My Cockatiel Crossed Over Last Night

Thank you all for your kind words. I have lost pets the past, but this one hurts the most.

For the first year of his life DH was overseas, so it was just the two of us. When DH came home it was a rough transition, but DH won him over, with candy, cheese, bread, pasta, rice, etc. He would eat pretty much anything we did, except those that are toxic to birds.

Cosmo loved having a routine. So much so that if I was going out of town overnight or going to be late getting home from work, he would be very stressed. After reading about birds, we discovered that his screeching was not to torture DH, he was calling for me, his flock. I read an article that talked about telling your bird how long you would be gone. Believe it or not it worked. The conversation went something like this, "Cosmo, am leaving and will be gone for 4 days, 1 2 3 4. Gary (DH) will be here and you will be fine". If I did not come home on day 4, he would start calling for me. I believe he understood every word we said.

When I walked into the room, he would wolf whistle at me. When I left for work and told him good bye, he would make kissing noises.

He bonded to all kinds of things, hairbrush that I used, Dasani water bottles, the 12 pack box that Coke comes in. He would go into the box and chew his way out.

I tried to teach him to whistle the Andy Griffith theme song and Dixie Land. What we ended up with was "Way down yonder in the land of Andy Griffith."

So many memories. Since he passed, I cannot stop writing down all the memories.

If you made it this far, thank you.