We lost another pet today ... here is my elder Daughter showing me that Tookie had died.
Tookie had been with us almost as long as Daughter #1 has (and longer than #2). In fact, #1 was the instigator of Tookie joining our family. She was about a year and a half old when the George of the Jungle movie was coming out, and featured in the ads for that was George's bird "Tookie" ... #1 got wind of the fact that that I had had a parakeet when I was a kid and she was CERTAIN that I desperately needed a bird ... and it had to be called "Tookie".
So, for my 40th birthday, back in 1997, I got a new Parakeet, white with splashes of bright blue, "Tookie", who has been part of the family since then.
An unfortunate thing about Parakeets is that they make every effort to mask when they're sick, so by the time that you know something's wrong, it's likely too late to do anything. Yesterday, Tookie wasn't looking so good, and was obviously having breathing issues. We tried to find a vet clinic that dealt with "exotics" but couldn't find one we could get into. Daughter #1 and I did go out and found some Avian antibiotics specifically for this sort of respiratory issue, but by the time we were back with that (mixed with their drinking water), we were having to try to use a dropper to get any into Tookie, who was not really strong enough at that point to get up on the water thing. The Wife and #1 moved Tookie into a shoe box where everything would be on one level, but within a couple of hours, he was gone.
Needless to say, Daughter #1 has been very broken up all weekend (#2 is off for a friend's birthday adventure), as these things are never easy, especially if the pet has been a constant all your life. This would have been harder had Tookie been a "human patterned" bird like my Perry back when I was a kid, Perry lived to play with me, and she couldn't wait to get out of the cage to sit on my head, play games, etc. We, however, had early on gotten Tookie "companion birds" (one who died suddenly an one that's still with us) who were totally "bird patterned" and didn't have much use for us Humans ... so any of the early connections that Tookie had with us got muffled by the "bird influences", although Tookie would, from time to time, at least let you stroke him, and do the classic Parakeet "finger climb" game.
So, another sad day around Chez Tripp ...
I'm really very ready for some good news coming through for a change.