On June 17, 1998, my husband, Joe, son, Robert and myself were doing our usual weekend trip to a local pet store. We love to go and look around and had no pets for several years. Both my husband and I have had lots of birds in the past and loved them, but we had been spending our time raising "human babies." Someday we would get another bird! We were in the store and they had a very large terrarium with branches in it and about a dozen hand raised cockatiels. We looked at them and when I reached my hand down to them they all got off the branches and went to the bottom, all except one. I extended my index finger and he quickly jumped on. We looked at each other face to face, with me talking to him and him whistling back to me. He was a beautiful Normal Gray, too young to sex, but by the whistling, we guessed he was male and were right. He climbed up my arm and onto my shoulder and stayed there as I walked around the store. My husband knew I was in love as the owner watched us walk around the store (visions of dollar signs in her eyes!) After about an hour, they were getting ready to close as we walked up to the counter and told her we needed a cage, food, supplies, toys.....the works!

He rode home on my shoulder as calm as he could be (wings were clipped) and we got him all settled into his new home. We needed a name for him, so we called my parents and asked for suggestions. My Dad' name is Robert,(Bob) and he said, "Why don't you name him Bob?" I said, "but everyone is named BOB", and he replied, "So, spell it backwards!!!" And we did! When boB was in his cage, he would sit up on a perch and extend his wings, and we would walk up to him with our arms extended and say "Do the Eagle, boB, do the Eagle!!" On day I heard him from the other room saying "Do the Eagle, boB, do the eagle!" I ran from the other room and there he was, copying us. He repeated it over and over with his wings extended, it was amazing!

Since then he has learned the entire whistling side of the cockatiel training tape and starts to whistle song number one as soon as he hears the play button clicked on the tape player! His vocabulary includes: Hi boB, What Cha Doin?, boB Pretty Bird, and he whistles the entire Andy Griffith Theme Song. He also makes a laughing sound if you laugh at him. He loves to fly around the room and land on your head or in his garden windows. A year after we brought boB home we added two more feathered family members to our home, a female albino named Sugar and female whiteface cinnamon pearl cockatiel we named Coco. boB quickly fell in love with Coco and they have been sharing a home together ever since. When one goes to the garden window, the other is right behind. Both boB and Coco love to be held and sit on shoulders and have brought so much happiness to our home. We now have over 33 birds, but the number may increase tomorrow!