So long to a couple of friends :(

It's been a tough week or so around here for pets. We were, at one point, happy owners of a small little zoo - a turtle (red-eared slider), 2 parakeets, then 3 parakeets, and lastly, a crazy Dachshund.

I've had Dingus since 2003; my college boyfriend and I bought him after a trip to NYC when I fell in love with the teeny tiny turtles they sell on the sidewalk. When Dingus was my only pet, I would take him out quite frequently and let him run around - turtles are surprisingly fast! His favorite place to go was some place dark, covered, and out of the way. If you didn't keep a close eye on him, he was likely to scurry off some place you'd have a hard time getting him out of.

One of my favorite Dingus stories was when my friend Chris was apartment-sitting in college, and Dingus disappeared on him. He came over daily to feed Dingus, and one day Dingus had escaped from his tank. Chris later found him wedged between the toilet and the plunger in the bathroom. Another time, Dingus bit a huge chunk out of my lip as I attempted to show my friends that Dingus could give kisses...he latched onto my bottom lip and didn't let go, so I sure learned my lesson the hard way!

My favorite picture of Dingus

Back in May, we were cleaning out Dingus's tank, which involved cleaning and replacing his filter, and cleaning his tank. The dog was away for the day, so Marek let Dingus out to wander around, as he'd been mostly tank-bound since we got the dog (and ever since I had a nightmare about Dingus taking a bite out of my dog's nose!). When it came time to put Dingus back in his tank, he was nowhere to be found!

Now this wasn't out of the ordinary, so we waited a couple days, and Marek even claimed he heard Dingus walking around a couple times. However, after about 4 days, I was getting pretty nervous - I hadn't seen or heard Dingus, and I was getting worried about him. Over the next few days, we basically ripped the house apart, picking up everything off the floor, looking for him in all the small places, places he couldn't even have possibly gotten into.

After he'd been gone for about a week and a half, we just kind of stopped looking for him. We had looked everywhere in the house, so we concluded that he must have wandered outside somewhere (and we even checked outside). I was sad, but partially relieved, because I knew he was living a pretty miserable existence. He'd grown quite a bit since I got him, but was still living in a relatively small tank. He rarely got out of the tank, so I hoped that wherever he'd wandered off to was a nicer place for him. We kept telling ourselves that he made it to the pond near our house and was hanging out with all the other turtles and fish over there.

Fast forward about 8 weeks, and I was cleaning up the house, and discovered him at the bottom of a gym bag. He scared the living daylights out of me. And now we had a problem - we'd already gotten rid of most of his things, and had come to terms with his being gone, but choosing to let him go made me feel awful. In the end, we took him down to the pond we had convinced ourselves he was living in, and let him go there.

We decided that if he went into the pond, that must be where he wanted to be, and that if he showed any hesitation, we would take him right back home. I was reluctant to let him go, but read up about turtles' natural habitats, and it seemed he would be okay in the pond - heck, he had gone almost 2 months without food or water - and in any case, I hoped it might be better for him in the big pond than the tiny tank.

So let him out, and he looked around for a couple minutes, and then ran right into the water. It seems like his natural instincts took over. I watched him swim out a bit, and then head right towards the bottom of the pond and just sit there for awhile. We waited until we couldn't see him any longer, and then left. It was hard, but I think we did the right thing in the end. Hopefully he's leading a much happier life!

What happened to Harry is much less happy though. :( We've had Harry since the fall of 2005; he was a birthday gift to me from Marek. We bought Harry and his "brother" Leroy together, and I just loved them. The birds would sit on my finger and would make cute little chirping noises, and would come and greet me when I came near the cage.

Some time in the spring of 2006, Harry had a problem with his wing, and we had to pull a feather out, and ever since then, Harry had issues flying. He was basically a crippled bird - he could do sort of half flapping, and get a little off the ground, but not like the other birds (we added Eddie to the group earlier that spring). We always felt bad for him because of that, and he seemed to become a mean, cranky bird - the least friendly of them all, and always pecking and biting you when you would try to play with him.

We also found out at one point that Harry was actually a girl. You can tell a parakeet's gender by the color of the thing over its beak - the pretty blue/purple shade is for male parakeets, and the brown color is for females. Maybe Harry was also upset because we continued to call her Harry and refer to her as a male bird. (In our defense, we didn't know it was a girl until at least a year after we got her. Hard to change habits.)

Leroy (left) and Harry

After we got the dog, the birds were mostly cage bound. The dog left them alone, but when we tried to introduce them to each other, he did snap at them, so that was the end of letting them out when the dog was around. While having the dog was great, it was also too bad, because it meant the birds were neglected, play-wise. We still fed them and took good care of them, but we couldn't let them out of their cage to spread their wings and play with us.

We went to trim their nails this past weekend. We trimmed Eddie's first, and had no problems. However, when I was clipping Harry's nails, I cut too much, and cut to the quick - 3 times. :( Harry was bleeding a lot, and we tried to put styptic powder and styptic swabs on it, all to no avail. We ended up putting him in a separate cage so he could relax and calm down, and the bleeding seemed to stop.

However, once we picked him up to look at him again, the bleeding started again. We tried other home remedies (soap, cornstarch) and more styptic powder, but it all just seemed to make it worse. We ended up putting him back in the small cage again, and it seemed like the bleeding was slowing again. We left for the night, and when we came back, poor Harry was curled up in the corner of the cage. He looked like he was just sitting there, relaxing, but he had passed away. :(

I was honestly not that surprised (Harry was the weakest bird), but it was still really upsetting, especially because I feel like it's all my fault. Even if I didn't spend that much time with him, he was still my little bird, and I loved him, and I'll miss him a lot. :( I know his other bird pals are also missing him - when he was in his separate cage, they kept looking over at him and checking up on him.

Here's one of my favorite pictures of him, and how I'll remember him. I love the way he's looking at the camera. I always feel like he has a little inquisitive look on his face, acting like a little tough bird, wondering why I'm taking his picture. :)