Opie came Home
Animal Stories from All-Creatures.org

FROM Sandra Isobel Kyle, EndAnimalSlaughter.org
November 2021

Sometimes you just need to 'give up' to make room for a miracle!

Little Opie is still going strong at 14!

Around six years ago when I was living in Otorohanga my little cockatiel Opie escaped. I had her and her sister Blossom in their outdoor cage, and didn't latch it properly when I gave them some food.

I walked around the streets calling for her, her carry cage in my hands. I went online to the local newsgroup and asked people to look out for her. So many people responded; I was very touched at the amount of men, women and children who were going outside and calling her name, in case she had landed in their property.

As the days went by my heart sunk more and more, and on the eighth day of her disappearance I finally said to myself: 'Alright, I accept that she's missing, and probably dead by now. Please don't let her have suffered too much.'

In the strange way things sometimes happen in life, just a few moments after that I looked out the window and a woman I had never seen before got out of her car and said 'Are you Sandra? Have you lost a cockatiel?'

I spluttered Yes! and Yes! and then she handed over Opie to me. She had apparently landed on her deck a few days before, thin and hungry, and this woman had been looking after her. She wasn't on social media and didn't know about Opie's disappearance. When a friend mentioned that half of Otorohanga were looking for a little bird, and someone knew where I lived, she brought her round.

This is the post I put up on the news page to bring the community up to date, and to thank them for all they had done.

My little Opie is still going strong at 14 years old. 

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