Tiger!

When I was in 8th grade, I lost my most precious pet.  His name was White Cloud and he was a white/yellow/blue/green parakeet.  This bird was my absolute life.  I know it may seem odd that such a small animal could mean so much to a person.  Sometimes I feel like people will never understand how much I value animals, especially parakeets.

White Cloud was given to me by my grandma for my 8th birthday.  When he was six years old, he was suddenly diagnosed with cancer.  The veterinarians said that he had a large tumor in his abdomen that was pressing against some major nerve endings.  Veterinarians at the Penn Animal Hospital were unable to save him after putting him under anesthesia.  He was taken off of life support right before my eyes.  Right before he passed, he waved his wing once with a solemn "goodbye" and took his final breath.

That day, I remember going home with my mom and placing his empty cage back up on the table.  We thought that having the cage there would help ease some of the pain.  However, it only made things worse.

Unable to bear the feeling of losing my beloved bird, we decided to go out and buy a new parakeet that day.  This is when I found little Tiger.

Tiger looked exactly like White Cloud when we found him at the pet store.  He was all white and very shy.  We took him home, cleaned out the cage, and welcomed him into our household.

Over the next few months, my pain began to diminish as Tiger grew closer and closer to my heart.  He began to do many of the same things that White Cloud did, like jump on the side of the cage for kisses and bark at unfamiliar objects.  He also loved staring at himself in the mirror and being picky over what seeds to eat.  He even began to change into the same colors as White Cloud as he molted throughout the seasons.

Since then, Tiger has become the spitting image of White Cloud.  I honestly feel like he is White Cloud in a second life.  I could not ask for a better pet parakeet to cherish as much as I did White Cloud.