towel, and rushed him to the vet.
“Usually when a little bird gets this sick, they don’t make it,” explained the vet. “But we can give him some antibiotics and see how he responds.” She ordered antibiotic drops that we would administer orally four times a day by dropper. (To do this, we had to lift Pedro’s beak, which, when healthy, he would have no part of.) I was handed a veterinary bill for $87, plus $42 for the bird drops. At that price, I sniffed, we could have bought 3 new birds, plus supplies! Oh, well. . . . . it was a small price for Pedro!
We took the little guy home, still lying flat in his box, and closed the lid for the night. The next day there was little improvement, though he was still clinging to life. The boys checked him by the hour, carefully administering his medicine. Hmmm, I thought, maybe…….No, no, no — this time Pedro really has no chance!
To our astonishment, within two days Pedro was standing upright, scratching the box and appearing well enough to eat! He appeared so well, in fact, that we decided to move him back into his cage. Once there, he sputtered, but took water and picked through his seed bowl. Could it be? Pedro’s going to be okay — again??
Within two weeks Pedro had fully recovered. He was full-strength, back to being his disruptive little self, squawking vigorously through each day.
Two years went by. My oldest son moved away and he had wanted to take Pedro with him, but he didn’t have room in his tiny apartment. By now we were so busy with school, work and activities, we had less and less time to spend with Pedro. We talked about giving Pedro to an animal shelter in the hope that they could find him a good home that had more time for him. He seemed fine, though we wanted the best for him. After considering all options we made our decision: We could never, ever part with Pedro! We would just have to make time in our schedule, and find as many activity toys for him as we could.
Another year had gone by. Finally one day I spotted Pedro on the floor of his cage again, wobbling around with his feathers in an odd ruffle. His eyes looked cloudy and his little bird nose was a startling, pale blue. He was obviously sick. I lifted his cage and he stumbled and fell over on his side. This was surely the end, little Pedro would finally succumb. It was a very sad time.
We moved him to a very warm spot and he was very sick for two days. We watched over him, hoping that somehow he would survive, that he would be the little miracle bird that he had been so many times before. But this time, he didn’t spring back. I called my son and told him to come home and pay his final respects. It was an emotional night for us all.
That was the final chapter in Pedro’s little life….. Well, not exactly. The following day, Pedro was fine! He was busy working on a new egg treat (his favorite!) and heck if we knew what had been wrong with him.
By that time Pedro had earned legendary status in our family: He was a feathered Superhero! This amazing little yellow bird seemed indestructible, repeatedly bouncing back from all of the challenges life threw his way.
It was several years after that when, at the ripe old parakeet age of 11, Pedro finally passed away. We kept a couple of his little feathers in a box, to remember him by. His memory would always remain in our hearts. Though he measured only 2 inches tall, and 3 ounces in weight, there was no limit to Pedro’s strength and courage: He out-wrestled a dog, survived a Colorado deep-freeze, recovered from a life-threatening infection, and finally, survived a mystery illness that had knocked him flat on this wing for several days. That a little bird could bounce back from all of that was truly remarkable!
10 years later……
A few weeks ago, I had fallen asleep on the sofa in the living room, somehow rousing myself around two in the morning. I sat there in the still of the night, when I began to hear some rustling noise in the hallway. I didn’t think anything of it until the next time I found myself waking up on the sofa in the middle of the night — and again, hearing a faint scratching noise that I couldn’t quite pinpoint, in the living room.
After repeated encounters with the scratching noise, I was truly baffled, and intent on indentifying its source: Could it have been the sleeping dog’s paw tapping the desk? Could it have been a plastic bag settling on the counter, or a moth flying ’round the closet? As it turned out, none of those leads had panned out. Then it occurred to me, as crazy of an idea as it sounds: Could it be, Pedro?
Okay, okay, I admit I have been staying up too late — my late-night imagination is clearly getting carried away. Even if ghosts were real, the idea of a bird ghost is just flat ridiculous! On the other hand, if there ever was going to be such a thing, it makes perfect sense that it would be Pedro. But all silliness aside, I have tried for weeks to find the cause of the nighttime scratching, and I haven’t yet solved the mysterious noise. To think that it might be little Pedro, well that’s just fine with me!