Really excited for a huge milestone in Tango’s life. It’s official, he has turned 10! In this blog (more like a journal), I’ll share the story of how I got Tango and our journey thus far.
Parrot Obsession
I don’t remember the exact day or moment that I fell in love with parrots. I’d love to hear your story in the community if you’d he willing to share.
It might’ve started with my dad? My family has always liked birds, my paternal grandmother used to paint them, and my dad used to raise doves as a child. So maybe there was just something in the genes. Growing up in China, birds were also a big part of the culture. Bird markets were a huge pass time and thing to do over the weekend. I remember listening to our songbirds during the weekend and buying them beautiful traditional cages,
But the love for parrots? That came out of nowhere. From the moment I saw a parrot (and specifically the sun conure) online, I knew that I would want one as a companion. There was something that just drew me in and the obsession hit like a storm.
In High School, I don’t remember having much hobbies. I spent a lot of time reading blogs and watching endless youtube videos of parrots. I showed them all to my sister of course and that got us both hooked.
The Sketchy Pet Store
One fateful day as I was visiting my grandma, we saw a sign for a pet store on our drive home. For whatever reason we stopped. My family had just decided to move the USA, and I was on my way for college, so we weren’t looking for a pet yet something convinced us to walk in.
This store… was sketchy. It’s the kind of store, retrospectively, I would not want to support because it made you question what type of care they provided and where they were sourcing their pets. It was this dark hole-in-the-wall of a store, and inside all you saw were stacks and stacks of cages. One on top of the other.
Despite it being on the side of the highway and seeing the condition of the store, we wanted to check it out. We looked through the whole facility and we weren’t feeling a good vibe. But just as we were getting ready to head out, I looked into a cage on the bottom on the floor and saw three little parrots – two green cheek conures and a sun conure.
They were like all parrot babies – little dinosaur gremlins. The two green cheeks had developing pin feathers and were very young. However, the sun conure, it was older and more developed. My sister and I begged, we had to get it out of here and we really wanted to finally get a parrot; our parents agreed!
Unexpected Changes & Thank you Grandma 🥰
Within 6 months of us moving to the USA, my family had to move away out of country. This was a huge and unexpected change and we dreaded the potential of having to give Tango away so soon.
I unfortunately wasn’t in any position to help since I was in a college dorm room. But thankfully, my grandmother (the sweetest person ever) came to the rescue. Despite having no experience (or interest frankly) in birds, she saw how much it hurt us to leave Tango and offered to take him on.
Something’s Wrong!
Everything was going well under grandma’s care and we went back at every opportunity to spend time with Tango.
Then suddenly, nearly 5 years after we got Tango, something went wrong. He started to pluck and pluck aggressively! To this day, we have no idea what changed or triggered it but we knew he was stressed. Within 2-3 days his whole chest’s feathers were gone 😭
We had to make some quick decisions as a family. We knew there were some dietary and routine changes that needed to happen, but Grandma was having a hard time to help correct those and at this point with how Tango was doing we needed a hard course correction.
That’s where I came in! Knowing that grandma was feeling bad about Tango’s health and that she had done us the biggest favor for the last five years by taking care of Tango, I decided to take T. I was now out of college, living in an apartment that allowed pets and was more than happy to care for him. The only caveat… is I lived in Boston and Tango was in California.
It’ll have to be another story for another day, but our first adventure together was a cross-country flight! Here is just a photo of Tango in the new backpack we used to transport him (The brand is Celltei® ~ Design House for Pets and Their Family). Long story short – with only a few days to prepare it was definitely a mad dash but Tango did great! 😊
Life Together & Where We Are Today!
And the rest is history! I’m still obsessed with parrots, but even more obsessed with Tango.
I sometimes think back to that fateful day when we stopped at that sketchy pet store. I don’t know why the universe told us to stop, but I’m sure it was so Tango could have a happy life with our family (and I hope he feels that way)! I feel so blessed to have Tango because he brings joy and companionship (especially during covid) to my life. Learning from each other is a never-ending challenge that I enjoy and over the years we have become inseparable. He’s my bestest buddie (equal to my husband of course).
I’ll end this post with a photo of Tango on our first day together and yesterday when I started drafting this post. Isn’t he grown and beautiful?
Happy 10th Birthday Tango! Love you~
Share Your Story
I’m working on a new community, would love for you to join and share your origin story. How did you find your bird? What were your first few days together like? Tell us all about it, I hope to see you there 🫶
