Ghost writer Cheri McAleese channels the innermost thoughts of her blue parakeet in the book, My Name is Pipsqueak! What's Your Name?. This excerpt chronicles Pipsqueak's feather-ruffling relationship with Murphy, a Senegal.

I CAN'T IN GOOD CONSCIENCE continue my story any further without telling you all about Murphy, my Senegal parrot "brother". In many ways we epitomize the ultimate odd couple!

I won't get too much into the specific characteristics of Senegals. After all, this is my story, not his. Suffice it to say Murphy is typical. He weighs about 130 grams (making him about four times my size) with a green body and black-grey "hooded" head. Like many Senegals, he is a little shy and strange things startle him more quickly than they do me. Some Senegals acquire a pretty decent "human" vocabulary, but Murphy's only reliable phrase, which he seldom uses despite my best efforts (which I will explain a little later), is "pretty bird".

Mommy got Murphy when he was a baby. He was three years old by the time I came into the picture. Consequently, Murphy had a three-year head start on me and was already very bonded to Mommy. In fact, it was made very clear to me from Day One that Murphy was going to be given "first bird" status. I later found out that meant Mommy would always take Murph out of the cage first, feed him first...well, in general, he would get everything first! Initially, I was okay with that. But as my bond developed with Mommy, I gotta tell ya, it really did (and still does) get on my nerves at times.

I didn't pay too much attention to Murphy the first couple of months. I was far too busy practicing my speech lessons. Then as time went on, because he was housed so close to me, I thought it would be prudent for us to become friends. If Murph could speak to you, he would tell you that becoming pals with me, a lowly budgie, did not exactly correspond with his idea of who his friends should be! But once I decided to befriend Murph, I was persistent.

One of the first things I found fascinating about him was that he was able to hold food in his foot and eat it that way. I thought if I could do that, I could keep my beak closer to food and eat faster!

Well, holding food in your foot is much harder than it looks. I tried it all different ways, grabbing food from the side, the top and even from the bottom. My seeds and pellets were too small to hold, and larger stuff was just too heavy to lift. I must have been very comical in my efforts, though, because Mommy would often be doubled over in laughter.

Murphy took little notice of me in the beginning. As long as his routine stayed on track, he was happy. Slowly but surely Mommy began letting us spend time with each other out of our cages, always under her close supervision. Early on, I thought it might be fun for both of us if I grabbed his tail or toes or jumped on his back. I quickly learned that those types of antics might be my idea of fun, but they weren't his! He found me so annoying he snapped at me whenever I invaded his space.

Pipsqueak chases Murphy's tail.

Every time Murph snapped, Mommy would firmly say, “Murph, NO BITE!”, and then she would tell me to leave him alone.

Leaving him alone would have been the easy thing to do. Instead I would edge up as closely to Murph as possible and right before he snapped I would command, "Murph, no BITE!" (That's one of many phrases I've learned just by listening and observing.) But he would ignore me and often I ended up having to run from him.

While he is far more tolerant now than he was that first year, to this day I still have to watch out for Murph and be ready to fly or run in the blink of a Senegal eye. To be honest, I've had more luck getting the dogs to stop barking when I tell them, “Quiet!”

I help Murphy "go"
Senegal droppings are not anywhere near as easy to deal with as a budgie's. Senegal droppings come out much like wet glue, and pretty much dry like glue. My droppings, neat little balls that are easily brushed and vacuumed once dry, are quite tidy.

Since Murphy's droppings were messy, Mommy potty trained him early on. She wanted to ensure he would not eliminate on her, the furniture, or anything else she didn’t want dirtied when he was out for his play time. She trained him by setting him on one of our playstands and telling him, "Be a good bird!"

As soon as he eliminated, she would praise him wildly, have him step up on her hand, and stay with her. After fifteen or twenty minutes passed, she would do it again. With time and patience, Murphy learned that proper etiquette included eliminating only in designated places when he was not in his cage.

I got the hang of the routine pretty quickly, too - not that I ever intended to eliminate on command. I mean, I figured I'd go where I wanted to go, when I wanted to go. It was my business and that was that. But it sure was fun to sit in my cage and yell, “BE A GOOD BIRD!” at Murph.

Murph has perfected a dirty look that he never hesitates to shoot my way. Whenever I start telling him when to go potty I am invariably treated to one of those looks.

What's really great, though, is that I can help Mommy when she gets Murph out and puts him on the stand. We both tell him, “Be a good bird!” Then Mommy can go about her business, doing whatever she has to do and not watch him. She knows I will immediately holler, “Good bird!” the instant he goes!

Bird races
Mommy and Murphy had some games they played before I joined the household. One of them involved a little wooden scooter that she tried to convince him to ride. But rather than stand on the scooter and propel himself along with one foot while holding onto the handlebars with his beak, Murph preferred to perch on the handlebars and let Mommy do the pushing. Murph's pretty lazy I guess.

One day, the three of us were hanging out in the kitchen when Mommy got this brilliant idea. She decided that Murph could stand on the scooter, I could perch on the handlebars, and she would push us along. Turns out some of Mommy's brilliant ideas aren't much better than mine! Murph took the opportunity to try to shorten my tail by several inches, but he didn't hurt me. So Mommy, who can be as stubborn as I can, worked with us for several months to try to figure out how we could both ride that little scooter. We never really got it together but, I have to say, some of the quality time we spent trying gave us lots of laughs.

Another game we played was based on my occasional refusal to go back inside my cage. Instead I ran from Mommy on the floor. (My wings were still clipped, so flying from her still wasn't an option.) Mommy can be smart for a human, though! Pretty quickly she figured out that if she put Murph on the floor, called him over to her and made a big fuss over him, my jealousy would get the better of me. I would come charging over and jump on her finger too, wanting that praise. Mommy decided to turn this into what she called bird races.

What's a bird race? In the beginning, Mommy would put Murphy and me down on the floor side by side. Then she would go to the other side of the room and call us enthusiastically. Murph would start waddling toward her and I would charge by Murph and get to her first, every time. We were becoming much like the infamous turtle and the hare! Mommy felt bad that Murph never won, so she started placing me farther away from her, but I still beat Murphy every time.

Click the button to hear Pipsqueak speak.

Mommy upped the ante. She put me on the floor in the kitchen and let me peck around for a minute or two to get sidetracked. Then she took Murph in the other room, stepped back from him just a few feet, and called both of us. I confess, the first couple of times I did not realize it was the same game. Murph waddled a few feet and got to Mommy first, receiving loud and encouraging praise. I heard her praising him and had to go running into the room to see what all the fuss was. Only then did I realize that I had "lost" the race. Not for long!

After just a few tries, as soon as I heard Mommy calling, I'd come roaring from the other room and beat Murph out! It got to the point where Mommy could be anywhere in the house, yell, “On your mark, get set, go!” and I'd go running to find her just as fast as my little legs could carry me.

We don't play that game much anymore. Mommy was afraid it would deflate Murph's ego (he already struggles with confidence issues). Additionally, I am now fully flighted, so it's not even a fair race anymore (if it ever was). But Mommy still finds the “On your mark, get set, go!” phrase helpful if I've disappeared somewhere in the house. It's a pretty reliable way to get me to stop what I'm doing and run to her, to get that wonderful praise.

Murphy and I bond in the bathtub
Senegals come from Africa, a region that gets far more rain than Australia. Consequently, Murphy always enjoyed taking showers with Mommy. Murphy sits on a perch attached in the shower, for all baths and showers. After I was home for a few weeks it was decided - and not by me I might add - that I should participate in the nightly shower ritual. Mommy started to get ready to shower, and took Murph and me into the bathroom. She set us on the little playstand in there (we have several playstands throughout the house). Just as she stepped into the shower, she set us both on the shower perch. Then she turned on the water.

Good heavens! Water started pouring down on me so hard with such frightening force that I thought I was a goner for sure. I ended up in the tub, soaked, scared, and absolutely furious at Mommy and Murphy.

While I mentioned that Mommy can be stubborn, this time she realized that she might have overstepped her bounds and apologized profusely to me. The next night, she decided to take a bath instead of a shower. She set Murph and me on that dreaded perch again. My wings were still trimmed, so there wasn't much I could do. Mommy proceeded to start taking her bath and soaking Murph down, but left me alone to just sit there on the perch, scared but dry.

After several months, I decided that while showers were still not an option for me, the baths weren't that bad. One night when Mommy was taking a bath I jumped off the shower perch onto her knee. After double checking to be sure my balance was okay, I turned around, looked up, and there was Murph. He was looking down at me, only a few inches away, and not trying to bite me!

I thought for a moment, reached right up into Murph's face, and yelled, “I love you!”

Both Mommy and Murph were flabbergasted. Murph sat there, mesmerized. I yelled it again.

Then I yelled, “Give me a kiss!” I made kissing noises and touched beaks with Murphy. He started dilating his pupils. Mommy was just about to get me away from him when he started making click-click noises, a very common Senegal sound, and opening and closing his beak real fast. She decided to let me stay just a little while longer. For a full five minutes, Murph and I stayed beak to beak, with me trying desperately to talk to him. “Come on Murph, I love you, SPEAK CLEARLY!”

It was true that most everything I was saying were phrases I had learned in my speech lessons. However, it was a major turning point for Mommy, as I was providing evidence that I could speak in context. Mommy said it was truly an Animal Planet moment.

It was also a major turning point for me. I was determined to teach Murphy how to speak human. One must understand that different species of birds have unique dialects as different from one another as human language varies from region to region. I could not speak Senegal and Murphy could not understand budgie. I reasoned that the only way for us to ever communicate verbally would be for Murphy to learn English, which Mommy spoke and which I was learning rapidly.

I tried valiantly for months and months. Often, when I was commenting about something, I would include Murph so that he would understand what was going on. When Mommy would get home and walk through the door, instead of yelling my usual, "Mommy's home!" I began shouting, “Murph, Mommy's home!"

I spoke almost nonstop, morning until night. On the rare occasion Murph blurted out, ‘Pretty bird!’, I would praise him so enthusiastically that, more than once, I fell off my perch.

Today, Murph and I enjoy the truest of friendships. Mommy would still never leave us together unsupervised, or expect us to share a cage. We are not blood brothers, but we're brothers in every other sense. We still argue occasionally and snap at each other. However at the end of the day, I'm not sure what we'd do without each other. I respect his space, and he respects mine. We are great company for each other when no one else is home.

I've learned to tolerate showers. Murph has learned how to share the shower perch without pushing me into the tub. I watch him play with his toys, and he listens patiently to all my budgie verbalizations, most of which are in English.

He still hasn't picked up much of a human vocabulary, despite my efforts. He has added very few words to his original repertoire of "pretty bird". As for me, I've learned to do a great Senegal call and can chime right in with Murph. Mommy is very proud at how I have been able to pick up Senegal. She says that makes me trilingual. I don't want to burst her bubble, but I haven't a clue as to what I'm actually saying. I'm really only bilingual, understanding and speaking budgie and English.

I guess there is only one thing left for me to say. Whether he is ever able to clearly speak any more human words or not, "Murph, I love you!"

Cheri McAleese is a life-long animal lover and part-time dog trainer who lives on a seven-acre horse farm in New Jersey with Pipsqueak! the budgie, Murphy the Senegal, a great Dane, German shepherd, rottweiler, cairn terrier and numerous other pets. Murphy is a chapter excerpted by permission of Pipsqueak! Press from the book, My Name is Pipsqueak! What's yours?.