Gigi came into our lives on July 20, 2003. My husband and I were feeding pigeons in the park when my husband spotted a gorgeous blue bird and said "Look! A budgie!".  She had obviously escaped from home. When my husband explained to me that budgies were tropical birds and would not survive Canada's winter, I decided we should take the little one in.  She must have been hungry and we had food; so after a short struggle (and a few bites on my hands), we were walking home with her in a bag, going "We have a budgie!!!". Even though it was a Sunday, we were able to find a pet store in a mall about half an hour away and bought a cage, some toys and food. 



Gigi wasn't a tame bird. Who knows how long she'd survived out on the loose, but she didn't socialize easily. We felt a true sense of triumph when she finally let us pet her on her tummy with one of her own feathers that she had shed. We loved listening to her cute chirping and clicking! When we noticed how she loved sleeping in the blue "bird buddy" that we got for her, we thought that perhaps we should get her a friend. After all, she was home alone all day during the week.  So about two months after she came into our lives, we got 6-week-old Mini, thinking it was a he. Little did we know that you can't really sex birds when they're that young. Anyway, Mini turned out to be a female and even though she was crazy about Gigi from the getgo, Gigi never liked her. We even had to keep them in separate cages for a while. 



Gigi only learned to step on our hands after my husband clipped her wings about 5 months ago. We felt bad about it after a while since she had clearly enjoyed flying and was hardly out of our sight anyway. But her wings didn't take long to grow back and she was back to her flying routine again in no time at all.  



We knew she was an old bird by the look of the feathers on her head but didn't know how old.  So when she started to sit all fluffed up in her cage a week ago, we didn't make much of it at first. She was still eating with a good appetite and playing with her toys. We thought she was just moulting. Two days ago, I looked up some websites on the internet and discovered that being fluffed up was a sign of illness.  We thought perhaps she had the flu or something. So yesterday evening (August 23, 2004) we decided we would take her to a vet in the morning. Well, she got worse real fast. Within half an hour, she was barely able to sit on her perch and was all out of balance and drowsy. We immediately put her in a box (the one we'd brought home Mini in) and left for the Animal Hospital around 11 pm. When we got there 15 minutes later, I opened the box and she was just lying there, eyes open. An animal tech came out and listened to her heart, and said she was sorry. I cried there like a little girl, as I am crying now. I can't tell you how sad it makes me to think that this beautiful bird had no one but us to take care of her and we didn't realize how sick she was until it was too late. It's amazing how such a tiny little thing that didn't even care for humans that much, can grow on you.

It'll be a loooong time before we get over this.

Nora