“It was early May when I put the call out to a young man called Joey to rescue me from a pet store I was living in. This is how I orchestrated my plan: Joey’s intuition told him to go to Port Hope to get some gas. After that, he had a gut feeling to go into the local pet store and look around.

“Not needing anything in particular, Joey decided to buy a can of cat food. There at the cash register, he happened to look down to his left, and there in a cage was a solitary green baby budgie. The staff had nicknamed me Cuddles because I was always cuddled into my snuggle buddy.

“I didn’t move very much, and I was cold, shaking, trembling, and rasping ragged breaths. You could see my wee body moving as I breathed, and my wings hung down. My eyes were half shut, and I looked sad and was very sickly. Thank God he noticed the air conditioning was blowing very cold air at the cash area and directly blowing on me. I was almost four months old.