Just to share - from a book I grew fond of =)

PAWS FOR THOUGHT
How Animals Enrich Our Lives – And How We Can Better Care For Them
BY ANNA BRIGGS



CHAPTER I:
Rescues


WALT’S WORLD
By Maurice Marsolais

On a wall in my dining room hangs a framed, 9” x 12” picture of a cat with a baby bird sitting on her back. Visitors have difficulty believing what they see.
“That is impossible!” they say. ”This couldn’t have happened. This must be trick photography!”
As unlikely as the scenario seems, it really did happen. Here’s how it came about:
On July 4, 1989, my daughter brought me a baby bird that had fallen from its nest in a tree in the apartment complex where my daughter lives. “Here, Dad,” she said. “You raise him.”
Raising a baby bird had not been in my plans. When I looked at the little fellow – tiny, weak, and with few feathers on his body – I doubted he could survive. I had inherited a big job.
Warmth and food seemed paramount. I lined a box with soft material and put the box near a warm air vent. I began feeding him with Cream of Wheat with a medicine dropper. Three days later, he was still alive. Despite his fragility, the little creature showed toughness, a resiliency. He was struggling to live.
Fortunately, I was already retired. Walt required 17-18 hours of my time every day. He was always hungry. It was Cream of Wheat 12-15 times a day, from daylight to dark. After five days, he began to get stronger and bigger.
It seemed time for a change of diet, but to what? I wasn’t sure whether his species was worm-eater or grain-eater, so I decided a mixture of millet and ground beef, which I made to little pellets and gently pushed down his throat. He thrived on the new diet, growing bigger and stronger each day.
I thought about birds and baby birds and how much effort I had to put into keeping this one little bird alive. “How do parent birds manage to feed four to five nestlings?” I wondered. “It’s an incredible amount of work!”
When it became clear that Walt would survive, I realized I was the only parent he knew. Was it up to me to teach him to recognize food and to feed himself?
We graduated to worms. I would dig worms and push them down his throat – as many as 15 worms every day. I began to be concerned. “Why can’t he pick one up and swallow it by himself?”
At first, he wasn’t ready, but a few days later, I ran to my wife and excitedly blurted out the good news: “Walt picked up a worm and swallowed it all by himself!” I was thrilled. It seemed a big step forward in Walt’s growth and development.
Walt and I became inseparable. That was Walt’s idea. Maybe he identified me as the sole source of food and did not want to let me out of his sight. If I went outside, he went outside too; if I was inside, that’s where he wanted to be. His favorite places to sit were on my shoulder and atop my head. Now and then I would type letters with Walt sitting on my shoulder. When I cooked meals or did the dishes, Walt would perch on my head. Sometimes, he would tire and I could feel him folding his legs; then, he would snuggle down in my hair and fall asleep.
Toward the middle of the second week of Walt’s upbringing, my wife and I were sitting on the grass in the backyard. Our cat, Blanche, was snoozing in the sunshine when Walt walked up to her and began pecking at her stomach as if to ascertain what kind of creature she was.
Since Blanche didn’t seem to mind the intrusion, Walt hopped up on her back. One is tempted to put thoughts and words into this scenario:
Walt: What a great place to sit. I can see the entire backyard from here!
Blanche: This is not my idea of fun, but the Marsolaises have been good to me for 11years. If this little guy is a friend of theirs, then I guess I have to be nice to him.
Not long after, I gave Walt a bath in a saucer in the sink under a dripping faucet. After the ablutions, I placed Walt, still soaking wet, on the dining room table. The next thing I knew, Walt had hopped onto the back of a startled Blanche, who seemed to be saying, “It’s OK to sit on my back, but do you have to drip water all over me?”
If I were a cat, I think I would have found Walt’s boldness and intrusiveness annoying, maybe to the point of anger. Amazingly, in all the time the two spend together in various situations, Blanche never once showed anger. This was difficult to fathom.
We were into the third week and Walt had yet to fly. Was I supposed to teach him? Now and then, he would flap his wings, as though to exercise and strengthen them. One day, I placed Walt on a low-hanging branch of our oak tree, we went to the far end of the yard, patted my shoulder, and called out the word of encouragement: “Come on, Walt. Fly! You can do it!” He took off, flew the 30feet, and landed on my shoulder. His first flight! As gratifying as this achievement was, it was becoming obvious that our unusual relationship would soon be ending.
For two and a half weeks, I have never been out of Walt’s sight. He had never spent a night outside by himself. One evening, with great reluctance, I left my friend outside and went to bed. I had difficulty sleeping. Would he make it through the night? Would he know enough to sit on the branch of a tree and not on the ground, where he would be easy prey for a predator?
At 5:30 the following morning, I opened the backdoor and there was Walt waiting to come in. He had made it! He never spent another night indoors.
The following day, I was sitting on a chair in the patio with Walt on my shoulder, when suddenly he took off. I wondered, “Is this it?” In about a minute, he was back on my shoulder. He had circled the house, his longest journey yet. For the next few days, he would spend longer periods sitting on the branches of trees within the sound of my voice, but beyond my reach. He knew my voice, but he was hearing other voices as well, responding to other commands.
Then came the inevitable – the day he left and did not return. I missed him but he left behind a number of pictures and some beautiful memories. Twenty-five years after raising three children, I had returned briefly to that earlier period and the joys of parenthood. Few things in life can compare with what a parent feels when a little “carpet crawler” realizes he can rise on wobbly legs and take those first, halting steps. Or when an infant first picks up a little spoon and tries to put food into his mouth. Or the bittersweet, hope-fear feeling that parents experience when children are big enough to leave home.
With Walt’s departure, one nagging concern remains. Because his only animal friend had been a large cat, would the newly emancipated bird make the mistake of walking up to a cat one day and introducing himself: “Hi, I’m Walt. Can we be friends?”
I hope not.