Dog Years

I had a parakeet when I was little.  We couldn't have a dog or a cat so my mom defaulted to a bird.  I can't remember it's name anymore.  I do remember though that it was the green variety of Budgee.  And I remember that it was a female.

I know that last bit because among the few things I learned as a six year old from the process of owning that bird was that parakeets can be sexed by examining the color of their noses about 6 month after they're born.  Alternatively, a great deal of determination and parakeet screaming is required.  It turns out that males of the species are actually the most likely to bond with humans, to talk and to generally do the things that have caused humans to adopt parakeets as a domesticated pet. Unfortunately for the aspiring pet owner, the nose/beak does not assume the appropriate sex color until the animal is around six months old.  That's typically much older than you want to start with a bird. 

That bird lasted only about four years in our house.  Ten years plus is more common for parakeets.  That was another thing I learned from that bird's presence in my life.  I learned how it feels to lose something you care about, even if you aren't really that involved with it.  It's a life; and then it's gone.  I cried over that bird's passing in a way that I never would have thought I could have.  I think it was because I expected it to be around, vaguely annoying me with the ongoing revelation of my neglect forever.  And of course, some day I'd do better and pay attention to it the way I thought I should.  With the permission and help of landlords, we buried the girl on the property where we lived.

A few years went by and I started bothering my mom for another bird.  This time, we'd get a male and I'd take absolutely excellent care of it.  After all, I was older now.  We went to the pet store, asked for a male and naturally received another female.  This one had all of the first bird's interpersonal "challenges" but also was quite possibly the nastiest, meanest animal I'd ever encountered.  That estimation includes a couple junk yards I used to walk by from time to time that had wicked nasty guard dogs.

Fritz (I remember the gender inappropriate name I gave to this creature) would literally hiss at you if you stopped in the vicinity of her cage.  She was not shy and retiring.  You could count on being attacked for doing her the favor of changing her food, water and grit.  (Parakeets need sand-like grit to aid their digestion.)  And let me tell you, that little...girl could bite.

It looked for a couple years like that miscreant feathered beast, all 30 grams of her, would overwhelm my good intentions.  Or at least give me an excuse to return to form.

Then one day, I decided that her nasty attitude would not stop me from showing her affection.  I can't remember exactly why this became important to me but it surely did. 

I was in high school by this time.  Killing two birds with one stone (and in my heart, that was only partially metaphor), I would put a chair next to her cage, endure a bit of hissing and then read my homework out loud to her.  Eventually I read other things as well, including Copleston's "History of Philosophy" (11 volumes) and Theodore Roethke's "My Papa's Waltz" (a rather brief poem).  She might hold the record for being the best read parakeet in the history of time. 

She settled down some after hearing the drone of my voice for awhile.  God bless Copleston.  What he lacks in brevity, he make up for in excruciating detail.  People who know me well gently suggest (well, usually gently), that the ongoing, pounding, relentless sound of my voice would beat anyone into submission, let alone a parakeet with gender identity issues.

I noticed that Fritz eventually started moving herself on her favorite perch so as to be closer to me.  I experimented with this a little and pretty soon I noticed that her favorite perch became the one nearest me.  Eventually, this led me to what had to this point been the unthinkable.  I opened her cage door.

At first, she hesitantly came out and stood on her on her door which was a drawbridge like affair.  And then she flew.  She took enough laps around that small apartment to kill a migrating falcon, eventually crash landing into the drapes, panting like she'd cough up her heart and lungs.  Seizing my opportunity and the bird at the same time, I caged her with my hands very gently  as you do with birds and returned her to her cage.

I won't repeat my probably incorrect memories of the rest of her training but eventually she came around completely.  My favorite remembrance of her redemption was her habit of sitting on my cereal bowl, eating my cereal with me.  Answering the unspeakable, she never pooed in my food.  She knew better.

Fritz spanned the time between childhood and my becoming an adult.  My wife met the bird.  Sadly, the bird loathed my then girl friend, soon to be fiance with all the well documented vile passion she was capable of.  I do think she was jealous.

In my life since then, my wife and I have had three dogs.  They are now gone.

My wife brought the first one home as a puppy from a supermarket box, given away by children with puppies from an accidental litter, a practice now illegal where we live.  She surprised me with it.  She knew full well her man could not resist both her and the ridiculously cute puppy.  That is one scary woman I married.

That dog, Bleu  (short for Bleu Cheese) was a much better pet than I was an owner.  The way I taught her to not dig in the back yard was to point at a hole she made and, well, essentially lecture her.  Somehow she understood, even though she couldn't possibly understand, that she had to help me.  Every now and then she'd apparently think something like, "But he didn't say don't dig over here" and she'd try the other side of the yard.  That happened about three times before she figured out that I meant "Don't dig holes anywhere in the universe."

She had a couple litters and for logistic reasons we kept one of her puppies.  Sadly, it was the stupidest creature I've ever encountered.  Bleu seemed to realize it too.  When Doby would be scolded, Bleu would often hang her head and skulk away.  Even though Bleu got it, I don't think Doby ever understood that she was being scolded.

Doby lived almost ten years and Bleu lived to be 17, so Bleu enjoyed her last years without the distractions and challenges of a wayward child. 

We purchased Lady at the same time our son and his wife bought their dog, both of us taking puppies from the same litter.  These were purebred Queensland Heelers.  Lady was wound a bit tight but she loved people.  She would bark like death at visitors but was always very friendly.  She came along at a time when I'd begun spending more time hiking and she usually accompanied me.  I took her on a leash a couple times but eventually gave up on it.  It was completely superfluous, even in the regular presence of horses and other dogs.  I'd just tell her to sit and she did, one hundred percent of the time.  Of such are Queenslands.

I won't tell the whole, quite sad story here but when she passed she very much needed permission to leave the rest of us behind.  She was a beautiful creature.

Our son who lives with us recently acquired a Siberian Husky.  This is a different animal with a different life mission.  Any Husky's life aspirations can be summed in two desperately important (to them) values:  1) Running  2) Hunting.  Everything else is subservient.  I will say the exception to this is that they do bond quite strongly to people if you're willing to make a herculean effort in that regard.  In that case you as their human, become nearly as important as those other two things. 

All these animals have taught me more about myself than I ever dreamed possible or in some cases, ever wanted to know.  They have endured my inattention, silliness and wrong headedness with near stoic endurance and persistence.  I've learned that if I'm just a bit persistent with them, they will be unyieldingly loyal and loving to me...even unto death. 

Pet friendly literature defines cat and  dog years as so many animal years to one human year.  That is the math of the calendar, not of the heart.  The time that animals spend with us, offering themselves to us and loving us eventually achieve their own definition.  Those days, months and years mark themselves on us with their own pens, sometimes with the point pushing deep into our souls.

Our pets offer back to us the love we give them with grace well beyond what we offer.  They are four legged (or maybe two legs with feathers) versions of love we don't deserve.  They are a great help in understanding the overflowing rush of love that spoke us.

I remember now.  That first parakeet's name was Tweety, like the cartoon.